Salvador, Brazil: Celebrating 30 Years of GCAP

         
30 Years of GCAP Event

Schedule
Feb 4 – 7, 2010-01-05

Workshops led by Mestre Moraes

Thursday
5 pm, Opening
7 pm, Roundtable discussion with mestres from Bahia. Moderator: Mestre Moraes
Release of CD volume 5

Friday
9 – 11 am, capoeira workshop
2:30 – 4:30 pm, In the prison a garden: re-discovering the history of Forte de Santo Antônio. (M. Moraes and Cláudia)
5 – 6 pm, orientation roda: ritual aspects
7 – 9:30 pm, capoeira roda (open only to people participating in the event)

Saturday
9 – 11 am, capeira workshop
2:30 – 4:30 pm, a talk with M Moraes, M Jair Moura, and an invited mestre (a student of Mestre Pastinha)
5 – 6, rhythm workshop

Sunday
9 – 11, open roda to close event
noon, feijoada for participants and invited guests

There will be a photography exhibit during the course of the event.

To register and for more details regarding the event, send an email to: gcap30anos (at) yahoo (dot) com (dot) br

Registration fee: R$ 120,00

To keep updated on event details and to gain a whole lot of wisdom about capoeira, visit Mestre Moraes’ blog.
         

Sydney, Australia: 4 Mestres for 5 Days

This looks like an exciting event.

3rd International Capoeira Angola Encounter
ECAMAR - School of Capoeira Angola Mato Rasteiro

When: November 18 - 22
Where: Capoeira Angola Cultural Centre, 41 Belmore Street, Sydney, Australia
Invited Mestres: Mestre Moraes, Mestre Augusto Januário and Mestre Virgílio

Hello Capoeiristas,

We are excited about the upcoming event with Mestres Moraes, Augusto Januario and Virgilio from the 18th to the 22nd of November. It is now only a month and a half to go.

Thank you to those who have already paid in full. For those who haven’t quite gotten around to it yet there is still time to get the discounted price before the 15th of October.

We need your support to make this event happen. To have four Mestres of Capoeira Angola together in Sydney, Australia for five days is no easy task but it is a significant contribution to the growth of Capoeira Angola in this region.

We will be running workshops in Berimbau Rhythms, Movement, Singing, Samba de Roda along with discussions with the Mestres about Capoeira Angola and Zumbi dos Palmares and of course unforgettable Rodas.

Join us for the 3rd International Capoeira Angola Encounter in Sydney, Australia

Please feel free to call or email if you have any questions

email: encounter (dot) angolasydney (at) gmail (dot) com
phone: 92121593
website

Have fun!

Mestre Moraes on Mestre Juvenal

Mestre Moraes, president of the Grupo Capoeira Angola Pelourinho, is one of the most respected capoeira mestres in the world, recognized internationally not only for his game and work to preserve Capoeira Angola, but also for his knowledge of the history and philosophy of capoeira.

We have already posted some of his work and interviews to this blog, but now Mestre Moraes is writing his own blog, which is full of amazing stories, reflections, and information. It is an amazing resource – and yet another reason to sharpen your Portuguese skills. Take advantage of his blog and visit it often.

Here is a translation of a recent post:

Mestre Juvenal was one of many mestres who defended capoeira with the force of someone who defends his own life. He was a student of Mestre Samuel Querido-de-Deus, who compared him to a jaguar because of his great agility. A longshoresman like many of the capoeiristas of his time, he took advantage of his break time after meals on the edge of the docks to practice the noble art with his friends.

When interviewed by the reporter Cháudio Tavares of the magazine “O Cruzeiro” in 1948, he confirmed that capoeira was his “cachaça”, not forgetting to highlight Capoeira Angola, “to distinguish it from the Regional of Mestre Bimba” according to the reporter’s interpretation.

Mestre Juvenal behaved differently than some angoleiros, contemporaries of the memorialist Manuel Querino who considered them“…pretentious, excessively talkative, with particular gestures, troublemakers, those who introduced “capoeiragem” to Bahia." Due to cultural and social dynamics, Juvenal was not like those described by Querino. He cultivated certain characteristics of his time: he was muscular, thin, but also agile and flexible, also talkative and mannered. According to Tavares, he was not a malandro, nor a professional capoeirista of the time that could be contracted to perform little services for the big guys. Like other capoeiristas of his time, Juvenal was a worker, a longshoresman who passed his day and into the night in the “pesado”. Could it be that this situation dedicated the capoeirista even more to capoeira? I don’t know.

Juvenal was proud of the mestre who taught him the secrets of a capoeirista "who, whether free or pinned down, could attack any adversary".

Read more at the blog.

Thanks to Mexicana for the tip.

New CD & Interview with Mestre Moraes

The latest edition of the Brazilian magazine, Praticando Capoeira, is devoted to the drop of Mestre Moraes' latest album, "Roda de Capoeira". The drop includes an interview with Mestre Moraes in which he talks about teaching Capoeira Angola around the world, musicality in capoeira, and the art form's roots in Africa and Brazil. It is a very interesting interview and the new CD maintains the same high energy and outstanding quality of his previous successful albums.

Here's a bit of the interview-- the cd you will have to get on your own:

Mestre, will you speak a bit about the martial and philosophical aspects of Capoeira Angola?

The martial and philosophical aspects of Capoeira Angola should not be analyzed separately. Movement and feeling should be linked so that the interpretation of the “game” is only possible by those who are part of the group that identify themselves as angoleiros. It was and has been this complexity thtat creates difficulties and has troubled projects that “characterize” Capoeira Angola until today. It is wrong to think that the angoleiro reacts only physically. The elements of capoeira, as seen by the naked eye, are always preceded by philosophical principles. Even if it is to orient the capoeirista not to react. I would say that philosophy is for capoeira what orality is to the written. One precedes the other.

How can Capoeira Angola help in the process of conscienceness-raising (individual or collective)?

I am unable to conceive of capoeira, being an instrument to orient its practionters, by socio-political facts, being used to raise indivual awareness. In the moment that it began to show it rebellious side in Brazil, repression against the groups that practiced it began, and not against the individual. As such, I believe that without collective conscienceness mestres will be transformed into personal trainers.

Could you speak a little about the question of music in Capoeira Angola?

The marriage of capoeira with the berimbau is part of the history of the Atlantic. Other symbolic associations have their place in the process of reorganization of African culture in the diaspora, and it is the same with capoeira. In the process of reorganization or re-inventions, whichever you prefer, various elements of different African cultures merged, and it offers us the most beautiful part of capoiera: the musicality. The game of capoeira starts with the rhythm of the berimbau. The berimbau player should be as capable as an alabê (percussion player in the Afro-Brazilian relgion), who through the rhythm of the music, enters in contact with the orixás and is the vehicle through which they take part in the celebration. The berimbau player has the same responsibility. In this case specifically, our “orixás” are the old mestres: Bimba, Pastinha, Valdemar, Bobó, Paulo dos Anjos, Caiçara, and others. I don’t believe that the mestres cited would particpate in rodas in which the musicians were not able to invoke them; ne it through music or the rhythm of the berimbau. After crossing Kalunga, I would be picky about which invitations I accepted.

Right on.

Thanks to Aloan & Chico Fedora for the tip.

Los Angeles, USA: Schedule for West Coast Conference

Hey folks, the schedule for the upcoming West Conference in Los Angeles:

CAPOEIRA ANGOLA CONFERENCE WEST COAST 2008

Tentative Event Schedule as of August 20, 2008

The following schedule is tentative and may change. Contact Ngolo
Arts for the latest information or if you have questions.

FRIDAY
@ University of California Los Angeles
Westwood, CA 90095
310-825-4321 for recorded directions

8 am - 4 pm
UCLA Brain Food Seminar
Lectures and discussions on the history, cosmology, practice and documentation of Capoeira Angola
Presenters: Professor C. Daniel Dawson, Dr. T.J. Desch Obi, Mestre Pedro Trindade Moraes, Director Jason Gregory Isaacs (Time and order
of presentations to be announced)

6 pm
Book Signing of 'Fighting for Honor - The History of African Martial Arts Traditions in the Atlantic World' by author Dr. T.J. Desch Obi
@ Eso Won Books, 4331 Degnan Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90008
(323-290-1048)

8 pm
Conference Opening Reception and Night Roda
Location to be announced

SATURDAY
@ Rogers Park
400 West Beach Avenue
Inglewood, CA 90302
(310) 412-5504

8 am
Registration

9 am
Movement/Music Workshop with Mestre Moraes

1230 pm
Lunch/Lecture - Daniel Dawson

2 pm
Movement/Music Workshop with Mestre Moraes

530 pm
Evening Break

7 pm
Premiere 'Let the Circle Be Unbroken'

830 pm
Open Night Roda

1130 pm Close Day


SUNDAY
@ Rogers Park
400 West Beach Avenue
Inglewood, CA 90302
(310) 412-5504

8 am
Registration

9 am
Movement/Music Workshop with Mestre Jogo de Dentro

1230 pm
Lunch/Lecture – T.J. Desch Obi

2 pm
Movement/Music Workshop with Mestre Jogo de Dentro

530 pm
Evening Break

7 pm
Premiere 'Let the Circle Be Unbroken – A Capoeira Odyssey'

830 pm
Open Night Roda

1130 pm Close Day

MONDAY
@ Darby Park
3400 W Arbor Vitae St
Inglewood, CA 90305
(310) 412-5391

9 am
Movement/Music Workshop with Mestre Moraes

1130 am
Movement/Music Workshop with Mestre Jogo de Dentro

2 pm Close Conference

Schedule is subject to change.

For up to date Conference info and to contact us at:
Ngolo Arts Preservation Society
7401 Crenshaw Blvd, Ste. 117
Los Angeles, CA 90043
my space page
ngolo.arts (at) gmail (dot) com
310-9eight9-12six9

Los Angeles, USA: Mestres, Movies, & Brain Food

CAPOEIRA ANGOLA CONFERENCE WEST COAST
OCTOBER 3-6, 2008
INGLEWOOD CALIFORNIA

From October 3 - 6, 2008, the Capoeira Angola Conference - West Coast will be presented by Ngolo Arts Preservation Society at Roger's Park in Inglewood, California.* As in previous Conferences, the information presented will be invaluable, the energy invigorating and the camaraderie unforgettable. As of now, this is what you can expect at the Conference:

THE MESTRES

Featured are the exclusive North American appearances this year of:

Mestre Moraes - Founder of Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelhourino (GCAP), Grammy Nominated singer/songwriter. Coming from Salvador, Bahia, Mestre Moraes learned capoeira under Mestre Joao Grande at Mestre Pastinha's academy.

Mestre Jogo de Dentro - Founder of Grupo Sementes do Jogo de Capoeira Angola, singer and musician with several cd's and dvd's to his credit. Coming from his academy in Salvador, Bahia, Mestre Jogo de Dentro acquired his skills under Mestre Joao Pequeno.
http://www.sementedojogodeangola.com/

THE BRAIN FOOD

Thought provoking discussion to nourish the mind will be led by this year's lecturers:

Dr. T.J. Desch Obi, Professor of History at Baruch College, will be discussing African derived martial traditions in the western hemisphere and signing his recently released book, "Fighting for Honor - The History of African Martial Arts Traditions in the Atlantic World." http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/2008/3718.html

Dr. C. Daniel Dawson is an oft quoted scholar, writer and lecturer on capoeira whose work focuses on African cultural manifestations in the western hemisphere.

SPECIAL ADDITION - THE FILMS

A special feature this year is the premier public screening of the
much anticipated film "Let the Circle Be Unbroken - A Capoeira Odyssey." This is a film which cannot be missed.
www.circlebeunbroken.com

Also showing is the award winning film, "Maré Capoeira," detailing the thoughts of a young capoeirista as he considers the challenges of the roda and his life.
http://www.portacurtas.com.br/pop4_160.asp?cod=4683&Exib=2709

SEE YOU IN OCTOBER!

In addition to all of the above, there will be time for fun and
relaxing with your comrades at dance shows, parties and more!

In appreciation for your coming in these trying economic times, we are formulating special pricing deals which which may make the financial cost of attending this year's landmark Conference a little easier to handle. We will forward details later.

* This years Conference is not associated with the Capoeira Angola Center of Los Angeles.

Mestre João Pequeno Honored with Doctoral Degree

Here are some pictures from the ceremony honoring Mestre João Pequeno with an honorary doctoral degree from the Federal University of Bahia last Wednesday. The event was very nice. Mestre João Pequeno entered the room to great applause and the flashes of many, many cameras.

The ceremony opened with a presentation of a berimbau orchestra, followed by speeches, various theatrical presentations, a children’s roda, and the presentation of the degree. A highlight was the poetic telling of Mestre João Pequeno's life story by some of his women students. Besides the UFBa administrators, professors, and many capoeiristas, Mestres Moraes, Poloca, Barba Branca, and Lua Rasta were in attendance. It was a great night.

Once again, congratulations Mestre João Pequeno on this well-deserved honor.

Celebrating 90 Years All Month Long!

This month in Salvador, Mestre João Pequeno will celebrate his 90th birthday. There are a bunch of events lined up that will take place in his academy (see below), including a birthday celebration. Since not all of us have the luck to be Salvador, we'll also be celebrating his birthday here on the blog, dedicating the month of December to various posts about this important and influential capoeira mestre.

We'll start with a little history. This biography comes from João Pequeno's book, "Mestre João Pequeno, Uma vida de Capoeira", and was sent as part of the invitation to the December events at his academy. Enjoy.

Ninety years is no joke, its history

On December 27, 1917, João Pereira dos Santos was born in the city of Araci, in the interior of Bahia, son of Maria Clemença, a ceramicist and descendant of native Indians, and Maximiliano Pereira dos Santos, a cowboy on Fazenda Vargem do Canto in the Queimadas region. When he was fifteen (in 1933), João fled on foot from the drought, going all the way to Alagoinhas. Later he went to Mata de São Jorge where he stayed for ten years, working on the sugar cane plantation as a cowboy. He met Juvêncio, a metalworker and capoeirista, on the Fazenda São Pedro, and it was then that João learned about capoeira.

When he turned 25, João moved to Salvador, where he worked as a tram conductor and as an apprentice bricklayer in civil construction. He continued in construction, eventually becoming a master bricklayer. It was during his time that he met Cândido, who introduced him to Mestre Barbosa who worked as a porter in the Largo Dois do Julho. Barbosa led trainings, gathered a group of friends, and went to Cobrinha Verde’s rodas in Chame-chame on the weekends.

João became a part of the Centro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola, which was a group of capoeiristas coordinated by Mestre Pastinha.

From then on, João stayed with Mestre Pastinha, who soon offered him the position of treinel. This was around 1945. Some time later, João Pereira became known as João Pequeno.

At the close of the 1960s, when Mestre Pastinha could no longer teach, he passed the responsibility to João Pequeno, saying, “João, you take care of this, because I will die, but only my body will die, my spirit lives. As long as there is capoeira, my name will not disappear.”

At the academy of Mestre Pastinha, João Pequeno taught capoeira to all the other great capoeiristas who came from that academy, and later became great mestres, among them, Moraes, Curió, and João Grande - who became his great capoeira partner.

Mestre Pastinha advised João to work less and dedicate himself to capoeira. Even though he thought that he would not live longer than 50 years, he thought that he would live much better til this age.

Having to deal with the difficulty of a big city, João Pequeno worked as a market stall merchant and as a coalworker. He became known as João do Carvão. He lived in Garcia, a neighborhood close to the Dique do Tororó.

His first wife passed away, but a while later he met Dona Mãezinha in Pelourinho, during the Golden Age of Mestre Pastinha’s academy. He had a family, and with much effort, built a house in Fazenda Coutos, far from the city center, where they went to live and receive visits from capoeiritas from all over the world.

For João Pequeno, a capoeirista must be well-educated; “a good tree to produce good fruit”. Capoeira is good not only to maintain a flexible and fit body, but also to develop the mind. It can even be therapeutic. It can be worked like the earth from which we take sustenance.

João Pequeno sees capoeira as a process of individual development, a struggle created for the weak to confront the strong, but also as a dance in which one should not hurt their partner, demonstrating that the good capoeirista knows how to stop their foot as to not hurt their opponent.

In 1982, a year after the death of Mestre Pastinha, Mestre João Pequeno re-opened the Centro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola in the Forte Santo Antônio Alem do Carmo, where he created a new base for resistance, where Capoeira Angola emerged for the world. Even though he faced many difficulties maintaining the academy, he was able to graduate mestres and a large number of students.

In the 1990s, the Bahian state government made various attempts to evict the residents from the Forte Santo Antônio in order to reform it. Paradoxically, at the same time, João Pequeno was honored as “Citizen of the City of Salvador” by the town council, awarded an honorable doctorate degree from the University of Uberlândia (Minas Gerais), and honored as “Protector of Culture of the Republic”, by President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Everyone who has had the opportunity to meet Mestre João Pequeno agrees that "he is a sweet person", whose simplicity, spontaneity, and charisma seduce all those who go to the Forte Santo Antônio to participate in his rodas. He’s a joker, but he also does not anyone forget the fundamentals of the play and the dance.

His birthday is truly a spontaneous capoeira event, where there is big roda with the participation of many mestres and members of the capoeira community.

Beyond impressing all those who have the opportunity to see him play his excellent capoeira and mandinga, João Pequeno has distinguished himself as a capoeira educator, a major authority on capoeira, a reference in the struggle and life in defense of this noble Afro-Brazilian art.

More to come!

If you have something you would like to contribute regarding M João Pequeno, please e-mail it to us at ficadcarchives (at) gmail (dot) com.

Build Your Own Archive: As Sete Portas da Bahia

      
Interested in creating an archive for your school, or perhaps one of your own? As Sete Portas da Bahia (The Seven Doorways of Bahia), with text and drawings by the famous artist Carybé, is an essential inclusion.

Carybé was born in Argentina, and began drawing when he was 10 years old. He studied fine arts in Rio de Janeiro, and at 27, he visited Bahia for the first time. When he was 49, he moved to Bahia and began to document the everyday lives of the people of Bahia through drawings and paintings.

In As Sete Portas da Bahia, Carybé presents different aspects of Bahian culture, including capoeira, the Largo do Pelourinho, the Festa de Yemenjá, candomblé, and more through his unique drawings and some very lyrical Portuguese prose. Here he talks about the fishermen and the songs they sing as they haul in a net heavy with fish:

The sand is white; they, dark. From the intense morning light rises a song.. .hundreds of voices respond.

Their feet are planted in the sand. When the suction increases the weight of the net, they cede a step and curve more their muscular backs:

A baleia me pediu
Aderecô Aninha
Pra fazê uma devoção
Aderecô Aninha
Vou pegá na jangadinha
Aderecô Aninha
Vou me embora velejá
Aderecô Aninha
O vento pegou de proa
Aderecô Aninha
Até da volta do má
Aderecô Aninha
Vou me embora que é noite
Aderecô Aninha
Eu não quero navegá
Aderecô Aninha
Fazê dos óio candeia
Aderecô Aninha
Até hora de vortá…

Recognize this lovely song? It’s one of the corridos that Mestre Moraes sings on the Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho CD “GCAP Tem Dende”.

For a capoeira practitioner, As Sete Portas da Bahia is a great book not only for its look into capoeira and Bahian culture, but also because of the wonderful connections one can discover in the book that tie the two together (like the one above).

This book is available for your perusal (in Portuguese) in the FICA-DC Archives.
      

A Little Bit of Capoeira Philosophy

In December 1990, the magazine Cometa Itabirano, a little journal published in Itabira, Minas Gerias, did an interview with the leader of the Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho, Mestre Moraes. Here is an excerpt:

O Cometa: Is capoeira just a fight?

MM: In Brazil, capoeira accentuated its martial aspect because it had to be used as such. Capoeira came to Brazil in its original form, as a cultural manifestation, as a ritual of the black African religion. But they saw that this manifestation could be used as a liberation movement. The knife was not made to kill, but it can kill. This is what happened with capoeira. The knife is a weapon; there are times when it is a weapon and times when it is an instrument to cut. Just like the berimbau, it is an instrument, but you can use it like a weapon. Capoeira was this, but people limit themselves to see it only in the latter form. I believe that this incapacity, this laziness that we Brazilians have to abstract things is what makes it difficult for us to understand the most mystical aspects of capoeira.

For more of this thought-provoking article, see the whole piece (in Portuguese) in our archives.

There have been a number of requests for more mestre interviews. We have only so many in our archives. Please consider interviewing your mestre or teacher, or sharing a story of your own, and passing it onto our archives. Thank you!

M Marco Aurelio looks back at his Capoeira Angola roots

M Marco Aurelio shared this story with "Caxixi" magazine, which was published during the 2002 conference in Washington, DC:

I started training capoeira when I was thirteen years old and I met Mestre Moraes in a capoeira roda in the academy of Mestre Indio in the Flamengo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro… Moraes gave classes at the House of the Sailor in Rio de Janeiro and I though it was strange the way this Angoleiro played because I had never seen anything similar. After some time, I started to train with Mestre Moraes in the Gurilândia club in the Botanical Garden neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. It was then that I met Braga, José Carlos, Neco, and Lumumba, who trained there. In 1975, myself, Braga, Neco, Lu, Peçanha, and others went to Salvador, Bahia, staying at the house of the parents of Moraes in the Baixa do Petróleo, Massaranduba neighborhood. We met Mestre Pastinha, who by then was already blind and quite old. In this opportunity, there is an interesting story: Moraes had written a ladainha in honor of Mestre Pastinha and we organized a bateria with berimbaus so that could sing it. He stayed on the gunga, and after finishing the music, the Mestre asked:

-Pedrinho (Moraes), are you on the viola?

-No, Mestre, answered Moraes, it’s the boy that came with us (Marco Auelio)

Pastinha thought for a bit and said:

-Menino, you are not going to give up capoeira, no!

Following this trip, and the story, I was invited by Moraes to train capoeira, receiving the title of Mestre from him in the Copaleme Club, in the Leme neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro in 1982.

The rest of this article and more are available for your perusal in our archives collection in Washington, DC.

Third Seminary on Capoeira Today

When: April 10
Where: Teatro Gregório de Mattos, Salvador, Bahia

1:00 pm
I – Panel
Mestre Moraes – Capoeira as an instrument of resistance
Mestre Rafael Flores – Returning to the roots of Capoeira
Mestre Luiz Renato – The Brazilian state and capoeira
Prof . Carlos E. Líbano – Capoeira in the universities

4:00 pm
II – Project Living Capoeira (Capoeira of Today)
Rui Pereira – evaluation & results of the project
Fundação Gregório de Mattos – the continuation of the project

7:00 pm
Closing

From NY to LA

Jen M from DC has been all around the world (really). She has tons of pictures from the different capoeira groups that she has met. Here are some pictures from this summer when she went to New York with the mestres to visit Mestre João Grande and from the event in Los Angeles with Mestre Moraes.

A nice shot of Mestre João Grande's school in New York.


Mestre João Grande, Katie, Dale, & Ana.


Mestre Manoel & Jen.


FICA students from all over the US with Mestre Moraes. Let me see if I can get eveyone's name right: Joe, Silvinho, Daniel, Katie, Shira, Deepa, Jen, Mestre Moraes, & Jason (seated).


Everyone eating Ethiopian food with Mestre Moraes in LA.


Cute! But don't touch.


Have some pictures of your travels that you would like to share? How about some pictures of an event at your school? Send them along and we will post them. Please feel free to write a few sentences as well.