One of the main objectves of this blog is to share with the world our unique archive. We have a rich collection of articles from the sixties, including interviews with Mestre Pastinha. Here are three questions pulled from various interviews:
Interviewer: Mestre Pastinha, what are some movements beyond rabo de arria?
MP: Young man, if we were to tell you, the movements would lose their playful grace. You do not like that someone tells you the end of movie before going to the cinema, right? We also don’t like to tell, to show our movements before applying them.
Interviewer: Why do capoeiras look to the side when they play?
MP: This is one of the trickeries of the game. Looking at someone from the side, impedes your adversary from seeing the directions of your attacks. Notice how when in the street two people fight straight on, one looking at the other, they become confused and lose their direction, they get dizzy, right? Also in capoeira the same thing almost happens. If a partner looks directly at their adversary, they will know the intention of that person. The eyes, as the poets have already said, are the mirror of the soul and I say now, they are also the mirror of one’s intentions.
Interviewer: How did Baianas in the past play capoeira with their long skirts?
MP: Initially, capoeira was not a dance, it was a serious fight, maybe the most Brazilian of those around here. But the women of the past, when they had to enter into the “fray”, they would tuck the edges of their skirts up into their pants.* In this way, the dress would become like a pair of pants, permitting for ample movement.
What three questions would you ask Mestre Pastinha??
*Traditional Baiana dress- like the kind you see on the women selling acaraje- includes a white dress with a pair of pants sort of like bloomers underneath.
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