Project Learning from Brazilian Culture – Media Attention – RBI Notícias I

… In this set of interviews and news broadcasted over different TV channels in Brazil, between 2005 and 2006, students, instructors and myself share with our local community the history of our Institute, our programs’ approach, aims, and vision of Capoeira as an educational tool. We are now glad to share these with the worldwide Capoeira community. …

In 2002 I launched the Volta Por Cima*(VPC): Capoeira, Education and Culture Institute, in Brasília (Brazil) with a few Brazilian students. We began promoting education, social inclusion, and cultural diversity through the practice of Capoeira. Although the Institute’s profile was largely based on my own grasp of Capoeira and education as both an academic and a student of Mestre Suassuna, we kept it open to the contributions of our instructors, to influences from diverse fields of knowledge, and to partnerships with diverse Capoeira teachers and institutions.

Already working with Swedish instructors and students we launched, in 2003, the social project Learning from Brazilian Culture and the Brazil Sweden Exchange Program (later named Brazil and Abroad Exchange Program in order to encompass other participant countries). Both program explore the socio-cultural and educative potentialities of Capoeria in local community development endeavors within the countries our schools operate in. Students taking part in both programs benefit from living and sharing experiences among themselves and with other professionals regularly invited to hold workshops, lectures and study groups.

Matters of social class, ethnicity, solidarity, and the role of Capoeira as an educational and inclusive tool are constantly present guiding our principles. By means of meeting and networking in classes, workshops, talks, and Capoeira-related trips our students interact not only with capoeiristas and ordinary people from their local community, but also with students and instructors from other countries. This process fosters our inclusive agenda bridging and bonding diverse cultures and overcoming class and ethnic barriers.

Through the VPC Institute, today my students and I run programs in Brazil, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, and Australia, strengthening the Brazil and Abroad Cultural Exchange Program. Moreover, adapting the experience acquired running the project Learning from Brazilian Culture to countries where matters of exclusion are tangled with class and ethnicity (diversity intolerance), we develop even further our inclusive and emancipatory approach.

In this set of interviews and news reported over different TV channels in Brazil, between 2005 and 2006, students of our projects, instructors and myself share with our local community the history of our Institute, our programs’ approach and aims, and vision on Capoeira as an educational tool. We are now glad to share these with the worldwide Capoeira community.

To all my students, family and friends from whom I learn more about Capoeira every day, and without whom my journey in the art-form would certainly lose all its purpose.

Obrigado e Axé!!
(Coolangatta, 06/01/11)

* – Volta Por Cima is the name of a movement that embodies principles of an elegant and skilful Capoeira, but in Brazilian Portuguese the expression dar a volta por cima (doing a volta por cima) also means ‘bouncing back’, recovering one’s life after being through a very troublesome period.

VPC Institute’s programmes TV Clipping – RBI News Part 1
Note: Please see transcript of the first part of the interview below.

The RBI Notícias (News) interview was the longest of this set of interviews and perhaps the most instructive one about our programs’ history and approach. The anchor, annoying over times trying to prove that he knew what he was talking about, questioned me about the beginnings of our Institute; about styles, and my own history. Robson ‘Lagedo’, a psychologist, great friend, and old student to whom I owe a lot, also took part in this one sharing his views.

The video above is the first part of this interview and the text that follows below was written as part of the explanations in our TV Clipping DVD.

I’m looking forward to read your comments on both.
Axé!
Eurico

Transcript RBI News Part 1:

Pedro Pontes:
The RBI News begins now. Created by Blacks during the slavery time, Capoeira was perpetuated in Brazil and spread world over. Today, the practice is not a self-defence method, many people practice Capoeira to exercise or for the pleasure of moving. Here in Brasília the Cordão de Ouro Group developed and run a series of projects with practitioners of all over the world.
They hold Capoeira classes to stimulates the cultural identity of teens in ‘at risk situation’. It is with the president of the Cordão de Ouro em Brasília, Eurico Neto; and with Robson Araújo that will talk now at RBI News.

It is a pleasure to have you here in the Show. Tell me something Eurico, you’re the president of the Cordão de Ouro Association in Brasília, how the Cordão de Ouro came to be?

Eurico:
It was born (in Brasília) from the need we had to professionalise the cultural activities we performed.

Pedro Pontes:
But you hold classes in academias (gyms) too?

Eurico:
We do run classes in gyms, this is a common practice today. We run classes in gyms, and schools in many ways within the professional market. Since from the beginning we specialise ourselves in the matter of Capoeira event promotion in order to research, bring people, bring the ‘Old Mestres’, people who have a very valuable and popular knowledge, and who have been, in certain ways, forgotten.

Pedro Pontes:
But, when you say ‘we’, of whom are you speaking about?

Eurico:
When I first started this work I was very young and I had a few people helping me out since from the beginning. For instance, I’m here with Instrutor Robson ‘Lagedo’, who is a psychologist, university teacher, that follows the work of the Association since from the beginning.

Pedro Pontes:
But he is already a capoeirista (practitioner)?

Robson:
Yes, but a student.

Pedro Pontes:
You, Eurico, how old were you when you first started in Capoeira?

Eurico:
I was around 15 years old.

Pedro Pontes:
15 years old… You said you were young, but you’re still young, how old are you?

Eurico:
I’m 30 years old.

Pedro Pontes
You have been practising for 15 years. Were they running social projects where you first started?

Eurico:
No, what happened was this: I lived many experiences, I’m curious person with academic training, but I learnt a lot from the elders, it’s something we have in our family. A little later in this quest, when I already had a few years of practice, I met someone that is an icon in the Capoeira community, this person happens to be ‘the’ Mestre Suassuna. Mestre Suassuna is one of those people responsible for the diffusion of Capoeira in São Paulo, and he has a very special approach, he is a person oriented towards the cultural environment who believes in Capoeira as an educational tool, as a cultural manifestation.

Pedro Pontes:
But that’s what it is, isn’t? Is Capoeira a cultural manifestation?

Eurico:
Yes, today due to the need of adequacy, of support we have a few problems. Today, for instance, there people willing to transform Capoeira exclusively in a sport. Why? Because this facilitates sponsoring, but it rules out the manifestation’s cultural identity. And Mestre Suassuna is a person that lives the cultural side, and Capoeira is also a fight, but…

Pedro Pontes:
In fact that is a whole artistic side to Capoeira…

Eurico:
Yes, Capoeira has many nuances.

Pedro Pontes:
In reality it is part of the Brazilian Black’s culture.

Eurico:
Yes, the symbols, the rituals that we have in Capoeira, are very rich because the come from a very strong miscegenation among Blacks from many places in Africa. For when one speaks about Africa people tend to think of it as having one unique culture, and that’s not what it is. They came from many places in Africa and met many other cultures in their arrival. For instance, when Capoeira was being moulded to the format we know today, it suffered some influences, including from the Portuguese. So, today we have a melting pot of cultures and he (Mestre Suassuna) explores it in a very special way. He has 40 years teaching…

Pedro Pontes:
But for those who want to be a capoeirista (a practitioner) or want to become a Mestre like you. They know very well that Capoeira has many styles within itself, don’t they? And rhythms too, isn’t true? And it is evident that if we research… I’m lay in Capoeira but there information, for instance, that there are other Rodas, like the one from Angola. There are other rhythms, referring to other African countries, many rhythms, I don’t know, but…

Eurico:
We have some rhythms and basically two styles. What happened whas this: In the Estado Novo (New State) era, with President Getúlio Vargas the first academia that ever existed belonged to Mestre Bimba.

Pedro Pontes:
As a matter of fact, I have been there already, it works as a museum today.

Eurico:
Yes, it’s still there in Pelourinho, but it’s run in the same way…

Pedro Pontes:
And it works as a museum for people to visit…

Eurico:
And what happened was that Capoeira was forbidden by the Brazilian Penal Code, that was, say, already outdated in the epoch. And what did he (Mestre Bimba) do? He found a loophole creating the Bahian Regional Centre for Physical Culture. Hence, he did not have the term ‘capoeira’ in his academia. He used to say: “We practice the Regional”. He came up with a nickname. There is also something very characteristic, because in fact his Capoeira was regional, in the sense that he absorbed much of the Capoeira from Salvador, from that environment. So, he created the Regional Capoeira. From this point he had the opportunity to hold an exhibition at the Govement Palace, to both the Governor of the state and the President of the country, and when they asked him what they could do to foster Capoeira, he said: “Lets legalise it!” And so it was done.

Some people, for the icon he became, were jealous about it, and so they created a traditionalist discourse saying: “Look, his Capoeira is regional, but mine is traditional, is the one that came from Angola.” Henceforth we had the first division in Capoeira. And today if one wants to train exclusively one style of Capoeira, it is his/her right to do so, however, those who study Capoeira as an educational tool, as an instrument for developing the Brazilian cultural identity, to know a little bit of everything is an obligation.

Pedro Pontes:
But this division still happens? There are those, for example, who say that they’ll only practice Capoeira Angola, or Regional, is there such a thing?

Eurico:
Look, it still happens and curiously it remains today as a very strong divide…

Pedro Pontes:
Pardon me, with all due respect to all of you capoeiristas (practitioner), I don’t mean to hurt or offend, but isn’t this a big mistake? Would not it be interesting for whom is a capoeirista to know both or many (styles)?

Eurico:
I’ll share with you my personal opinion, for example, within an university degree there is the Lawyer that knows about all laws, but s/he specialises him/herself…

Pedro Pontes:
Sure, some in civil others in penal law…

Eurico:
So, what happened in Capoeira was the same thing. We had this specialisation in two different strong ramifications. Later Mestre Suassuna created a method that is exceptional, that allows one to have contact with both worlds, we’ll talk about it in a while, but what happens is this: We have this divide, there those who for ideological reasons, for social or cultural reasons specialise themselves in one kind of practice. In my perscpective…

Pedro Pontes:
I can understand an specialised individual, you can be a super specialised capoeirista (practitioner) in Regional, but you would know Capoeira Angola as well, and would not refuse an invitation to play Capoeira Angola with a friend, or someone who, for instance, came from the United States. An American who know Capoeira Angola comes and do not know about Mestre Bimba’s Regional, s/he will want to know! Will you refuse to teach him/her this Capoeira?

[Part 1 ends here].

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