SDLC 105: Discussion Post #5

[Elspeth Collard]

Last semester I was in the class Introduction to Contemporary Dance as my art general education requirement. We learned about a range of dancers, dance forms, and schools of thought that have developed across the world. One of the dance forms that we particularly focused on was capoeira, a dance created in Brazil by African enslaved peoples and Indigenous Brazilians. They were not allowed to learn how to fight, so they created capoeira as a ‘game.’ If they disguised strength training and fighting practice as dance and play, then it could not be taken away. It was a form of discrete empowerment and community strengthening. Everyone gathers in a circle and creates a common rhythm. This can be supplemented by instruments such as the berimbau. Then, they sing with two people playing the game (dancing) in the middle. Capoeira involves Portuguese language because there are specific songs that are sang in a capoeira circle. One that we learned in dance was just variations of “ohhh sim, sim, sim, oohhh, nau, nau, nau,” which means “oh yes, yes, yes, oh no, no, no.” However, I think that was for simplicity. There are more complex songs in which people tell stories as well. There is also language to describe specific moves, such as an esquiva (‘dodge’) and meia lua (‘half moon’). There is an extensive language component to capoeira because it was developed as a covert language communicated through bodily movements, meaningful phrases, and song. Capoeira continues to evolve from its historical roots and still thrives in Brazil as an art form.