((PKG)) CAPOEIRA ANGOLA
((Banner: Honoring the Past))
((Reporter / Camera: Mayra Fernandes, Karina Choudhury))
((Adapted by: Zdenko Novacki))
((Map: Angola to Brazil to Washington, D.C.))
((ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS)) CAPOEIRA
Capoeira is an art form that combines music, dance and martial arts.
Rooted in the rich cultures brought to Brazil by enslaved Africans in the 1500s, Capoeira found resonance in the United States in the last half century.
((NATS))
((DINAJ, CAPOEIRA PRACTITIONER))
A lot of people, blacks in America, are always looking for some way to get back to their roots, something that, kind of, connects them. So, I thought it was fitting that Capoeira was banned in Brazil before being allowed for all Brazilians to participate in, because so many aspects of black American life were banned before being opened up, you know, allowing us to vote, allowing us to come in and drink from the same water fountains and use the same restrooms.
((CLYDE CLARK, CAPOEIRA PRACTITIONER))
It integrates music, movements, dance, arts, philosophy and history, all in one form, as well as the complexity and intelligence of it. I mean, you have to be very knowledgeable, savvy, remember a lot of things, apply strategies that wouldn’t normally apply and it, kind of, teaches a life philosophy. How to smile in the face of danger is how I put it.
((KHALID THOMPSON, CAPOEIRA PRACTITIONER))
There is something about the jovial nature, the slyness of it, the stories, the mystery, the mystic of it that just drew me in immediately and I feel like not only are you learning a lot about yourself, but you are learning a lot about a whole another world or alternative universe of feelings and emotions and perspectives that are deeply rooted in African mysticism and culture.
((JESSIE WINSTON, CAPOEIRA PRACTITIONER))
That’s what we do here. That’s what it’s about. You know, when I first started I could barely hold a berimbau. I could lift a 60-pound dumbbell, but I couldn’t hold a berimbau for two minutes, and I learned to fall in love with it. When I am not here, if I have two hours or four hours, I’m just playing. I get home from work, I grab my berimbau and I play because it’s therapy.
((DINAJ, CAPOEIRA PRACTITIONER))
The music is great. You can really feel it in your soul. And when you sing along, you feel like you are part of something greater, a part of something more, so, it’s not really uncommon for someone to start crying when they hear a song or to get goose bumps. The music is, you know, almost the best part.
((DALE MARCELLIN, CAPOEIRA TEACHER))
Capoeira is for everybody, but everybody is not for Capoeira. Capoeira pulls you into it. All I do is make a comfortable environment where people could come sing and have a good time and enjoy themselves and, like a snake, Capoeira will grab you.
((KHALID THOMPSON, CAPOEIRA PRACTITIONER))
The music is very hypnotic, powerful and it just automatically grabs you. The rhythms of the atabaques and the berimbaus, and the slowness and depth of the beat, it just resonates and moves something in your body.
((JESSIE WINSTON, CAPOEIRA PRACTITIONER))
Liberation. That’s really it, liberation and community. Right now, in this country, there’s chaos, there’s separation. People are realizing that things that we thought were in repair aren’t really in repair. We have a lot of work to do, but we are also realizing that we are disconnected, that black communities in this country are falling apart. There is no more Harlem. D.C. isn’t Chocolate City. Oakland isn’t Oakland. And we need help. We need to realize how we can reconnect, how we can build community, and Capoeira started with that. It started with people who are of disconnected origins, who are in a foreign land under foreign rule and needed something, needed an identity and something they could grasp on to and something to hand on to their children and family to make them stronger. That’s what I am looking for today.
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