Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

178 CONTEMPORARY CAPOEIRA
and some of their exploits. 55 Things changed when M.Canjiquinha came, in 1966, with his group Aberrê
(Brasília, Careca and Sapo) for public exhibitions in São Luís and Bacabal. The governor José Sarney
appreciated their performance at the palace so much that he invited Sapo to teach capoeira in Maranhão.
Thus M.Sapo (Anselmo Barnabé Rodrigues) moved to São Luís where he taught until his premature death,
in 1982. Also a boxer, he taught a rather functional capoeira interested in efficiency, but still maintained
some of the capoeira traditions. He always asserted that he had brought capoeira to Maranhão, and he
certainly did introduce a method to teach it. Most contemporary teachers in Maranhão claim some kind of
affiliation with M.Sapo, even though their style has significantly evolved since, and some groups have
reverted to Angola. Today at least 30 capoeira groups exist in São Luís, and many more in the interior.
In the regions of Brazil where no local capoeira tradition existed, the art first spread through shows and
public performances. Many mestres toured Southern Brazil with capoeira exhibitions, but few remained
there to teach. For example, in Curitiba, capital of Paraná state, the first regular academies were only
opened in the early 1970s by Vadinho and M. Eurípedes. Antônio Carlos de Menezes, better known as
M.Burguês, learned capoeira in Rio de Janeiro with M.Paulão, a brother of M.Mintirinha. In 1975 he moved
to Curitiba and established his group Muzenza there. 56 Despite initial difficulties—the cold, financial
problems, prejudices against capoeira in a region where European culture is predominant—Muzenza
expanded considerably over the next 25 years and became one of the biggest and well organized groups in
Brazil, with regular encounters, its own newsletter, a website in six languages (www.muzenza.com.br) and
over a dozen records (LPs and CDs). In 1996, 23 mestres, 26 contra-mestres, 23 instructors, 51 monitors
and 9 trainees worked for Muzenza mainly in the South, but also in Mato Grosso, Ceará, and abroad. 57
The impressive growth of groups such as Muzenza demonstrates that capoeira could expand more easily
in Brazilian regions with more developed economies (the Southeast and the South). Here more students
could and can afford to pay for classes, and this in turn induced their teachers to become capoeira
professionals. The career of capoeira teachers thus became more attractive, especially for black and/or poor
males without formal education. If in cities like Salvador, capoeira became an ‘ethnic profession’, 58 that
link is no longer automatic in the Southeast. On the contrary, some of the major groups here were led by
mestres considered white.
The integration of capoeira into the market economy has had a profound impact on the art, affecting style
and meaning, and the relationships between students, teachers and mestres. Professional instructors compete
for market shares against each other, but they also need to build alliances in order to increase their
expertise, or to hold events that have financial returns, such as exhibitions and graduations. Since teaching
capoeira has become a recognized profession, it has attracted an increasing number of young males,
especially from lower-class backgrounds and without formal education. For them capoeira is a means of
survival, not any longer in the street, but in the market economy. It comes therefore as no surprise that many
want to shorten as much as possible the long apprenticeship with a mestre, in order to earn money as
quickly as possible. Thus a number of them start to teach with only a couple of years’ practice, and some
auto-graduate themselves as mestres. This is obviously unacceptable for the older mestres. These are often
surprised to find that almost every advanced student in a capoeira event considers himself to be a mestre. 59
The inflation of autoproclaimed mestres is difficult to stop due to the lack of one recognized umbrella
organization for capoeira. One way to confirm the value of a teacher’s title is through his ‘genealogy’ or
affiliation. In theory, every mestre should have been given that title by another mestre. If that is not the
case, there are reasons to doubt its legitimacy. These auto-didacts constitute, as M.Camisa said, ‘Mestres
who do not have a mestre to recognize them!’ 60 In practice, however, this genealogical criteria is not always
easy to uphold since many of the recognized mestres today were never granted formal diplomas either and
would be at great pains if they were asked to produce them. Furthermore, most of the mestres who taught