Capoeira and Globalization

Abstract

Capoeira, a cultural African expression consisting of martial arts and dance, is set to music. In Brazil, it is generally understood as a mix of a dance and a fight, although in some way, it is simultaneously both and neither. 1 Instantly recognizable as a product of the Black Atlantic, a cousin to the religious practices of Candomble and the music of samba, capoeira’s adaptation and survival reflect globalization. For viewers, even the uninitiated with no knowledge of the art, it is a dramatic spectacle, pulsating, physically improbable, menacing, funny, inverted, and uplifting. For those who practice capoeira, it is, to use the words of Robert Farris Thompson, a “flash of the spirit” (Thompson 1984). Capoeira, as a game, is played in a circle composed of other capoeiristas that is called a roda . In some styles a capoeirista may join a game in progress by entering the circle to “buy the game,” a kind of cutting in where one of the pair in play exits the roda, thereby leaving the new pair to their game. As presently practiced, capoeira is always played to music. The instruments usually include a drumhead tambourine or pandeiro , a drum called an atabaque , and most importantly, a berimbau (a tonal percussive bow) or several berimbaus. Capoeira varies tremendously depending on the style involved and a range of factors. What is universal is that to begin a game, two capoeiristas enter the roda and begin the ginga , a rhythmic, side-to-side back step, though different schools, styles, and varying abilities produce enormous variations in what a ginga looks like. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 11 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.