Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

CONTEMPORARY CAPOEIRA 173
Figure 7.5 Mestre Camisa, then with the Senzala group, Rio de Janeiro, 1980, Photo by Sidney Waismann.
of capoeiras from Rio were exiled to Botucatu, then the end of the railway line and the civilized world in
the province of São Paulo. Yet no capoeira had survived in the city of São Paulo by 1948, when a group of
Bimba’s students (Damião, Garrido and Perez) came from Bahia to demonstrate the art. According to one
of them, the reaction of the public was ‘fantastic. A great receptivity. A true apotheosis, to see this audience
go wild with our fights! The Pacaembu stadium full! These were great exhibitions.’ The businessman Jacob
Naum, owner of the trendy bar ‘Juca Pato’ in the central Avenida São João, then arranged for mestre Bimba
himself to come, in 1949, with another five of his students. ‘Bimba’s kids’, as they were called, staged
capoeira exhibitions but also took part in two free style prize matches where they confronted the best
Paulista champions. 25 As André Lacé has highlighted, the outcome of most of these matches was pre-arranged
in order to make the exhibition more spectacular. 26
A year later, Esdras dos Santos (M.Damiao), who came to São Paulo for his training as an air force officer,
taught capoeira to a group of around 50 students, but had to stop due to his transfer to Guaratingueta, in
1951. M.Damião was also responsible for the first capoeira exhibition and interview on television (TV
Tupi), in 1955. 27 During the 1950s, the journalist Augusto Mário Ferreira (Guga), who had taken classes in
Salvador and been awarded the ‘graduate’ certificate by Bimba, maintained some practice and instruction in
the city. Yet it was only when another Bahian, José de Freitas, arrived at the end of the 1950s that regular
teaching of capoeira resumed. He taught in the Brás neighbourhood and at the Sports Centre of the City
Transports (CMTC). Valdemar Angoleiro was another precursor who set up a capoeira group, even though
he was not a recognized mestre. At the time São Paulo, even more than Rio de Janeiro, attracted thousands
of migrants from the impoverished Northeast. According to Almir das Areias, most of the capoeiristas
among them did not bother with the art in the first instance. Yet when the migrants met on Sundays, in their
homes or in public squares, joining a spontaneous roda became part of their way of celebrating their distant
homeland. 28 This is how the now traditional street roda on the Praça da República started. 29