I was wandering around looking for joyful, creative behavior in the afternoon. Then I bought a large sheet of paper and a pencil, sat in the last of the evening sunlight in a calle off Via Garibaldi and began to map the area. A boy came up to me and was asking me what I was doing, we tried really hard to communicate and the language difference meant that I started clowning and gesturing more than usual. He went off to the other end of the Calle and began playing with his tennis racket and ball against the wall of his house. I went and watched him and stood around awkwardly.

The unfolding story of a collective assault on the culture of fear and cynicism that pervades urban city streets.

Each performance will be different as we follow our desires and re-make the streets together.

“We met at the theatre and hoped we might get a glimpse of something precious in the world around us or in ourselves. Maybe we wanted to find out 'how to be joyful' in the city.”

I planned to spend one month in Bahia experiencing the deep symbiotic relation to nature that permaculture pointed to, for me. To continue learning capoeira with masters as a way to deepen my understanding of how one can acquire another’s culture and experience by emulating their body movements. I then intended to live for three months in Rio to subjectively explore the emotional and psychological landscape of the city and investigate the idea that “the favela is the university of malandragem” as I was told by one of the many people I had previously quizzed on the subject.

On the 8th June I delivered a Street Training workshop with the support of Amy Pettifer and Viola Carnelutti from muf architecture/art to a group of 25 school children. The session began with an explanation of how joy shapes cities and young people and children are experts on joyful behaviour. I explained that was why I wanted to learn with them so as to gather their ways of being in the street and pass them on during the architecture biennale.