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…)
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…)
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.
Tarek “Laranja” Alsaleh was the first practitioner to introduce Caopeira in Syria. Different from many enthralled young teachers who chose to ‘train just for fun’, Tarek believes that helping children and youth to find joy in their lives is no longer a choice, but an obligation. He coordinates various different projects utilising Capoeira as a socio-educative instrument in different locations. Through CapoeirArab, he launched the “Free for Kids project”, a programme assisting over 500 Iraqi/Palestinian refugees and children in areas of extreme social conditions. Currently Tarek is working to launch ‘Bidna Capoeira’ a NGO that aims ‘to bring capoeira to people in difficult situations around the world’, as he puts it. This is the first part of my interview with Tarek.
“You wanna learn about Brazilian history without going through the books, you can just listen to the music and you’ll understand everything…”
Politicking is a power and money-driven practice of a few, which causes the withdrawal of many devoted students and young instructors in Capoeira. Conversely, politics can be a way to engage and take action against politicking and other unhealthy practices within the art. A way of re-organising Capoeira towards more noble values and purposes within our communities. Freire’s argument for a libertarian process of education helps demystify the discussion of a ‘neutral’ versus a politicised approach to the art.
“I have had enough of Capoeira politics!” In 20 years of practising Capoeira, I have lost count of how many nice, talented and devoted-to-the-art friends I have seen leave Capoeira for this reason. In my view they gave up because of politicking not politics; an important distinction.
Matters of authenticity are very often related to aesthetic values, socio-centrism, and market reserve. The concept is usually applied attempting to validate or to quantify one’s perspective or practice over somebody else’s. It is also frequently based upon myths of purism; an ironic approach for an interdisciplinary and intercutural practice like Capoeira.
Fundamentalism is a worldwide phenomenon today and it affects the practice of both styles of Capoeira. The following posts were written based on an experience I had both as practitioner and as a researcher trying to work with inter-style and inter-group cooperation in a event a while ago.
Palestinian children from Iraq learn ‘capoeira’ – an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines elements of martial arts, music and dance – at al-Tanf refugee camp in Syria.
By Magda Qandil
(Captions can be turned on using the ‘cc’ option, on the far right arrow – pointing up – bellow the youtube screen)
“We come from the confluence, the cultural shock, the mingling of the Portuguese invader with our native Indians and African natives. We are a syncretic culture a new people who, despite being the off spring of the fusion of different matrices behave as one people not holding on to the past. We are open to the future. (Ribeiro; 1995)”
Mestre Jogo de Dentro singing a Ladainha at his workshop at the Volta Por Cima / Cordão de Ouro Centre in Brasília in 08-2005
Since the 1960s the Day of the Black Consciousness in Brazil is celebrated on the 20th of November. At this day, in 1695, the last leader of the Quilombo dos Palmares – Zumbi, was executed by the slavish establishment.
Photo taken at a 'Domingueira'. Project Learning from Brazilian Culture
After writing about the Volta Por Cima and the Brazil Sweden Cultural Exchange projects I received a few e-mails from people interested in this sort of social initiative in Capoeira. These new contacts made me think about the 4 Capoeira Thoughts proposal.
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The Social Role of Capoeira:
An Invitation to make local sense of a cultural practice in global spreading
If we are to contribute with and bring awareness to the role of Capoeira as an educative and social inclusive practice worldwide, we need to discuss the difficulties, particularities, and outcomes of these actions in local communities. Capoeira was born from attitudes of resistance against oppression and since then has been empowering the underprivileged people. (more…)
