Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

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Contemporary capoeira, 1950–2004
Thanks to the dedication of some mestres in Salvador, in particular Bimba and Pastinha, capoeira was taught
to a new generation of Bahians. These mestres also rehabilitated the art’s public image and made it known
to a wider Brazilian public. Yet the practice of Regional and Angola styles, with a berimbau, still remained
largely restricted to Bahia in the 1950s. Capoeira exhibitions attracted audiences throughout the country,
but its marketing as folklore could lead to a perception of the art as a residual form of popular culture, not
something to be adopted by younger generations in the developed Southeast. Bimba’s and Pastinha’s
contributions therefore ran the risk of being constrained by the increasingly marginal position Bahia
occupied within the Brazilian economy.
From regional to national: the spread throughout Brazil, 1950s–1970s
Despite these factors, from the 1950s onwards the practice of the Bahian styles of capoeira expanded
enormously throughout Brazil. M.Bimba, Pastinha, their respective students and some other Bahians played
a major role in this process. Yet Bahian styles did not ‘conquer deserts’, but met with existing traditions of
capoeira, Afro-Brazilian music and games in cities like Rio de Janeiro or Recife. The impact of these
traditions is subject to heated debates, where regional perspectives tend to underline the importance of local
input. Since capoeira spread through many channels, no straightforward account is possible and I apologize
for inevitable omissions of people and groups.
Cariocan capoeira
In Rio de Janeiro, for instance, the capoeira that survived early Republican repression could be found in
several modalities and contexts. First, there was the functional capoeira of Burlamaqui and Sinhozinho,
which consisted of a fighting technique used in ring contests (see Chapter 5). Second, a more playful
variant associated with samba and batuque was practised in shanty towns and popular neighbourhoods (see
Chapter 3). And finally some tough guys or malandros, the remnants of the old capoeira gangs, still used
capoeira as a tool in their everyday conflicts, especially in the red light district of Lapa. Prominent among
them was Madame Satã, a transvestite reputed to have given beatings to three or more police officers at the
same time, whose war name derived from his/her habit of parading in the costume of a female devil during
carnival. This gay capoeira precursor died around 1968. 1
The existence of these different modalities certainly made Cariocans more receptive to the capoeira from
Bahia. Thus, when Bimba’s group was planning a visit to Rio in 1948, the Diários Associados published an
article under the title ‘João Mina wants to see the moleque Bimba playing good capoeira’, which reported
extensively about the batuque and the capoeira still practised in the Morro da Favela slum. 2 The Bahian