by Dan Baron

After 10 years of collaborations with the MST (Landless Workers), Trades Union and indigenous movements, and the Pará State Federal University (UFPA), in Brasil, performance educators and eco-cultural activists Dan Baron and his co-founder of the Community University of the Rivers, Manoela Souza, were invited to create a community sculpture in the Afro-Indigenous village of Cabelo Seco in 2008, an arrow of land where the River Tocantins and River Itacaiúnas meet.

The Rivers of Meeting project began by awakening sleeping cultural roots and voicing a keen defense of human rights through Afro-Contemporary percussion, dance and lyrics workshops. Over 12 years, excluded youth were nurtured to become community workshop leaders and coordinators of medicinal plant gardens, street library/cinema projects, dance and audiovisual companies, annual festivals and workshop courses in their Community University of the Rivers, to defend the River Tocantins and River Itacaiúnas to nurture an eco-village based on pedagogies for sustainable community. This young AfroRaiz Collective became the community 'sculpture'. Rivers of Meeting is now transforming itself into a Good Living educational and therapeutic program for all.

The most coherent way for the author to distill the Transformance community-based eco-pedagogy and to show how they are performed inside the intimate contradictions where they are embraced and emerge, is through 8 narrative poems the author has selected. For reference, please refer to the video recording to access a detailed audio-visual presentation and reflection. https://youtu.be/9vIQc91Qegg

So much partying, I almost didn’t notice
the future already happening
right there, love, in front of us
enclosing our homes
and videoing our squares.
But love, when I heard the giants
in the voices of our dancing bulls
playing our tambourines
stained with açaí, the penny dropped!
They’re rooting themselves in our culture
and mining our dreams
to industrialize and steal the Amazon!
Let’s rescue the future, love
and throw the spear for the River Tocantins!

every Saturday
I go to the centre
enter a circle
hear stories
play with colours
and without threat
sing dancing
opening myself
with care
to read
and recognize
my stories
and at sunset
right there
I pick up a pencil
which does not judge me
or cut me
or fell
my calm
and I invent
without fear
the first comic-book
with afro-amazonian
leaves of life

I create a kite
and see your care, mum
in my hands
cutting and sowing
my clothes.
I knot the ribbons of its tail
and see your wisdom, dad
in the dance of your fingers
weaving nets
in the shade of the square.

I fly my dreams
their cord vibrating
with so much history and desire
and though mute
failed and condemned
I read the future in the winds
and write
the ethics of the rivers
on the parched red sky
to reveal
the values of the giants
and keep safe
my life in my home.

Stop, my brother, give-up that screen in your palm
retrieve the creative time of your imagination.
Now leap, and stand by my side
on the steel horizon where everything began.
Can you see, through the fumes
the indistinct contours of the River Tocantins?

See the boardwalk blurred by frenetic clouds
of crazed dengue mosquitos
reproducing in the fetid drains?
Now, fly, above the cement dam
camouflaged by murals and premiered graffiti
and see Cabelo Seco, before its ’revitalization'.

See the Backyard Drums singing their alert
on the tilted stage of the little blue house?
And there, AfroMundi, beneath the trees in the little square
dancing a river-source on fire?
Now see Leaves of Life, its portable library
passing from house to house, cultivating reading?

And there, a little plaza of children beneath the stars
mouth agape in front of the homemade screen of Owl Cine
See “it’s coming! Radio Stingray… ”
announcing the great bike-ride 'Let Our River Pass'?
And Rabetas Videos filming a gathering of families
their hair braided with the rays of the sun?

Now, beside the school, our well of pure water
can you make-out a wee girl, so thin
huge Afro, looking at us, filling plastic bottles?
Recognize her? Look carefully! It’s me! Yes, your gran
dancer, reader and singer in the university of the rivers!
I cycled with my mum, our hair in flames!

I set up the cinema, even won a book in the raffle
on the last Saturday before that dawn
when we left with a multitude of people.
We knew we were exchanging
açaí, jambú and Paraense rice festivals
for clean, air-conditioned dreams from overseas…

But we never imagined the tension of that endless boredom
fenced by fear, in our new habitat.
Kissing on the river in Belém, we saw the ships, yes
but I never realized, they were actually mining the future!
See that guy, staring at the immense desert
looking at me from the horizon?

Till today his questions echo
in the craters of my stolen imaginary.
Who is responsible for such devastation?
How will we survive such violence?
What project invites a community to gaze
at its revival in a museum where everything ended?
Leap now to 2015, my brother, to the world stage
of that beautiful little square!
Gather all the youth and children of the community
and tell them all you have seen, at my side!
Tell them Brazil will produce solar energy so cheap
that there’ll be no more argument for hydroelectric dams!

Go, invite youth from projects around the world
that have already lived green lies
to meet between the Tocantins and Itacaiúnas Rivers
and together, create a solidarity and generosity
that fit in the palm of every hand!

even though there are no more fish
I will hold on to my grandpa's canoe
its taúba benches preserve
the curve of my learning in his lap
of how to read the rivers
the smell of tucunaré
drying on the clothes-line in our backyard
and mum’s peels of laughter
discovering my first love of summer

that world sustains the roots
of my hope
that the murder of river-sources
in the name of green progress
will open your nut-brown eyes
encourage you to pick-up the propeller
and cross the tocantins, again
at sunset, with me
to defend our amazon

My dear Marabá, Amazonian kin
greetings from Mariana
your miner-sister
still trembling beneath the mud.
I write against time
within a labyrinth of shame without light
to disturb and encourage you…

Sister, even sensing it was a lie
I let green promises
seduce me to become human
and end once and for all my fear of hunger.
I won a home and became so consumed
by the dreams in the palm of my hand
I spent the future bit by bit, not noticing…

Friend, read the debris of my naivety
mocking my dry scream.
Learn from me, my cousin
the toxic cost
of saying 'yes' when you think 'no'.
Don't even hide behind the law of silence
that today shelters so many giants…

Marabá, when their ships pass
fat with so much iron, beef and wood
your chance will have already passed!
You will only have time
to take one last selfie
in front of a boat rushing
towards the source of the Tocantins in flames!

Sister, preserve the Lourenção Boulders
wise beings that will protect you
from the ships of death
and guide the rains of dawn.
If together we declare “not here, Vale!”
we can free ourselves of this poison
and take care of our Amazonian good life!

Every dawn, nets emerged from your needle
a precise white pen
weaving living wisdom into a web of concern.
Even well-made, fish always escaped
transforming our boats into flowing feasts!

And suddenly, the sun forgot to rise, I swear!
In the darkness, we breathed so much ash
Marabá got sick, became blind, lost its voice
and our canoes returned hungry.
The dust settled, but nothing was ever the same.

Today, in the mall, I saw my dad's extinct canoe
beautifying the billboard 'Marabá, the Future'.
Our River Tocantins, traded for mandates
has become a favor in an aluminium dream.
I feel betrayed, shaken by the cheering crowd!

I search for any memory that can illuminate
this blackout that threatens the world's future.
I've already lost years scrolling post after post
to relieve me of the hunger that addicts me
to the consuming of my own imagination!

I walk tense, impatient, ashamed, confused!
Take my portrait, kid, right here in front of my river
an old woman requests, cidreira leaves in her hand.
My granddaughter wants to link me to the Maori
who heal their rivers on the other side of the world!

The kindness of this sage frees me from my solitude
and suddenly, drums re-skinned with love
by youth already creating a network of good life
begin a beat so synchronized
my pulse quickens and my humanity flows!

when our canoes return famished
we turn our hunger into dance
when our forests are turned to dust
we transform our asthma into song
so that when the ‘green’ giants
command us to cleanse our rivers
of their toxic greed
marabá will already be reviving

because in the healing of every scar
we learn the art of caring
in the silence of every favour
we learn the courage to dare
and in the leap of every child
a flying river of resilience is born

About Author Dan Baron Cohen is a community performance educator and eco-cultural activist of Welsh-Quebecois origin, living in the Brazilian Amazonian city of Marabá. danbaronmst@hotmail.com. Website. YouTube channel: Rios de Encontro