“Capoeira is a fight for dancers. It is a dance for gladiators. It is a duel between pals. It is a game, a dance, a struggle, a perfect mixture of strength and rhythm, poetry and agility. The only one where music and singing command the movements. The submission of force to rhythm. Of violence to melody. Sublimation of antagonisms.
In Capoeira the opponents are not enemies, they are comrades. They don’t fight, they pretend to fight. In a very ingenuous way they try to give an artistic view of combat. Above the spirit of competition there is a sense of beauty.
The Capoeira player is an artist and an athlete, a player and a poet.”
- Dias Gomes, 1960
Capoeira’s roots lie in 15th century brazil, when slaves were brought to Brazil from countries in Africa. Most people believe it began as a way for the slaves to fight back against their owners, disguising a deadly fighting style as something that looked like a dance. Since then it has grown and spread all over the world, officially reaching the United States in the 1970’s
Capoeira, unlike other martial arts, can be more accurately described as a game than a fighting style. The name of the capoeira game is the Jogo. The jogo is played by two capoeira practitioners (capoeiristas) at a time, inside a ring of people called the Roda, which is made up of other capoeiristas or onlookers. The capoeiristas engage in a series of attack and counter attack movements made up of mostly kicks, at times coming within inches of eachother.
There are no active blocks in capoeira, so the attacks are avoided with escape movements which most people so commonly think of when they hear the word “capoeira”. The main “stance” of capoeira, the Ginga (swaying, dance-like movement) is another unique characteristic of the art, keeping the capoeirista always moving. Along with the different concept of the capoeira “game”, capoeira is also widely identified with beautiful feats of acrobatic skill, called Floreio. Good capoeiristas can twist their bodies in many different ways, flipping this way and that, and throwing themselves many feet into the air.
One of the most important aspects of capoeira is the music. Music plays a huge role in the capoeira game, the main instrument called a Berimbau sets the pace for the jogo, and the capoeira players must follow accordingly. If the person playing the berimbau chooses a fast paced rhythm, the capoeiristas play fast, throwing rapid kicks and acrobatics; but if he plays a slow rhythm the capoeiristas slow down, focusing more on showing their kicks and escapes, and less on throwing themselves about. Two other instruments accompany the berimbau, and these are the Pandiero (tambourine) and the Atabaque (drum). Along with the music created by these instruments, participants in the capoeira roda sing songs in Portuguese, and clap their hands to the beat of the pandiero and atabaque.
Alone, each of these aspects are impressive in their own right, but combined they create the unique and beautiful art of capoeira.
