Learning Capoeira Lessons in Cunning from an Afro-Brazilian Art

by Downey, Greg

• ISBN13: 9780195176971
• ISBN10: 0195176979
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning from an Afro-Brazilian Art is a provocative look at capoeira, a demanding acrobatic art that combines dance, ritual, music, and fighting style. First created by slaves, freedmen, and gang members, capoeira is a study in contrasts that integratesAfrican-descended rhythms and flowing dance steps with hard lessons from the street. According to veteran teachers, capoeira will transform novices, instilling in them a sense of malicia, or "cunning," and changing how they walk, hear, and interact. Learning Capoeira is an ethnographic study based on author Greg Downey's extensive research about capoeira and more than ten years of apprenticeship. It looks at lessons from traditional capoeira teachers in Salvador, Brazil, capturing the spoken and unspoken ways in which they pass on the artto future generations. Downey explores how bodily training can affect players' perceptions and social interactions, both within the circular roda, the "ring" where the game takes place, as well as outside it, in their daily lives. He brings together an experience-centered, phenomenological analysisof the art with recent discoveries in psychology and the neurosciences about the effects of physical education on perception. The text is enhanced by more than twenty photos of capoeira sessions, many taken by veteran teacher, Mestre Cobra Mansa. Learning Capoeira breaks from many contemporary trends in cultural studies of all sorts, looking at practice, education, music, nonverbal communication, perception, and interaction. It will be of interest to students of African Diaspora culture, performance, sport, and anthropology. For anyonewho has wondered how physical training affects our perceptions, this close study of capoeira will open new avenues for understanding how culture shapes the ways we carry ourselves and see the world.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Prelude: Playing Capoeira	1	(6)
1 Inside and Outside the Roda	7	(15)
The Development of Capoeira	8	(2)
Black Culture in Brazil	10	(2)
Mobilizing the Black Community	12	(4)
Resisting Sociology, Structures, and Symbols	16	(1)
A Phenomenological Turn in Ethnography	17	(3)
Plan of the Book	20	(2)
PART 1: LEARNING
2 The Significance of Skills	22	(16)
A Capoeira Class	23	(3)
Skill and Sensitivity	26	(4)
Learning to Walk	30	(1)
The Body's Role in Experience	31	(4)
Learning to Fall	35	(3)
3 Following in a Mestre's Footsteps	38	(17)
The Advent of the Academy	39	(2)
Moving Like a Mestre	41	(1)
Imitative Learning	42	(3)
Coaching the Bananeira	45	(3)
Coaching and Developing Skills	48	(3)
Apprenticeship as a Research Method	51	(4)
PART 2: REMEMBERING
4 History in Epic Registers	55	(19)
A Notorious History of Outlaws	57	(2)
The Bambas of Bahia	59	(2)
The Closing of the "Heroic Cycle"	61	(2)
The Long Struggle for Liberation	63	(1)
African Origins and Slave Resistance	64	(4)
The Tragic Life and Death of Mestre Pastinha	68	(3)
Alternative Histories	71	(1)
How Histories Are Heard	72	(2)
5 Singing the Past into Play	74	(13)
The Song Cycle	75	(3)
Singing Commentary on the Game	78	(2)
Mortal Seriousness and Prayer	80	(1)
Shifting "I" Across Time	81	(2)
Ambiguous Times in Song	83	(2)
Playing in a Poetic Projection	85	(2)
PART 3: PLAYING
6 Hearing the Berimbau	87	(15)
The Capoeira Orchestra	88	(4)
Musical Interactions	92	(2)
The Grain of the Berimbau	94	(1)
Listening with a Musician's Hands	95	(2)
Hearing with a Player's Body	97	(3)
The Social Ability of Hearing	100	(1)
Hearing as a Skill	101	(1)
7 Play with a Sinister Past	102	(16)
Reminders of the Past	103	(4)
The Importance of the Chamada	107	(2)
The Chamada's Dramatic Dynamic	109	(2)
Play and Implied Violence	111	(2)
The Sinister Gravity of Play	113	(3)
A Sense of Tradition	116	(2)
PART 4: HABITS
8 The Rogue's Swagger	118	(18)
The Ginga	120	(3)
Fundamentals of Cunning	123	(2)
The Despised Waist	125	(2)
A Swaying Stride	127	(3)
Posture and Self-Transformation	130	(3)
Crying at an Adversary's Feet	133	(3)
9 Closing the Body	136	(17)
Becoming Aware of One's Openness	138	(2)
The Impossibility of Closing	140	(5)
Opening an Adversary	145	(1)
Closing the Body in Candomble	146	(1)
Signing the Cross	147	(3)
Gesture, Posture, and Vulnerability	150	(3)
10 Walking in Evil	153	(16)
Hard Jokes and Cautionary Tales	155	(2)
Dissembling in a Treacherous World	157	(3)
The Sideways Glance	160	(2)
Seeing Through Shifty Eyes	162	(5)
A Cunning Comportment	167	(2)
PART 5: CHANGES
11 The Limits of Whitening	169	(17)
The Emergence of Capoeira Regional	170	(3)
Critiques of Capoeira Regional	173	(2)
Bimba's Students and "Whitening"	175	(2)
Whitening in Brazil	177	(1)
Changes in Movement Style	178	(3)
Capoeira from Middle-Class Bodies	181	(5)
12 Tearing Out the Shame	186	(17)
Hands, Head, and Legs	188	(3)
Working with Bodies	191	(3)
Reviving Capoeira Angola	194	(1)
Broken Movements, Softened Bodies	195	(2)
Shame and Its Removal	197	(2)
Moved to Change	199	(4)
Conclusion: Lessons from the Roda	203	(9)
Physical Education as Ethnographic Object	204	(1)
The Pragmatism of Practice	205	(3)
Embodiment and Experience	208	(4)
Notes	212	(26)
Bibliography	238	(23)
Index	261