65 Fun Facts About Capoeira

Capoeira is best described as what?

An Afro-Brazilian martial art and game is how reference works define it: players speak of 'playing' capoeira rather than fighting or dancing it, and a bout in the circle is called a jogo, a game.

Which Angolan combat game, nicknamed the 'zebra dance', is widely named as capoeira's ancestor?

Engolo is played near the Cunene river in southern Angola. The painter Albano Neves e Sousa sketched it there, then saw capoeira in Brazil in the 1960s and proposed the link that scholars still argue over.

In 1789, what gave capoeira its first written mention?

A court case gives the first mention: in 1789 a man named Adão was arrested and punished for being a capoeira, the earliest known record of the word used for the practice.

One widely cited theory traces the word 'capoeira' to Tupi words meaning what?

Round forest is the usual gloss: Tupi ka'a, forest, plus a word for round, meaning the low scrub where runaways could hide. Dictionaries call the origin uncertain, and rival theories point to Portuguese and Bantu words.

What was the violent street-fighting capoeira of 19th-century gangs called?

Capoeira carioca takes its name from Rio de Janeiro, where rival gangs called maltas fought with kicks, headbutts, razors and clubs and terrorised the city in the later 1800s.

In a famous 1909 bout in Rio, the capoeirista Ciríaco beat a champion of which fighting style?

Japanese jujutsu was the art of Sada Miyako, who had been hired to teach it to Brazilian sailors. Ciríaco dropped him with a spinning rabo de arraia kick and became a national hero.

Legend says one feared Bahian capoeira fighter of the early 1900s escaped trouble by turning into what?

A beetle gave Besouro Mangangá his nickname: besouro is Portuguese for beetle, and the tales say he took that shape and flew off whenever he was cornered.

In the outlaw years, some old mestres carried what to fix to the tip of the berimbau in a street fight?

A small blade turned the instrument into a weapon: one old mestre recalled carrying a little sickle made to fit the tip, and another spoke of razors tied to the end.

Mestre Bimba's regional style was the first capoeira taught through what?

Set sequences of moves, the sequências de ensino, drilled beginners in fixed attacks and defences. Bimba built his method because he felt capoeira was fading into folklore and losing its fighting edge.

What was the birth name of Mestre Bimba, founder of capoeira regional?

Manuel dos Reis Machado was the last of his mother's 25 children. 'Bimba' came from a bet between her and the midwife over whether the baby would be a boy.

Because capoeira was still illegal, Bimba named his style what?

Luta Regional Baiana means 'regional fight from Bahia'. Leaving the outlawed word capoeira out of the name let him teach in the open, and the style later became known as capoeira regional.

Bimba learned batuque, a related fighting-dance, from whom?

His father, Luiz Cândido Machado, was a champion of batuque, a rough Bahian fighting game. Capoeira itself came at 12, from a ship’s officer known as Bentinho.

In 1937, what did Bahia grant Bimba's academy?

A licence from the state education authorities made his Salvador academy an official school. Doctors and middle-class students came to enrol in an art long tied to the streets.

After a 1953 presentation by Bimba, which president called capoeira 'the only truly national sport'?

Getúlio Vargas is reported to have said so after Bimba and his students performed for him in 1953. It was a sharp turn for an art that Brazil's penal code had listed as a crime six decades earlier.

Who founded a school in 1941 to cultivate the traditional capoeira Angola?

Pastinha had been away from capoeira for almost three decades when a former student took him to a Salvador roda in 1941, and the mestres there handed him charge of it. His school grew from that circle.

A leading Angola school's founder dressed students in yellow and black, the colours of what?

His favourite football club, Ypiranga, wore yellow and black. He had every student wear a uniform so that his capoeira school would look like an organised practice.

Who first taught capoeira to the boy who later founded the best-known Angola school?

An old African named Benedito saw a bigger boy beating him in the street and offered him lessons at his house. After months of practice the boy won the rematch, and the bully became his friend.

Compared with capoeira regional, how is capoeira Angola typically played?

Slower and closer to the ground is the Angola hallmark, because the style sets out to keep the older game, with its ritual and guile. Regional was a reform built for speed and fighting.

The painter Johann Moritz Rugendas gave his famous early picture of capoeira players which subtitle?

The dance of war is the subtitle on his print 'Jogar capoëra'. His own text is blunter: it calls capoeira a violent war game of headbutts in which knives were sometimes drawn.

In the last years of Brazil's empire, the 'Black Guard' of freedmen and capoeira fighters broke up which movement's rallies?

The republicans were the target: the Guard stood by Princess Isabel and violently broke up republican meetings. The republic came anyway in 1889, and its new penal code soon outlawed capoeira.

Which group's team won the Berimbau de Ouro capoeira tournament in back-to-back years in the late 1960s?

Grupo Senzala began in 1964 with teenagers training together in Rio de Janeiro. Its young players took the Berimbau de Ouro in the contest's first two years.

Who is thought to have been the first to teach the art in Europe, in London in 1971?

Nestor Capoeira began teaching at the London School of Contemporary Dance in 1971, then kept giving classes as he moved on through other European cities.

Which 1993 American martial arts film puts capoeira at the centre of its story?

Only the Strong stars Mark Dacascos as a Green Beret back from service in Brazil, who teaches capoeira to pupils at his old Miami high school and takes on the local drug gang.

Which heist film has a French master thief dance capoeira past a museum's lasers?

Ocean's Twelve gives the scene to Vincent Cassel's Night Fox, and Cassel could dance it because he practised capoeira himself. Four years earlier he had presented a French television documentary about the art.

How does UNESCO's 2014 listing say capoeira circle skills are learned?

By observation and imitation is the listing's own phrase. It adds that everyone in the circle is expected to sing, play the instruments and respect its code, with the master as guardian of the knowledge.

Which Fighting-type Pokémon, known in Japan as Kapoerā, fights in a style based on capoeira?

Hitmontop fights while spinning on its head like a top, dealing out smooth, dance-like kicks. It evolves from Tyrogue, as do the kicker Hitmonlee and the boxer Hitmonchan.

What is the fundamental movement of capoeira?

The ginga is the never-ending base step of the game. It keeps a player in constant motion and hard to hit, and nearly every kick, sweep and dodge is set up from it.

Capoeira's ginga takes its name from the Portuguese verb gingar, meaning roughly what?

Rocking back and forth is close: Portuguese dictionaries define gingar as swaying as you walk. That rhythmic sway is one reason people who watch capoeira take a fight for a dance.

What is a cartwheel called in capoeira?

Aú differs from a gym cartwheel: the player goes over sideways with chest and eyes on the other player, often low with bent arms and legs, to slip a kick or find a better position.

How does a capoeira player chiefly deal with an incoming kick?

Dodging under or around it is the rule: the dodges, called esquivas, take the head and body out of the kick's path and leave the player set to answer with an attack of their own.

What is a rasteira?

A leg sweep is capoeira's classic answer to a kick. Rather than block, the player follows the kick's direction and hooks the standing leg, so the harder the attacker commits, the harder they fall.

The capoeira move called bênção, Portuguese for 'blessing', is actually what?

A straight push kick: the sole or heel drives into the other player's chest or belly and shoves them away. It is used less to hurt than to win space and set up the next attack.

Capoeira regional's martelo, or 'hammer', resembles which move from other martial arts?

A roundhouse kick is the closest match, snapped out to hit with the instep. It is one of the kicks Mestre Bimba brought into capoeira when he built his regional style.

The berimbau consists of what?

A single-stringed bow with a gourd resonator, it descends from African musical bows. The player taps the wire with a thin stick and presses a coin against it to change the note.

The wooden bow of a berimbau, the verga, is traditionally made from which wood?

Biribá is a Brazilian tree, and instrument makers say its wood gives the best berimbau. The staff is bent into an arc, strung with one steel wire and fitted with a hollow gourd.

What is the row of instruments in a capoeira roda called?

Bateria is the row that leads the circle. Angola schools traditionally line up three berimbaus with drum, bell and tambourines, while Mestre Bimba kept his to one berimbau and two tambourines.

Which song opens a roda, a long narrative solo often sung by the mestre?

Ladainha means litany: a long solo with no chorus, sung while the two players crouch at the foot of the berimbau and listen. Their game starts only once the call-and-response songs begin.

In a capoeira roda, what does the berimbau's rhythm tell the pair inside?

What kind of game to play: each rhythm, or toque, sets the speed and style. A slow banguela asks for a close, low game, while Iúna is kept for graduated students to show their most graceful play.

What is a batizado in capoeira?

A new student's first graduation ceremony: batizado means 'baptism'. At a festive roda the newcomers play a senior capoeirista and earn their first grade, while older students move up.

Why did capoeiristas first take nicknames, or apelidos?

To hide from the police, by the account mestres hand down: while the art was outlawed, players went by nicknames that disguised who they were. The custom outlived the ban, and groups today give each student one.

In capoeira Angola, what is a chamada?

An invitation that hides a trap: one player pauses and beckons the other in close. It looks like a rest, but it tests alertness, since either can strike the moment a guard drops.

Why did Mestre Bimba insist that his students train in clean white uniforms?

To shed capoeira's criminal image: the art was seen as a pastime of street toughs, so his academy demanded spotless whites, good posture and proof of a job or school place. Doctors and other professionals soon enrolled.

How do most capoeira groups show a student's rank?

A coloured waist cord, the corda or cordão, is awarded at each grading in most regional and contemporary groups. Angola groups traditionally do without any such ranking.

What do capoeiristas call the prized art of deceiving an opponent?

Malícia is a capoeirista's cunning: faking one kick to land another, or feigning weakness so that the other player drops their guard. It counts for more than sheer muscle.

Capoeira's malandragem comes from malandro, a Portuguese word for what kind of person?

A street-smart rogue: the malandro of samba lyrics lives by his wits and dodges honest work, and dictionaries gloss him as an idler or scoundrel. In capoeira songs, malandragem is praise for a cunning player.

What does the capoeira term mandinga translate to?

Magic, sorcery or witchcraft is the dictionary meaning; the word is traced to the Mandinga of West Africa, once reputed to be powerful sorcerers. A sly, skilled player is praised as a mandingueiro.

For his many sayings about the game, the founder of the best-known Angola school was nicknamed capoeira's what?

Philosopher of capoeira is the title his aphorisms earned him. He set out his thinking in a book, Capoeira Angola, arguing that the game should be kept apart from violence.

Capoeira shares axé, its word for life energy, with which religion that grew up in Bahia?

Candomblé grew from West African beliefs carried to Bahia and honours spirits called orixás. Axé is its name for the force that makes things happen, and capoeiristas use the word for the energy of a good roda.

What is maculelê, often performed at capoeira shows?

A stick-fighting dance with drum accompaniment: each dancer holds a pair of sticks and clashes them against a partner's on the beat, a mock battle from Bahia. Many capoeira groups include it in their shows.

Which capoeira-fighting character debuted in Tekken 3 in 1997?

Eddy Gordo got his moves from a real capoeira teacher, Marcelo Pereira, whose play Namco recorded by motion capture. Tekken 4 added a second capoeira fighter, Christie Monteiro, with the same move set.

To join Mestre Bimba's early academy, a newcomer first had to endure what?

A few minutes in his headlock was the first entrance exam: anyone who lasted without giving up was in. He later swapped it for a gentler test of basic movement.

In 1995 the capoeirista Mestre Hulk won a vale tudo tournament by knocking out a fighter from which style?

Brazilian jiu-jitsu was the art of Amaury Bitetti, from Carlson Gracie's team. Mestre Hulk dropped him with a punch early in the final, and the referee stopped the fight after 23 seconds.

Which Angola mestre stayed on after a 1990 festival in Atlanta and opened an academy in New York?

João Grande had spent years away from capoeira until younger mestres coaxed him back to teaching in the mid-1980s. Then a festival trip to the United States turned into a permanent move.

Bimba moved from Bahia to which state in 1970, discouraged by lack of official support?

He died there in 1974.

In 1966 a delegation of Angola-style capoeiristas performed at the first World Festival of Black Arts in which city?

Dakar, capital of Senegal, staged the festival. Brazil sent a group of Salvador capoeiristas under the elderly founder of the city's best-known Angola school, carrying the African-rooted game back across the Atlantic.

What is the caxixi that a berimbau player holds in the same hand as the striking stick?

A small woven rattle: the caxixi is a little closed basket filled with seeds or pebbles. Held against the stick, it shakes with every stroke and adds a hiss to the berimbau's twang.

Moraingy, a bare-fisted combat game sometimes compared with capoeira, comes from which island?

Madagascar is the home of moraingy. Enslaved Malagasy carried it to the sugar plantations of Réunion, where it took root under the name moringue.

When Brazil recognised capoeira as an official sport in 1972, it sat under the national confederation of which other sport?

Boxing: capoeira was run as a department of the Brazilian Boxing Confederation, which tried to standardise its rules and student grades. Many groups never adopted them.

Which mestre brought capoeira to New York in the 1970s and went on to found the company DanceBrazil?

Jelon Vieira arrived with fellow performer Loremil Machado just as breakdancing was taking shape. The shared upside-down footwork tempts people to link the two, but the first b-boys drew mainly on kung-fu films.

Which mestre founded GCAP, the Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho?

Mestre Moraes built the group around the traditional Angola game. In the 1980s its meetings and workshops with the old guard drew retired mestres back into teaching.

Capoeira legend often places the art's birth in the quilombos, which were what?

Settlements of escaped slaves: quilombos lay hidden deep in the backlands, and the largest, Palmares, survived for generations. The tale that capoeira began there has never been proven.

With which capoeira kick did Marcus 'Lelo' Aurélio knock out Keegan Marshall in a 2009 MMA bout?

Meia lua de compasso plants the hands on the floor and whips the heel round in a wide arc, so the swing of the whole body powers the kick.

Which berimbau rhythm demands speed and strength from the players?

São Bento grande is played at a quick double time, so the game opens out into wide, fast movements where sweeps and takedowns are common.

What are the two lower-pitched berimbaus that hold the base rhythm of a capoeira roda called?

Berra-boi and médio: the médio answers the berra-boi by flipping its pattern of high and low notes, and that dialogue gives each rhythm its character.

Which animated sitcom sent its eldest daughter to capoeira classes in the episode 'Sexy Dance Fighting'?

Bob's Burgers has Tina sign up with a capoeira instructor in season one, and Bob ends up storming into the studio to confront him when she stops covering her shift at the grill.