Whether you have something positive or negative to say about your experience in Capoeira, your participation is relevant to this project. Come and have your say about your concerns and experiences as a Capoeira artist, about the role of the Art-form within your community. Through discussions and comments we will learn more about the potentialities and shortcomings of Capoeira a social inclusive tool. (more…)
“… diverse discourses and attitudes are pervasive in an environment in which philosophical empathies and disagreements are made even more evident through bodily interactions…” (more…)
“Why Capoeira is so successful around the world is difficult to say. It is, instead, easy to say that the motivations are as many as the capoeristas are. Sometimes this fact disappoints me. I do not like when it is used to show up skills, braveness, arrogance, machismo (both in men and women), which are usually the motivations I spot coming from the the modern world.” (more…)
I just finish reading Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody: How Change Happens When People Come Together. The book is about the revolution caused by social media in our daily group dynamics. The changes in communication patterns, services provision, collaboration, etc. is already happening. Much of his work enlightens current matters in our worldwide Capoeira community too. (more…)
Should the acknowledgement of the large involvement of non-Brazilians capoeiristas today imply a detachment from the Brazilian culture and origins? The ‘internationalisation’ of Capoeira is a complex issue. In many of my talks and workshops, non-Brazilian capoeiristas share their concern about the underlying ethnic hierarchy in the Art. Many say things like: ‘The foreigners will always be treated as second-class capoeristas!” or “No matter how hard I try it’ll never be as if I was a Brazilian”. (more…)
Despite being a catchy rhythm that hooked everyone in our schools in further rehearsals, Samba de Roda proved to be a powerful complementary tool in the project Learning from Brazilian Culture. Most of our children and youngsters in the project come from a very harsh background. Many of them have experienced violence of different sorts, which seriously compromises their developments as human beings. Among the most common affected aspects of their health is their sexuality and Samba de Roda gives them a playful and secure environment (and ritual) to experiment their sexuality, therefore helping in their process of psycho-social recovery. The rhythm has also empowered those involved in the project by providing a linkage to another culture of resistance. These are some of the reasons why our schools have been hooked by this rhythm. This post discusses some introductory aspects on historical origins, etymological studies, and a few video sources on Samba de Roda 1. (more…)
Although the 13th of May is the official date celebrating the Abolition of slavery in Brazil, politicised people tend to prefer to celebrate this achievement on November 20, the Day of the Black Consciousness. The rationale is simple. Choosing the day of Zumbi’s execution as the date to celebrate the end of slavery, Blacks and Mestizos bring to the centre of the scenario the acknowledgement of the enslaved peoples’ effort towards freedom, instead of a benevolent act from a White Princess. (more…)
Janelle Kwong is the 4CapoeiraThoughts’ first guest author. In the post below, in addition to discussing causes and consequences of social inclusion/exclusion, she shares her vision on how Capoeira can play an important role within community development programmes. A more detailed analysis of Janelle’s study was posted on Connectualise; an online project supporting the strengthening of communities through the practice of Capoeira. (more…)
On the 5th of April of 1889 Mestre Pastinha was born. Since last month I have been trying to pay a tribute to ‘Seu Vicente’, his life and work. The space constrains of a blog post will never allow justice to his devotion to Capoeira neither to the value of his legacy. Nonetheless, posting in english, and combining different sources, I hope to inspire our english-speaker-brothers in their quest for knowledge about our honourable Mestre and Capoeira in general. (more…)
Salve Jorge! The martyrdom of St. Geroge is celebrated on 23 April. In different places in Brazil, due to religious syncretism, St. George also represents the Orixás Oxossi and Ogum. Here is my tribute to São Jorge. The songs’ lyrics were translated and I hope they’ll help you understand more about the Brazilian culture and faith. (more…)
“I finally understand Capoeira Angola, as an idea, not a style! It adds values that defines it as a way, an ideal, a cause, an action linked directly to social causes, to the union of the excluded, to the cry of the humble, to the voice of the commoners and all those in need of discernment…”
After I wrote Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Education and the ‘Politics of Capoeira’ students and friends became more curious to discuss his work. His method has been a frequent topic in classes, trips, and e-mail conversations. Looking for resources in English I found some bits and pieces of interviews, seminars, and websites that might help those still not familiar with his theories and methods while searching for his books. For those who have been looking at issues of hierarchy, ethics, ‘culture shock’, and group/style rivalry, these sources may come in useful. (more…)
Camaradas, Calado sent me this link for 200+ songs (with lyrics) for those who have “i-devices”. Apparently, some of these songs already have Spanish and English translations.
Enjoy it! IGinga, by OrangeMico
Folks, I just got an email from Itapuã promoting their annual meeting – The Movimento Novo. They took the history of the art to guide the discussions and counted with Mestres Nestor Capoeira, Marrom, Tisza, and the researcher Matthias Röhrig as special guests. I’m happy to learn that their movement is thriving, bringing diverse people together and widening the range of issues approached. Axé meus Camaradas!!! I hope that those who are looking for this kind of light may find your candeeiro’ to enlighten their path.
GREG Downey encountered the berimbau when conducting field work in Brazil for his PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Its music accompanies the complicated dance cum martial arts form capoeira, and he was so fascinated by it that he mastered and then taught the instrument and the physical discipline. (more…)
Often after interviews and talks many of you guys came up with very nice thoughts and/or comments about the questions and/or different issues. I would appreciate if you could share them through this post. Though we won’t be able to use this in the documentary movie, I would still be able to use them in my research, or in future projects, after contacting you in this regard. (more…)
Picture sent by Mariola
Please, send me your best selection of pictures on 4capoeirathoughts_@_gmail_dot_com and I’ll add them to this post. I’ll also see if we can find someone to manage a Flicker account so that we can have all the pictures available.
Music is one of the main paths towards a better understanding of the cultural context from which Capoeira sprung from. It was a pleasure to see people sharing songs, their meanings, contexts and translations. Some were taking note of rhythm patterns and songs like real ethnographers. I’m sure some of you guys will play an important role in upholding the true values of Capoeira for the next generations.
The Jogo Aberto documentary movie aims to bridge practitioners from different backgrounds in their quest to learn Capoeira and master its potentialities as a tool towards education, community development, and social inclusion. After the first edition the bulk of the material will be subtitled and posted in the 4CapoeiraThoughts youtube channel as an open resource for the Capoeira community. In order to accomplish the project more quickly and embrace a wider range of languages subtitles we adopted an ‘open-source’ approach. If you would like to participate in the project, at this stage we are looking for people to help with transcriptions and translations. So far the project is dealing with English and Portuguese transcriptions, after this first moment we will be able to translate into other languages.
Camaradas, The production of the Jogo Aberto documentary movie will be carried on as an ‘open-source’ endeavour. So, if you can help with transcriptions and/or translations making the project available on your native language, please read this post and get in contact with me. Thanks for all of you who came and made this project possible, to all the students who trusted in our proposal and understood the importance of their role within the art.
