Luc  ıa M. Su  arez INCLUSION IN MOTION:CULTURAL AGENCY THROUGH DANCE IN BAHIA,BRAZIL The answer to corporate globalization is grass- roots globalization. Amy Goodman, cofounder of “Democracy Now” The Pelourinho area, declared a World Heri- tage Site in 1985, has housed The Escola de Danc ßa da Fundac ß~ ao Cultural do Estado da Bahia, FUNCEB (Dance School of the Cultural Founda- tion of the State of Bahia) since 1997. Situated on Rua da Orac ß~ ao, Prayer Street, the school is seen by locals as an answer to a prayer. In this school, serious professional doors are opened to many needy children. The literature describing its func- tion reads: The Escola de Danc ßa aims to shape “multifunctional” professionals with diverse dance training that will make them not only capable of entering the market but also will enable them to have the capacity to be future citizens, who are intellectually prepared to play a sensitive and conscious role in society. Through their training, they will be capable of creatively conceiving and elaborating products with artistic quality, and they will have gained technical corporal formation that allows them to satisfactorily interpret their materi- als, with knowledge of the ethnic and cultural roots of our people. 1 Thus, the students will attain a heightened sensitivity to communicate with the public through artistic language. This is a pioneer- ing school, which graduates individuals well prepared to either attend the university or join renowned local and international dance compa- nies. 2 It is at this center that I first met Rosangela Silvestre, dancer, choreographer, teacher, and crea- tive author of her own “Silvestre Technique.” An elegant woman who wears a tight low bun, she invites me to observe the intermediate group she was teaching. At one point, some of the students giggled. Rosangela looked at them and said, “You need to think in terms of self-respect. These lessons are about life.” She asked them to concentrate and listen carefully to what she had to say. Racial and gender discrimination abounds, Rosangela admit- ted. But that should not hinder your calling into a life of dance. “Dance,” she said, “creates possibility.” She wanted the students to think about the responsibility entailed in a life centered on dance. She elaborated that dance requires discipline. Her students must come to class dressed neatly, prefer- ably with a black leotard and tights, or a black unitard, and they must wear their hair pulled back. This way, there will be no distractions. The focus should be on the body and its movements, not on the accessories unimportant for training. Rosangela called the students’ attention to tech- nique. She told the girls that the discipline neces- sary to achieve a certain level of technique would give them, through focus, a reason for waking up. This reason would translate into an understanding of responsibility, joy, and community. The stu- dents in her classroom came mostly from poor local neighborhoods, with no shortage of social biases and fears of their own. She knew that they probably saw her as an alien being with respect to their lives and reached out to them by sharing her own very personal and painful story. Rosangela told them that she had once slept on the streets, that she had no money and nowhere to go. But that because she had trained rigorously as a dan- cer, she had a skill. With this skill and the help of Vaˆnia teaching at the Escola de Danc¸a. Photograph by Christian Cravo. Transforming Anthropology, Vol. 21, Number 2, pp. 153–168, ISSN 1051-0559, electronic ISSN 1548-7466. © 2013 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/traa.12013. 153