CAPOEIRA (kah-PWEH-dah) is an ambiguous, ambivalent movement form historically performed by African men and their creole descendants in Brazil. As just one of many expressions of what is now called "Afro-Brazilian" culture, capoeira embodies the diverse experiences of a community that has survived more than four centuries of slavery and marginalization.
In this context, capoeira has been performed as a subversive dance, an evasive form of self-defense, a strutting acrobatic display, an urban street-fighting form, a semi-competitive game, a trick, a joke, and an idle pastime (or vadiação) associated with dock workers, rogues, and vagabonds. More recently, it has been transformed into a modern, multivalent art form, synthesizing many or all of these aspects for contemporary purposes.
Among the many contemporary iterations of capoeira, however, the oldest extant form—capoeira angola, from the Brazilian state of Bahia—has resisted the reflexive modernization and streamlined pedagogy that has turned capoeira into an international martial art/sport. Capoeira angola, despite some apparent modernizations, is still practiced as a secretive, streetwise tradition passed down semi-formally from one practitioner to another in lines that can be traced directly to the late 1800s, and indirectly hundreds of years earlier. Capoeira angola is thus positioned as an authentic cultural tradition rooted in local history, communal memory, and Afro-Brazilian (or specifically, Afro-Bahian) identity.
Capoeira regional groups periodically hold Batizados ("baptisms" into the art of capoeira). Members being "baptized" are normally given a corda (cord belt) and an apelido (capoeira nickname) if they haven't already earned one. Batizados are major events to which a number of groups and masters from near and far are normally invited. Sometimes a Batizado is also held in conjunction with a Troca de Corda (change of belts), in which students already baptized who have trained hard and been deemed worthy by their teachers are awarded higher-ranking belts as an acknowledgment of their efforts. Such ceremonies provide opportunities to see a variety of different capoeira styles, watch mestres play, and see some of the best of the game. Sometimes they are open to the public.
Batizados and Trocas de Corda do not occur in capoeira Angola, which does not have a system of belts. However, some contemporary schools of capoeira have combined the study of both arts and may require their students to be learned in the ways of capoeira Angola before being awarded a higher belt.
The
practice of capoeira is said to be
linked to a number of dance-fighting
games, challenge dances, and warrior
arts found throughout Bantu-speaking
areas of Africa, especially the
Central African regions known today as
Angola, the Congo, and Mozambique.
These are the same areas from which a
large percentage of Africans were
taken and transported to Brazil
throughout the 17th and 19th
centuries, as part of the ruthless
trade of slavery.
THE ENGOLO (OR N'GOLO)
(Drawings by Neves e Sousa, 1965)
While
traditional African iterations of
these forms have, like Africa itself,
undergone radical transformation in
the last several centuries, a few
contemporary dance-fighting games
found in Africa today (for example,
the engolo of southwest
Angola, the moringue of
Madagascar, and the dundunba
of Guinea's Mandinka) still utilize
various capoeira-like movements such
as acrobatic leaps, headbutts, kicks,
and leg sweeps.
Over the course of nearly four hundred
years of slavery (c. 1550–1889), a
number of these African dance-fighting
games were likely adapted and
"reframed" to the New World
context, in various ways. The
existence of dance-fighting games in
other African-American communities,
such the tripping/punching game maní
of rural Cuba, the percussive kicking
sport l'adja/danmye of
Martinique, and the combative
"knocking and kicking" of
the southern U.S. offer interesting
clues to the ways in which African
forms were both continued and adapted
to new conditions throughout the
Americas. However, few of these arts
(with the possible exception of l'adja)
appear to have reached the level of
complexity achieved by capoeira in
Brazil.
'A NEGRO FIGHT IN SOUTH AMERICA'
(VENEZUELA)
(In Harper's Weekly, 1874)
In addition, there are many other
dances, games, and movement practices
performed by Africans, Europeans, and
Amerindians—most notably
stick-fighting and wrestling—that
have yet to be seriously considered in
this complex history. Further research
will no doubt unearth surprising links
between these various forms.
Some of these forms were likely used
in a combative context—between rival
slaves, or as one of many guerilla
tactics available to rebel or runaway
slaves. Runaway slaves formed
temporary backland communities (called
mocambos or quilombos in
Brazil) where these forms could be
practiced openly, and possibly to be
used in their defense. Even some of
the slave hunters sent to capture
these runaways (known in Brazil as capitães-de-mato)
were Africans who may have been
familiar with these African warrior
arts.
However, open resistance by slaves was
usually met with death or severe
punishment, so Africans were faced
with two alternatives: they could give
in to despair, or adapt themselves to
an oppressive system. All over the
Americas, slaves who chose the latter
option conducted noisy events during
rest days and religious festivals.
These events, consisting of dance
circles and music, often lasted well
into the night, much to the annoyance
of their masters. Through these
events, Africans came together as a
community, often in full view of their
oppressors.
In Brazil, these celebrations were
known as batuques, which later
gave rise to the famous samba
and other dances. As part of the batuque,
an ambivalent form somewhere between a
game, dance, and fight would have been
ideally suited to channel the violence
of slavery to more life-affirming
purposes.
UNCERTAINTIESIn
spite of the historical accuracy of
the context just described, it is
still not known precisely when or
where capoeira developed. Nor can it
be accurately determined if specific
peoples of Africa contributed specific
movements or philosophies to the game.
African ethnicities have been
historically fluid, and slave traders
who had little concern for the
humanity of their "cargo"
usually defined Africans by their
point of departure, not their actual
origin. Moreover, the association of
capoeira with Angola, as well as
research into the spiritual beliefs of
the Kongo nearby (also possibly linked
to capoeira), are more recent
developments that have unfortunately
been projected onto the past.
Even the etymology of the very word
"capoeira" is difficult to
know for certain. Its most likely
etymology is from the native Brazilian
Tupi word for "burned
forest", but the word is also is
used in Portuguese to describe a
chicken coop, or a kind of militarty
dugout. "Capoeira" may have
even been derived from one of the many
African languages brought to Brazil,
which have lent many words to
Brazilian Portuguese. More
problematically, it seems likely that
capoeira (or certain aspects of it)
were known by other names long before
they were associated with the word
"capoeira," making a search
for the word itself a limited task.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY
CAPOEIRA JOGAR CAPOEIRA,
ou danse de la guerre
(J. M. Rugendas, Rio de Janeiro, c.
1830s)
The first written notices of the word
"capoeira" as associated
with a slave game date to the colonial
records of late 1700s and early 1800s
Rio de Janeiro, the second capital of
Brazil.
In this increasingly urban context,
capoeira was known as a bloody
"war dance" practiced by
thugs, also known as capoeiras.
By mid-century, it was associated with
semi-organized street gangs known as maltas.
Throughout thief period, the practice
was recorded in the police records of
Rio de Janeiro as capoeiragem,
or the practice of capoeira, often
linked with criminality and public
disorder.
Capoeira was not merely a criminal
pastime, however, as capoeiras
were often found at the front of
parade-like processions and religious
celebrations. Moreover, similar
variants of capoeira were also
reported throughout the 1800s in
Salvador (Bahia), Recife (Pernambuco),
São Luis (Maranhão), and Sorocaba (São
Paulo), among others. After a number
of local persecutions and legal
statutes failed to wipe out the
practice, the newly-established
Republic of Brazil officially
prohibited capoeiragem
nationwide in 1890.
Under harsh persecution, capoeira in
Rio become a marginalized underground
art, kept alive by roguish characters
such as Madame Satã (the famous
transvestite), sports enthusiasts such
as Sinhozinho, and as part of training
regimens in a few military academies.
Other local variants of capoeira found
throughout the rest of the country
appear to have diminished as well,
destined to be replaced by a
revitalized Bahian capoeira in the
1950s.
SALVADOR,
PELOURINHO DISTRICT
(c. 1850s)
In the former capital, Salvador,
Bahia, and its surrounding sugar-rich recôncavo
region, capoeira defied the trend
towards extermination. This was
partially the result of inconsistent
enforcement of the 1890 prohibition,
as well as the geographic diversity of
the Bay of All Saints region.
Furthermore, in Salvador, the maltas
never reached the level of
organization that they did in Rio, so
no equivalent "purge" of
capoeira had been necessary.
Bahian capoeira also took on the more
deliberate appearance of a
game—known colloquially as vadiação,
or simply "idling"—by
appropriating instruments such as
drums, tambourines, bells, and an
ancient Angolan bow instrument called
the berimbau. While Rio's
capoeira had sometimes been performed
to drums, and the berimbau was
linked to parallel activities such as
the batuque, the use of music
did not seem as central to the
practice as it became in Bahia. In
Bahia, capoeira—and its
music—became important symbols of
the playful subterfuge and resilience
necessary for everyday survival.
EARLY
TWENTIETH-CENTURY BAHIAN CAPOEIRA THE BARRACÃO
OF MESTRE WALDEMAR
(Salvador, Bahia, c. 1950s)
Many mysterious figures inhabited the
world of Bahian capoeira in the early
twentieth century. Among them was the
legendary Besouro (or Bisoro) Mangangá
from Santo Amaro, named for his
ability to transform himself into a
beetle to avoid capture by the police.
He was also known for having a corpo
fechado (or "closed
body") invulnerable to harm by
metal. It is said that he was only
killed (c. 1924) by being stabbed with
a knife made of tucum wood.
Other streetwise mestres of
Bahian capoeira (whose ranks included
a small, slender young man who would
later be known as Mestre Pastinha)
also remained active, performing open
rodas (capoeira circles) at
various religious celebrations and in
outlying neighborhoods. These men
collaborated with sympathetic local
authorities—some of whom were capoeiras
themselves—or sought refuge in
houses of the Afro-Brazilian religion candomblé
during times of persecution. They
taught the secrets of their art
informally, in back rooms, closed
bars, and backyard patios—often one
student at a time.
MESTRE
BIMBA AND CAPOEIRA REGIONAL "IT'S NOT
EASY TO GRAB A CAPOEIRISTA..."
(Article about Mestre Bimba, Salvador,
1930s)
Another one of these capoeiras,
nicknamed Mestre Bimba (1899–1974),
was unhappy with the marginalized
status and informal teaching style of
capoeira. After playing and teaching
in the traditional style for years, by
the 1920s Bimba decided to streamline
this seemingly innocuous, folkloric
pastime into an effective Afro-Bahian
fighting form. Initially, he called
his form the luta regional baiana
(or "regional fight of
Bahia") to avoid the illegal
word, capoeira. In the 1930s,
he founded one of the earliest formal
academies of capoeira, called the
Centro de Cultura Física Regional
(CCFR), which was the first to be
recognized by the Brazilian
government. This
recognition—although only applicable
to "official" capoeira
institutions—nevertheless paved the
way for the eventual decriminalization
of capoeira altogether.
Under his strict leadership and
standardized teaching methods,
capoeira became increasingly popular
among the lighter-skinned middle
classes and professionals, first in
Salvador, and later throughout Brazil.
Thanks to a series of challenge
matches and public demonstrations that
further legitimized capoeira as a
fighting form and a uniquely
expressive cultural practice, Bimba's capoeira
regional became the dominant form
of capoeira by the 1950s, largely
replacing whatever remnants of local
capoeira that may have still existed
outside of Bahia.
CAPOEIRA
ANGOLA AND THE RETURN OF MESTRE
PASTINHA CAPOEIRA GAME
(Salvador, Bahia, c. 1940s)
With the rise of capoeira regional,
the traditional practice of capoeira
became known as capoeira angola,
in recognition of the imagined origins
of the practice. Among the many mestres
who played and taught capoeira
angola in this golden era (c.
1920–1960), were such men as Daniel
Noronha, Maré, Samuel Querido de
Deus, Waldemar da Paixão,
Canjiquinha, Caiçara, and Cobrinha
Verde. One famous description by Ruth
Landes paints a vivid picture of a
game between the boatman Querido de
Deus ("Beloved of God") and
another capoeirista named Onça
Preta ("Black Jaguar"):
Beloved of
God swayed on his haunches while he
faced his opponent with a grin and
gauged his chances. The fight
involved all parts of the body
except the hands, a precaution
demanded by the police to obviate
harm. As the movements followed the
musical accompaniment, they flowed
into a slow-motion, dreamlike
sequence that was more a dancing
than a wrestling. As the law
stipulated that capoeirists must not
hurt each other, blows become
acrobatic stances whose balancing
scored in the final check-up, and
were named and classified. Various
types of capoeira had evolved, with
subtleties in the forms and
sequences of the blows and in the
styles of playing the berimbau.
Beloved was prodigiously agile in
the difficult formal encounters with
his adversary, and he smiled
constantly while the ritual songs
droned on…
MESTRE PASTINHA
(Pierre Verger, Salvador, Bahia, c.
1940s)
But above all, it was Mestre Pastinha
who would become the most widely known
protector of traditional capoeira. In
the 1940s, Pastinha emerged from 30
years of semi-retirement to open his
own academy, the Centro Esportivo de
Capoeira Angola (CECA). The CECA
linked capoeira to the ethics and
aesthetics of sport, while insisting
on maintaining its rituals as part of
the "regulations" of the
game.
Guided by his gentle demeanor,
informal teaching style, and
philosophical spirit, Pastinha's
academy became an important focal
point for capoeira angola, and
Bahian culture in general. Where other
mestres could dominate their
own peripheral neighborhoods, Mestre
Pastinha's location on the Pelourinho
was centralized, thereby attracting
traditional capoeiristas from
all over the city. His welcoming
attitude ensured that many diverse
traditions of vadiação would
be given continuity.
Among the many rewards he received,
perhaps none was greater than the
opportunity to present capoeira in
Africa. In 1966, at the age of 77,
Mestre Pastinha's group performed capoeira
angola as part of the Brazilian
delegation to the First Festival for
Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal.
THE
PROLIFERATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF
CAPOEIRA REGIONAL DANCEBRAZIL
(Photo by Lois Greenfield, c. 1990s)
In the meantime, a group of young
capoeira enthusiasts in Rio de Janeiro
(some of them originally from Bahia)
pioneered a more stylized version of capoeira
regional that incorporated extreme
acrobatics, techniques from other
martial arts (such as vale tudo,
or free-for-all fighting), and
rankings based on rope cords, or cordões.
The most prominent of these groups has
been the Grupo Senzala, formed in the
mid 1960s. Armed with this new, more
competitive form, this style of
capoeira—often called "capoeira
contemporânea"—eventually
took the country and the world by
storm. Through large organizations
(whose members number in the tens of
thousands), organized tournaments, and
public demonstrations, the Grupo
Senzala and its offshoots, such as
ABADÁ-Capoeira and Omulu, have thus
become the dominant force in capoeira
today.
Commercial interests have found this
somewhat "de-Africanized"
type of capoeira the easiest to
market, utilizing it in advertisements
for Nokia and the BBC, and featuring
it in mainstream films such as Only
the Strong (1993) and Ocean's
Twelve (2004). The game company
Namco also famously motion-captured
capoeira to create the characters of
"Eddy Gordo" and
"Christie Monteiro" for
their Tekken series of fighting games.
Capoeira has also become a
stage-friendly form, providing
movements for dance choreographers
from Cirque du Soleil to Jelon
Vieira's DanceBrazil.
Capoeira has also been promoted as an
efficient system of self-defense,
taught alongside Brazilian jujitsu,
karate, boxing, and vale
tudo. Increasingly, it is even
being taught as an aerobic workout
equivalent to Tae Bo (known by such
names such as Capoeira Workout,
Capoeirobics, Cardio Capoeira, or
CapoFit).
CAPOEIRA
REGIONAL
(Recent postcard from Salvador, Bahia)
With so much emphasis on
modernization, innovation, and
efficiency, the
"contemporary" style of
capoeira has become a truly
international sport and martial art.
With the increasing social acceptance
of this traditionally male, vagabond
art, women have also become more and
more involved in capoeira. A
few—such as Mestrandas Edna Lima and
Cigana of ABADÁ—have already
achieved higher ranks in capoeira
contemporânea.
However, in this process, capoeira has
also become somewhat of a commodity.
Like Carmen Miranda, bossa nova music,
and football soccer, capoeira is often
just another "sign" of
Brazilianness. Much of the elegant
simplicity of Mestre Bimba's original capoeira
regional, and the uniquely
ambivalent and playful quality of capoeira
angola, have thus been changed in
this transition.
In the case of capoeira regional,
a few of Mestre Bimba's most famous
graduated students, such as the
esteemed Dr. Angelo Decânio, Jair
Moura, Mestre Acordeon, and Mestre
Itapoan, have eloquently tried to keep
the spirit of Bimba's teachings alive
since his bitter death away from Bahia
in 1974. However, among the hundreds
of capoeira teachers who claim to
represent capoeira regional
today, only Bimba's own son, Mestre
Nenél, adheres strictly to the form
as Bimba taught it.
THE
DECLINE AND APPROPRIATION OF CAPOEIRA
ANGOLA MESTRE CAIÇARA
AND STUDENTS
(Salvador, Bahia, c. 1970s)
In the 1970s, as capoeira regional
grew exponentially, capoeira
angola suffered a period of
neglect, no doubt exacerbated by the
sad closure of Mestre Pastinha's
academy on the Pelourinho. The
government of Bahia asked him to
temporarily leave his space to allow
for the resoration of the city's
historic central district, but instead
of returning the space to him, they
transformed it into a restaurant for
tourists (the SENAC) which is still in
operation today.
Some traditionalist mestres
stopped teaching out of disgust for
these kinds of deceptions, as well as
the exaggerated aggression of
modernized capoeira. Others (including
Mestre Canjiquinha and Mestre Caiçara)
created their own simplified style of
"show" capoeira for folklore
demonstrations. With the death of
Mestre Pastinha in 1981 (aged 92),
blind and penniless, it appeared that
the strength of capoeira angola
was very much on the wane.
A few well-meaning practitioners of
"contemporary" capoeira,
believing in the imminent extinction
of the old traditions, began to study capoeira
angola in order to rescue the form
and enrich their own teachings. In the
process, traditional capoeira became
another "style" of capoeira,
especially in contemporânea
schools, where practitioners have
either tried to integrate the two
modalities into one, or to insist that
each "style" has its
appropriate time and place.
Yet from the point of view of most
traditionalists, the assimilation of capoeira
angola into the rhetoric of
"contemporary" capoeira has
only caused confusion, while also
dishonoring and oversimplifying the
spirit of both forms of Bahian
capoeira—angola and regional—that
are intricately linked to their
complex cultural, historical, and
philosophical context.
In the case of traditional capoeira,
an overemphasis on the visible
aspects—with its rituals, supposed
tendency for lower, slower movements,
aesthetics of trickery, and unified
musical orchestra—has tended to
reduce the deeper, more mysterious
aspects of the game to mere
caricatures.
UNDERSTANDING
CAPOEIRA REGIONAL
MESTRE
BIMBA AND STUDENTS
(Salvador, Bahia, c. 1950s)
Likewise, the tendency to characterize
capoeira regional by its faster
games, higher stances, streamlined
pedagogy, supposed
"borrowings" from Asian
martial arts, or other modernizations
have also oversimplified the deeper
significance of Mestre Bimba to Bahian
culture.
Mestre Bimba was undoubtedly a fighter
at heart, and often spoke out against
the traditional capoeira of the
streets. Indeed, his capoeira
regional had very few obvious
allusions to the rituals of
traditional vadiação. At the
same time, almost everything in capoeira
regional was drawn directly from
some aspect of Bahian capoeira and its
culture, which also included a
tripping game called batuque
and samba-de-roda. In all of
this, there are very few signs that
Mestre Bimba "borrowed"
movements from other martial arts.
Moreover, as a capoeirsta,
Mestre Bimba was also reported to have
played capoeira in the traditional
way. Mestre Bimba also continued to be
a master drummer in the religion of candomblé,
and even protected many of its
adherents from persecution, even while
he eschewed the use of the atabaque
drum in his own capoeira circles.
This suggests that Mestre Bimba
created his highly individualized
style of capoeira to clarify the
distinctions between his own
Afro-Bahian culture, and the new
global culture of capitalism that
threatened to change it. This act of
strategic and purposeful separation is
well understood by the direct students
of Mestre Bimba and traditional capoeiristas
in Bahia today, who share a common
understanding of this reasoning. In
contrast, those who advocate for a
"fusion" or
"reintegration" of the two
art forms—a common theme in capoeira
contemporânea—argue that this
division no longer serves a purpose.
THE
RENOVATION AND REINVENTION OF CAPOEIRA
ANGOLA MESTRES JOÃO
PEQUENO & JOÃO GRANDE
(Vadiação
in Europe, c. 2000)
In spite of the continued growth of capoeira
contemporânea throughout the
world, and the assumptions that often
come with it, traditional capoiera has
remained elusive, and many of its
"secrets" are still in the
hands of Bahian mestres.
Mestre João Pequeno de Pastinha
(b. 1917), one of Mestre Pastinha's
oldest students, was the first to take
up where the elder mestre had
left off, reopening the Centro
Esportivo de Capoeira Angola in 1982.
The students of Mestre João
Pequeno—including Mestres Jogo de
Dentro, Barba Branca, Electricista,
Ciro, and Professora Ritinha—remain
highly respected throughout the world.
Other elder students of Pastinha, such
as Mestres João Grande (b. 1933) and
Boca Rica (b. 1937?), as well as a few
younger ones such as Bola Sete (b.
1952?), have also established their
own schools. In particular, Mestre João
Grande has been one of the most
prolific teachers of capoeira
angola, especially after
establishing his academy in New York
City around 1992.
Capoeira angola also underwent
a more self-conscious reinvention
under
Mestre Moraes (b. 1950), a student of
the two Joãos under Mestre Pastinha,
who established the Grupo Capoeira
Angola Pelourinho (GCAP) in Rio de
Janeiro in 1980. GCAP mobilized black
political consciousness and taught a
stylized form of capoeira angola
that was informed by years of playing capoeira
angola in the tough rodas
of Rio. Although a number of GCAP's
teachings differ from the majority of
Bahia's traditionalist schools
(notably, the use of the lead berimbau
in the center of the musical
orchestra, as opposed to the
"corner"), Moraes and his
students have been hugely influential,
spreading their brand of capoeira
angola worldwide through their
teachings, popular CD recordings, and
various offshoot organizations such as
the FICA/ICAF of Mestre Cobrinha
Mansa.
Another notable mestre who
passed through Mestre Pastinha's doors
is the mandingueiro Mestre
Curió, who established his own Escola
de Capoeira Angola Irmões Gêmeos in
1982, and has recently graduated the
first female mestra in capoeira
angola, named Mestra Jararaca.
Mestre Pastinha and his former
students thus appear to dominate the
present-day practice of capoeira
angola. Due in large part to
Mestre Pastinha's open acceptance of
all traditional capoeiristas
under his roof, few are completely
free from his direct or indirect
influence. Even so, today's
traditional capoeira is not a
monolithic practice, as it
incorporates teachings from forgotten
or neglected lineages, and includes
those who have deliberately set
themselves apart from Mestre
Pastinha's line. Among this assorted
group are Mestre Lua de Bobó, Mestre
Renê, Mestre Neco, Mestre Pelé da
Bomba, Mestre Zé do Lenço, Mestre
Raimundo Dias, and our own Mestre
Caboquinho. In spite of their
differences, many of these mestres
joined to form an umbrella
organization called the Associação
Brasileira de Capoeira Angola (ABCA)
in 1993, to preserve the diverse
heritage of capoeira da Bahia,
and to continue the work begun by
Mestre Pastinha.
