Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

CONTEMPORARY CAPOEIRA 197
technique, creativity, rhythm, objectivity, continuity, character and even the overall knowledge of the art.
Grabbing and intentionally hitting the other player is forbidden and penalized. Contestants have to show
their skills in different types of game. In contrast with the former vadiação, they have no time to lose. A
game to the rhythm São Bento Grande lasts only 45 seconds, 60 for Iúna and 90 for Benguela or Angola. 153
Other competitions, following different rules, also attract substantial numbers of practitioners and
spectators. Muzenza, for instance, another of the great capoeira groups, is well known for its yearly events
(Curitiba Open de Capoeira) and also organized the First Mundialito de Capoeira in Curitiba (Paraná) in
2000, which resulted in a classification table of the best capoeiristas. 154 In contrast with the Abadá Games,
targeted only at the members of that association, many different capoeira groups participate in the Muzenza
events, encouraging thus an inter-group dynamic which is also the objective of the competitions organized
by the Brazilian Confederation.
No doubt the particular rules adopted by each organization shape the type of game played in these
competitions. The outlawing of certain attacks, the obligation to use specific movements, and the inclusion
or not of aesthetic requirements outline the framework for games, and eventually mould the style of play.
Since participants train for best performance in these competitions, the regulations inevitably influence
everyday practice in the academies. The success of capoeira competitions according to the sports model has
even led some practitioners to advocate, and actively pursue, the constitution of capoeira as an Olympic
discipline. 155
The capoeira for show constitutes the third modality that impacted massively on the way capoeira is
performed, perceived, and even played today. As we have seen in Chapter 6, the growing market for
folklore exhibitions in the 1950s and 1960s allowed both M.Bimba and Pastinha to travel to the Southeast with
their respective students. Possibilities for travel and exhibitions expanded further during subsequent
decades. Following the example of the precursor company Oxumaré during the 1950s, other groups that
toured in Brazil and abroad in the 1960s contributed to make capoeira known to wider audiences, and
ultimately helped to spread the art. The group Viva Bahia, established in 1963, became a core reference in
that respect. Its founder and director, the Bahian music teacher Emília Biancardi, researched Bahian folklore
for many years and was therefore in a position to mount a spectacle that integrated a wide range of
manifestations, among which was the then largely-unknown stick fight/dance maculelê, originally only
performed in Santo Amaro. Subsequently a number of other capoeira groups, including those led by
M.Bimba, Pastinha and Canjiquinha, adopted maculelê for their own exhibitions. 156 Its showy choreography
and infectious rhythm quickly made it popular and maculelê has become a kind of subsidiary exercise in
many capoeira academies.
M.Acordeon created the Grupo Folclórico da Bahia in 1964, which, according to his own words,
‘pioneered ideas still used by performing groups today’. The group used small acts drawn from the history
of Bahia in their exhibitions and later performed entire theatrical plays. 157 These and some other groups
were important for capoeiristas without means who wanted to carve out a living with the art. Many wellknown
professionals in the capoeira universe initiated their career with these groups. During the 1960s,
teachers and mestres living in the Southeast also started to form their own folklore groups, for instance the
groups Capoeiras do Bomfim (M.Mário Santos), and Capoeira de Angola (M.Joel Lourenço). 158
No doubt requirements of stage exhibitions impacted on capoeira style. Since acrobatics seemed more
likely to impress audiences unacquainted with tbe secrets of mandinga, the former tended to substitute the
latter. It was also easier to astonish the public with games where kicks were combined in advance, or even
train whole choreographies, rather than to improvise anew for each exhibition. The impact of folkloric
exhibitions, and tourism more generally, on capoeira practice did not fail to attract criticism from an early
stage. ‘Street capoeira is dead: Today it is [only] for tourists to look at’ one newspaper proclaimed in 1960.