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ABOUT CAPOEIRA: THE GAME OF VADIAÇÃO
FROM BAHIA, BRAZIL
VADIAÇÃO NA BAHIA
(Pierre Verger, c. 1940s)
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.
It is this unique art that the TRIBO
AFRO BAHIANA DE CAPOEIRA ANGOLA TRADICIONAL (T.A.B.C.A.T.)
is dedicated to upholding.
ORIGINS
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.
UNCERTAINTIES
In 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"):
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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…
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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.
THE TRIBO AFRO-BAHIANA DE CAPOEIRA
ANGOLA TRADICIONAL
M JOSE DANTAS, T EDFRAN, M CABOQUINHO
(Salvador, Bahia, 2005)
It is in this context that we begin to understand our place
in the development of Capoeira.
The path of our own Mestre Caboquinho and the T.A.B.C.A.T. organization
can be traced back to the teachings of his father Mestre Jose
Dantas, who in turn was a student of T.A.B.C.A.T. founder Mestre
João Bodeiro of Serrinha, Brazil in the 1950s. Bodeiro
was himself a student of the little-known Mestre Nonó,
of Mozambique.
So although T.A.B.C.A.T. owes a great to the spirit of Mestre
Pastinha and his followers (which is one of the main reasons
the group uses Mestre Pastinha's yellow and black colors), it
owes little to his actual teachings. Instead, it is part of
the greater, common language of capoeira da Bahia that
Pastinha and others such as Jose Dantas worked so hard to continue.
As one of few groups dedicated to traditional capoeira outside
of Bahia, T.A.B.C.A.T. is thus uniquely positioned to give its
non-Brazilian students the deceptively simple keys to the game:
harmony, beauty, and education.
Updated
. Please do not quote or cite without written permission.
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