4capoeirathoughts

Erica, João Grande, Fafá and Joãonete. By Fabrício Ferreira

Very often I am asked “- What is ‘Volta Por Cima’?”. Most people must be thinking I have started a new group or brand. That is not the case. Mestre Suassuna’s work inspired many of my endeavours in Capoeira, including the development of the social project Learning From Brazilian Culture. However, this project’s design reflects much of my personal grasp of Capoeira, and is based on other Mestres’ teachings, scholars and artists as well. Hence, I needed to start an independent institution, and that is how the ‘Volta Por Cima – Capoeira, Education, and Culture’ begun. I chose this name for two reasons. First, because it is a movement that embodies the principles of an elegant and skilful Capoeira so present in Mestre Suassuna’s teachings. Second, because in Brazilian Portuguese the expression ‘dando [doing] a Volta Por Cima’ also means recovering one’s life after being through a very troublesome period. A perfect name for a project designed to promote social inclusion.

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Project Learning from Brazilian Culture: Brief History, Profile and Guidelines

Since the year of 2002 the Volta Por Cima Institute and the Cordão de Ouro Capoeira group (in Brasília) develop the social project Learning from Brazilian Culture. The project’s mission is to apply the educative potentialities of Capoeria contributing to the formation (educational and professional) of youngsters living in shelters. The attended population, aging from 7 to 18 years, has benefited from living experiences shared with the others participants of the group, as well as from other professionals regularly invited to hold workshops (Capoeira Angola, Regional, Samba de Roda, Maculelê e Danças Afro), lectures and study groups.

The holistic (psychological, physique, and affective) development of the children and teenagers assisted is noteworthy. Many of them have declared to feel “equal” to other participants of the group, given that they could dedicate themselves to reach recognition in Capoeira and in society in general. Through the close contact with the “social mothers” (women assigned to fulfil the role of mothers and caregivers in each of the shelter’s households) the positive impact, not only regarding the cultural experience, but chiefly in familial and pedagogic matters is reported.

One of the outstanding features of the Project concerns the social responsibility profile promoted by the Volta Por Cima Institute. The Project’s approach consist in promoting the education and social inclusion of children and youngsters in ‘at risk situation’ by means of meeting and socialisation, in classes and other socio-cultural activities, not only with practitioners from the local community, but also with students from foreign countries. Such approach gives a strong focus on social class and ethnic interplay.

Some of the kids from the project attending the III Brazil Sweden Exchange

There are no distinctions between ‘mainstream’ students and the sheltered ones. All parts involved (including the teachers) are capoeiras studying the art as a key concept towards the understanding of our culture, social relations, and a better and wiser life. In fact, part of Volta Por Cima’s approach consists in informing a priori all institutional partners that our activities ordinarily provoke the clash of social classes; a serious problem in Brazil. Activities take places in shelters, cultural centres and local gyms equally involving all participants. Matters of social class, solidarity, and the role of our cultural practice are constantly present. The project is so deeply grounded in our group’s activities that I would not be over-stating if I say that without it our school would no longer exist.

Every year our students join regular classes, workshops, lectures and events designed to bring awareness to the socio-historical and political origins of Capoeira as libertarian instrument amongst the oppressed classes in Brazil.

Today the Volta Por Cima institute works in 5 countries (Brazil, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, and Australia). In each one of these countries the experience gathered through the Learning from Brazilian Culture is been adapted to other realities in which matters of class, although important, are less urgent than cultural and ethnic ones.

Opening of the III Brazil Sweden Cultural Exchange

The opportunity of adapting our actions to distinct social realities demanded the re-formulation of our Political and Pedagogic Project (PPP). Previously, these guidelines focussed on the Brazilian context only, were guided by concepts inherent to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970); by the transcendence of Capoeira’s libertarian lessons into a daily social practice; and by the recognition of intercultural concepts forging Brazilianity.

Despite the believes that many of Capoeira’s particularities are pertinent to today’s worldwide societies, due to our actions in diverse countries, we are currently seeking for complementary inspirations in the Cultural Studies area as well as in scholars addressing globalization processes and its consequent forms of social exclusion. In this way we hope to develop a plan (PPP) of actions capable to account for the art’s multinational role as a cultural practice; for local educational and social inclusive demands; and for those demands engendered by the ruthless global market.

Tags: capoeira, Education, intercultural learning, paulo freire, pedagogical capoeira, Social Inclusion, suassuna teaching method

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Education, Social Inclusion, intercultural learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.