Capoeira in Recife: the Tough Guys & the Troublemakers

   
We know much about the history of capoeira in Rio de Janeiro thanks to work of Jair Moura and Carlos Eugênio Líbano Soares. Likewise, we have a lot of information about its history in Bahia thanks to the research of Frede Abreu, Antonio Liberac Cardoso Simões Pires, and others. However, there is significantly less known capoeira's past in the city of Recife, the capital of the state of Pernambuco, despite being one of Brazil's largest metropolitan areas and a major port city.

Bernardo Alves, a researcher who wrote a book about capoeira in Pernambuco discussed his findings in an interview with the group CICA (Centro de Instrução de Capoeira Angola) that was published in their journal, Biriba, in April 2002.

In the interview, Alves touches on many different themes: the various identities of capoeiristas of early twentieth century Pernambuco, the consequences of the lack of organization, and the "ethics" of capoeira.

Here is an excerpt of their conversation:

CICA: The fact that the maltas came together to fight, this rivalry between them, shows us that there was not solidarity around this work, but only a shock. Do you think that this also determined the lack of development of capoeira in Pernambuco?

Alves: I don’t believe so. It was more like partisanism. So, there were those that supported the more famous groups of the 4th Infantry Battalion and the guys that supported the other one that was famous, the band of Pedro espanhol, the Espanha. There were the criminals doing security for the officials. They would go there cheering and the capoeiras in the front were doing security work. In truth, they weren’t interested in doing security. They wanted to play. If you took out the capoeiras who were supporting this group, the others would come in and make trouble, breaking it up with clubs. But I will answer your question. So, there was this partisanism. In Bahia, capoeira was preserved because the Bahian preserved capoeira in the academies. If the academies had not been created, the same thing would have happened there that happened here [in Recife]. Those from here were expelled and those from there stayed around. A large majority of capoeiras from Bahia stayed there. So, they transformed this thing into a dance, or something; they disguised it; there was this disguise that did not happen here. I believe that they stopped passing capoeira from generation to generation and it ended. There wasn’t this passing down between generations, and there in Bahia this happened because of the existence of academies… you always have those guys that say no, this is a thing of the people, it has to be spontaneous, it can’t happen in the academies. But if there had not been academies, it would have disappeared in Bahia as well.

CICA: Did you not find any references to organized groups? Be it on the stage or in fights?

Alves: It was a neighborhood thing. The capoeira from Madalena didn’t enter in Coellos. He wouldn’t go under any circumstances. They are tribes. This is a very primitive thing.

CICA: Without a system nor an academy, capoeira here was more about malandragem… So, in the past the only people who practiced capoeira were the tough guys and bullies?

Alves: Yes. Remember that there were these two currents of capoeira in Pernambuco. That this here was the tough guy, and this here was the troublemaker. The tough guy was the guy who was more ethical, had more scruples. And the troublemaker was the guy who wanted to create trouble. He arrived and started fighting. But the tough guy, no. The tough guy was more dangerous than the other. It wasn’t a technical dispute. It was a fight to really knock the other out. Nascimento Grande was a very interesting guy. He was funny, that is, he would knock the other guy down and afterwards, he would carry the guy on his shoulders to the hospital and say, “Look, take good care of this friend of mine, here is some money, ok?”

CICA: Was there any kind of ethics between the capoeiristas in hand-to-hand combat?

Alves: Among the tough guys.

CICA: And among the troublemakers?

Bernardo: Among the troublemakers it was anything goes and a little more.

Extremely interesting! Would you be as genteel as to carry on your shoulder and pay the medical bills of the person you knocked down?

We'll be presenting works that highlight the history of capoeira in other cities over the next few months.

Do you know anything about the roots of capoeira in your city (perhaps you are the roots - especially if you are reading this side of the blog!)?

The whole conversation (in Portuguese) can be found in the FICA-DC archives.
  

Olinda, PE, Brazil: Workshops with M Rogério Lourenço

   

The Grupo São Bento Pequeno de Capoeira Angola

would like to invite you to

“Quem Nunca Viu, Venha Ver”

Workshop de Capoeira Angola with Mestre Rogério Lourenço
(Grupo São Bento Pequeno - Olinda/Rome)

Friday, August 27 – Sunday, August 29
Olinda (PE) Brasil

Friday: Opening roda at 6 pm at the Mercado Eufrasio Barbosa (Varadouro - Olinda)
Saturday and Sunday: Capoeira Angola Classes and Rodas from 10.00 am at Bairro Santa Tereza (Olinda), Rua Duarte Coelho, 261

Prices:
3 days: 30 Reais
1 day: 20 Reais

Contact:
Professor Baixinho +558196967194

Thanks to Elisabetta for the poster and translation.
   

Exploring the History of Capoeira

   
In July 2008, the Brazilian magazine “Revista de História da Biblioteca Nacional” (History Magazine of the National Library) published the article “Berimbau Universal” by Lorenzo Aidé.

The article was published soon after Iphan recognized capoeira as a national patrimony in 2008. It reports that between 2007 and 2008, researchers produced an inventory of texts related to capoeira, including books, movies, and more. They also interviewed seventeen mestres, including Mestres João Pequeno, Russo, Leopoldina, Nestor and others. (Not for nothing, but only seventeen mestres? There are more than seventeen mestres in the city of Salvador alone.)

The article relates a bit of the history that the inventory revealed. And here, we present a little of that:

… The common sense, sacred origin myth associates the practice of capoeira with a rural environment: in the slave quarters, slaves demonstrated their resistance to captivity by training the marital arts inherited from their African ancestors, but they disguijavascript:void(0)sed these arts with dance and music so as not to spark the suspicion of the overseers and plantation owners. There is no documentation that confirms this theory. “There does not exist a single register of capoeira in Palmares, for example. It was more present in the port cities than in the quilombos”, explains Maurício Barros de Castro, Doctor of Social History from USP and assistant coordinator of the study.

Urban and marginal art. The oldest registration of capoeira that is known comes from Rio de Janeiro and dates to 1789. It is a document related to the liberation of a slave named Adão, who had been imprisoned for practicing “capoeiragem”. In the following century, “o capoeira”, in the masculine [the gender of the word], is already a figure recognized in the port cities. In these cities, the streets were areas of intense business, where those known as “escravos de ganho” [non-slaves who rented themselves out for work] dedicated themselves to sporadic work. In this atmosphere, people began to form groups, dispute territories, provoke fights and riots, and get in trouble with the police. The capoeira was the father of the malandro.

It is curious that in Salvador during almost all of the 19th century, the term “capoeira” does not appear. The art form was the same as that in Rio and Recife, but the press and the Salvadoran police used all sorts of synonyms to describe those marginal figures(“valentões”, “bambas”, “navalhistas”) and their crimes (“rabo de arraia”, cabeçada”, “rasteira”, “pontape”). Could it be that the word only came along later? Mauricio Barros de Castro doesn’t risk this conclusion, preferring to highlight another important point of the objective: that of stimulating new research. “Despite the work done by the researchers like Antonio Liberace, Fred Abreu, there is still much to be discovered in relation to 19th century Bahia, unlike Rio de Janeiro, about which we know very much,” he says.

In Recife, the study received much enthusiasm for the same reason – it is another city where there is not much documentation the subject. Known as the land of frevo, the capital city was also the place of much capoeiragem until police persecution reduced the presence of the practice, forcing practitioners to hide it within other popular manifestations. The steps of frevo were inspired by capoeira during Carnaval, pulling the cords with razors clenched in their fists, between twirls and pirouettes.

… It would not be an exaggeration to say that capoeira influenced the formation of our urban popular culture. Capoeiristas made up maltas, and they were also present in Brazil’s most significant conflict – capoeiras enlisted (and were enlisted) heavily in the War of Paraguay (1864-1870). In the political sphere, they created the Guarda Negra (1888), in defense of the monarchy and abolition, and served in three cities as political thugs – protecting both republicans and conservatives. In exchange, the authorities turned a blind eye to their street-fighting games…

Overall, this is an informative article and the inventory is an exciting project that may change the way we think about capoeira, but it raises important concerns about relying heavily on documented materials in re-constructing a history of a phenomenon that has largely been preserved orally.

This problem is further highlighted by the incredible fact that only seventeen mestres were interviewed. Police and war records are given priority over the knowledge of mestres. Surely there is much more important information left to be collected from the many mestres and long-time capoeiristas who were not interviewed.

Here is a link to the entire article (in Portuguese).

The “Revista de História da Biblioteca Nacional” is an excellent magazine, and each month it almost always includes an article pertaining to capoeira or some similar subject. And of course, it includes many other interesting historical topics including an article on the King of Belguim’s 1920 visit, when he scandalized Rio de Janeiro’s high society and drew crowds of carioca spectators as he took his morning bath at Copabana beach. O la la!
   

Washington, DC: Film Screening this Friday

Its going to be a red carpet affair - get out your top hat and fancy dinner gloves.

Please join us at the FICA-DC space this Friday, October 30, as our own Lucia Duncan will be screening three films she has made.

Here are the details:

Friday October 30 from 8 - 9:30 pm.
FICA/Emergence Community Arts Collective
733 Euclid St NW

"Olinda: World Cultural Heritage Site" 12 min, 2002
The viewer is introduced to the historic and scenic city of Olinda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, through the perspective of native tour guides. Little by little, the daily life of the tour guides and the city is revealed, showing a side of the city that many prefer to ignore.

"Lord of Olinda" 20 min., 2004
For more than 60 years, the Lord of Olinda has been a colorful figure of Olinda's carnival.Intercutting scenes of his daily life and carnival appearances, O Lorde de Olinda blurs the line between person and character.

"Whales of Gold" 38 min., 2009
Tourism and conservation have brought profound change to a small fishing community on the San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Twelve-year-old Antonio negotiates between the different points of view of locals and outsiders about how to conserve the lagoon and sustain the livelihoods of the people who live there.

And of course, O Lorde never left the house without checking the blog.

Carnival Edition: The Tradition of Maracatu

Maracatu is a rich and beautiful tradition found in the Northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco. Maracatu is a major cultural component of carnival in Pernambuco. Maracatu shares many similarities with capoeira, including its connections to African culture in Brazil, its preservation by poor Brazilians, and its recent surge in popularity in Brazil and around the world.

There are two types of maracatu: maracatu nação or maracatu de baque virado and maracatu rural or maracatu de baque solto, maracatu de orquestra, or maracatu de trombone.

The rituals of maracatu nação derive from the coronation ceremonies of the Reis do Congo, enslaved Africans who held leadership positions in the black community in colonial Pernambuco. The Portuguese overseers approved of these leaders as a way to control the Africans and their descendents, but the rituals involved also served to mask preserved African religions of which the colonizers disapproved and allowed the Africans a measure of freedom of expression. Today, secret rituals associated to Afro-Brazilian and indigenous religions of Northeastern Brazil persist in maracatu and are not necessarily discernable by the uninitiated.

A maracatu nação consists of about 80-100 dancers, a singer, chorus and a percussion section, as well as a court of royal characters, including a king and queen, which represent the Portuguese courts of the Baroque era. Maracatu nacões parade with calunga, small sacred dolls usually made of wax or wood and held by the damas do paço (ladies in waiting). On the Sunday night of Carnival in Recife, all the maracatu nações parade in front of the Carnival judges, vying for the first-prize award.

Today, a few of the nações can trace their history back to the nineteenth century, however most were recently formed due to the surge in popularity of maracatus.

The maracatu rural is a more recent development, and is rooted in the traditions of the interior of the state of Pernambuco.



The most colorful costumes associated with the maracatu rural are those of the caboclo de lança or lance-bearers (pictured). These are mostly men (some women have participated in the last few years) who lead the maracatu rural processions in a wild dance of leaps, twirls, and sweeps of their lances. Their elaborate costumes may weigh up to 50 lbs and include sunglasses, a flower clenched in the teeth, and yards of brightly colored cellophane paper. In rural Pernambuco, many of the caboclos de lança work in the fields during the day. It is a great honor to be a caboclo de lança.

Maracatu was close to dying out in the early 1980s, but interest was re-kindled when women and children were allowed to participate, when local authorities cracked down on the violence associated with rival maracatus (who would steal each others costumes), and when popular Brazilian musicians, like Chico Science and Naçao Zumbi, began incorpating the rhythms of maracatu into their music. There are now maracatu groups in the United States, Canada, England, Sweden, and other countries around the world. Some are concerned that the sudden growth in popularity of the maracatus have brought people to the tradition who are more interested in dancing and playing music than learning the history and traditions of maracatu.

Watch this video. You will like it!:

This is just some information I put together from articles I found. If you have some further insight on maracatu that you would like to share, please feel free to comment.