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Axé, Tallahassee Capoeira!: A LocalManifestation of a Globalized Afro-Brazilian TraditionAbigail Christine Rehard

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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF MUSIC

“AXÉ, TALLAHASSEE CAPOEIRA!”:

A LOCAL MANIFESTATION OF A GLOBALIZED AFRO-BRAZILIAN TRADITION

By

ABIGAIL CHRISTINE REHARD

A Thesis submitted to the College of Music

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Music

2020

ii

Abigail Rehard defended this thesis on March 30, 2020.

The members of the supervisory committee were:

Michael B. Bakan

Professor Directing Thesis

Panayotis League

Committee Member

Vincent Nicholas Joos

Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and

certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to express the utmost gratitude to my family members, friends, and mentors who

have consistently been my biggest champions throughout this endeavor. I am grateful for the

wisdom and guidance my committee members Dr. Michael Bakan, Dr. Vincent Joos, and Dr.

Paddy League have given me during the course of this project and for the early encouragement

from Dr. Frank Gunderson and Dr. Meg Jackson to dig into this research. Professor Taz and

Instrutora Texuga and the Tallahassee Capoeira community have been incredibly generous with

their time and openness to this study. I thank you for welcoming me into your capoeira family.

Axé!

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. v Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1

Background ..................................................................................................................... 4 Purpose and Significance ................................................................................................. 7 Survey of Literature ......................................................................................................... 8 Theoretical Approach .................................................................................................... 13 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 14 Overview of Chapters .................................................................................................... 16

CHAPTER TWO: CAPOEIRA CONTEMPORÂNEA: A SPECTRUM OF STYLES .............. 18 CHAPTER THREE: CAPOEIRA IN TALLAHASSEE ............................................................ 33

Capoeira in the Tallahassee Area ................................................................................... 33 Building the Academy: Tallahassee Capoeira’s Origin Story ......................................... 39 Teaching and Evaluating Capoeiristas ........................................................................... 42 Connecting to a Larger Capoeira Network ..................................................................... 45

CHAPTER FOUR: MAKING MUSIC AT TALLAHASSEE CAPOEIRA ............................... 48

Instruments .................................................................................................................... 52 Capoeira Songs.............................................................................................................. 55 “Quero Aprender” / “I Want to Learn” .......................................................................... 59 Altered States of Mind ................................................................................................... 64

CHAPTER FIVE: THE VITALITY OF AXÉ ........................................................................... 68

Defining Axé ................................................................................................................. 68 Building Axé ................................................................................................................. 70 Practicing an Afro-Brazilian Tradition ........................................................................... 75 A Search for Authenticity .............................................................................................. 78 Concluding Remarks ..................................................................................................... 83

APPENDICES .......................................................................................................................... 85

A: ACL Testing Requirements ...................................................................................... 85 B: Selection of Songs from Tallahassee Capoeira .......................................................... 92 C: IRB Approval Letter ............................................................................................... 101 D: Sample Consent Form............................................................................................. 102

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 103 Biographical Sketch ................................................................................................................ 108

v

LIST OF FIGURES

2.1. Early depiction of capoeira. ............................................................................................... 20 3.1. Allied Capoeira League and Tallahassee Capoeira logos. .................................................. 39

3.2. Standardized corda levels for adult and kids in the Allied Capoeira League. ...................... 44

3.3. Tallahassee Capoeira’s network with capoeira academies in the surrounding area. ............ 46

4.1. Pensador throwing a kick during the ACL tournament hosted by Tallahassee Capoeira. .... 50 4.2. Layering of instrumental toques in Tallahassee Capoeira bateria. ...................................... 54

vi

ABSTRACT

The Afro-Brazilian martial art and dance form known as capoeira has spread extensively

around the world in recent decades. Today, capoeira academies may be found worldwide in cities

large and small, especially throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. This thesis

investigates the transnational study of capoeira, focusing on a capoeira contemporânea academy

located in Tallahassee, Florida. Through participant-observation fieldwork, interviews with

instructors and students, and musical analyses, I highlight the experiences of non-Brazilian

practitioners teaching and learning capoeira and explore how these same individuals find

meaning more broadly in their engagement with this Afro-Brazilian tradition. I examine how

Tallahassee Capoeira participants negotiate their ties to notions of Afro-Brazilianness through

axé, a malleable force of power that is inherent to capoeira’s practice. In a successful capoeira

roda, or circle, capoeira players maximize the axé of the space by being fully engaged in the

movements within the game and by participating in music making. Axé encompasses the

capacities of resilience, adaptability, strength, and communal solidarity that define the idealized

capoeira experience in all of its myriad manifestations. It is that sense of axé, from the traditional

realms of the Afro-Brazilian martial art to the globalized markets of the international fitness

industry, that weaves together this diverse cultural complex. Exploring the vitality of axé within

capoeira’s transnational settings, with a particular concentration on Tallahassee Capoeira, is the

focus of this thesis.

1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

“All riiiiight, since I’m hearing sleepy voices this morning, we’re going to pick things up

and have a…Capoeira Battle!” Professor Taz announces to the group of seven summer camp

kids. It was the last day of a week-long capoeira camp. Music class was right before their lunch

break at the park, and despite their insistence on singing the songs Taz creatively inserted their

apelidos, or nicknames, into earlier that week, the volume of their singing had diminished as did

their energy right before lunch. The idea of a sing-off instantly jolted their batteries.

To begin the battle, Professor split us into two teams—Maracajá, Pipoca, Jacaré, and

myself against Coelha, Sapinho, Coruja, and Furacão. We knelt on the blue tumbling mats Taz

had placed on opposite sides of the training floor. “We’re going to see which team can sing the

loudest and the best,” Taz explains. “Now, we’re not yelling, but we’re using our best, loudest

singing voice. Based on how each team sings the responses, I’ll be pushed away or pulled toward

a team.” He notes that he will sing songs they already know the responses to but also songs they

aren’t familiar with. The goal is to listen and sing it back to the best of our abilities.

Calling our attention to the start of the game, Taz begins playing a series of triplets on the

berimbau before starting the São Bento Grande rhythm. He playfully sways back and forth

between the two teams and begins calling easy songs with short responses like “AEIOU,”

“ABC,” and “Sim, sim sim, não, não, não” and longer songs they all know by heart like “Paraná

ê,” “Zum, zum, zum,” and “Santo Antônio quero água.” Kneeling on the mat and leaning their

bodies toward Professor as much as possible without falling over, the kids sing the responses

back, trying to draw Professor nearer to their mat. The closer their voice was to Professor

physically, the better he will be able to hear them.

2

The songs began getting progressively faster and wordier as Taz starts calling tongue

twisters like “Vivo no ninho de cobra.” “Vivo no ninho de cobra, sou cobra que cobra não

morde, uma cobra conhece outra cobra, não precisa dizer quem é cobra.” With each word

running into the next, we garble the Portuguese lyrics into nonsensical syllables, desperately

trying to match the speed and contours of the melody. At an even faster tempo, Taz sings,

“Sereno cai, sereno cai, eu ralo tanto no cumbuco do balaio” before ending with the standard

finale for Tallahassee Capoeira events: “La la é.” Chanting the response with all their might,

Coelha, Sapinho, Coruja, and Furacão manage to draw Professor all the way to their side by the

end of the song, ending the Capoeira Battle.1

Musical interactions like the one described above are commonplace for the participants at

Tallahassee Capoeira. While the game-like structure of that music class would be familiar to

many people in the United States, many would not recognize the Portuguese song lyrics and

instrumental accompaniment that are tied to the Afro-Brazilian martial art and dance form

known as capoeira. The music of capoeira is unfamiliar to many people outside of Brazil, but the

physical movements of the capoeirista’s body accompanied by the music have captured the

global imagination as the practice has spread extensively around the world in recent decades.

Today, capoeira academies may be found worldwide in cities large and small, especially

throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. Such academies retain diverse types of

relationships to their Brazilian counterparts, yielding interesting and problematic issues for the

transnational study of this Afro-Brazilian cultural form. Within this framework of capoeira as a

globalized cultural export of Brazil, I will focus on a capoeira contemporânea academy located

in Tallahassee, Florida. I will examine how Tallahassee Capoeira participants negotiate their ties

1 Author’s field notes, August 2, 2019.

3

to notions of Afro-Brazilianness through the concept of axé that is inherent to capoeira’s

practice, and also examine how these same individuals find meaning more broadly in their

engagement with this transnational tradition.

Axé, or aṣe, as defined by dance scholar Barbara Browning (1998), is a Yoruba word

meaning “pure potentiality, the power-to-make-things-happen.”2 This malleable force is

expressed in many Afro-diasporic practices in Brazil, including candomblé, samba, and

capoeira.3 Capoeiristas, or capoeira players, often invoke the term as a form of salutation or to

describe the energy of the space. The success of interactions within the capoeira roda, or circle,

formed by participants in which two capoeiristas play the game accompanied by music, is

ensured through the concept of axé. Capoeiristas manipulate the axé of the space by being

completely engaged in the movements within the game, supporting one another’s endeavors, and

fully participating in the singing and clapping along to songs. Collective music making is the

most powerful way to generate good axé, as was demonstrated in the summer camp music class.

Each capoeirista’s loudest and best singing voice, regardless of correct pronunciations, served to

intensify the energy of the space and drew Professor in like a magnet. This was axé in action, for

axé’s potential to move and inspire has lent itself to varied interpretations historically up to the

present, from the time of its violent uprooting from Yoruba lands during the Atlantic slave trade,

through its reinscription into Afro-Brazilian traditions, and on to its diverse manifestations by

capoeira practitioners around the world today. Axé encompasses the capacities of resilience,

adaptability, strength, and communal solidarity that define the idealized capoeira experience in

all of its myriad manifestations. It is that sense of axé, from the traditional realms of the Afro-

2 Barbara Browning, Infectious Rhythm: Metaphors of Contagion and the Spread of African Culture (New

York: Routledge, 1998), 177. 3 Barbara Browning, Samba: Resistance in Motion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 28-29.

4

Brazilian martial art to the globalized markets of the international fitness industry, that weaves

together this diverse cultural complex. Exploring the vitality of axé within capoeira’s

transnational settings, with a particular concentration on Tallahassee Capoeira, is the focus of

this thesis.

Background

My initial introduction to the musicultural world of capoeira took place years before my move to

Tallahassee in 2018. I first encountered capoeira through a nontraditional route within the walls

of the “Music Building,” as the late Bruno Nettl would have described it.4 A large portion of my

graduate percussion studies at Northern Illinois University concentrated on the berimbau, the

Afro-Brazilian musical bow integral to the expression of capoeira. During my time there, I was a

member of Projeto Arcomusical, a berimbau sextet that promotes the performance of

contemporary chamber music on the instrument. Our treatment of the berimbau in the

ensemble’s repertoire was far removed from its performance practice in capoeira, but to better

understand the instrument’s customary context, we decided to begin training capoeira Angola

with a Brazilian contramestre in Chicago. We hoped that by rooting ourselves in capoeira, and

the traditionalist style of capoeira at that, our deep engagement with the instrument would be

perceivable in our performances. By embodying the berimbau’s cultural context, we reasoned,

we could transform our interpretations to respect its traditions and appropriately represent its

performance practice. The approach of this thesis is related yet distinct. I am returning to the

study of capoeira, but with an emphasis on how non-Brazilian practitioners, rather than

Brazilians, commit to the sustenance of the capoeira tradition—especially its musical practices—

4 See Bruno Nettl, “Mozart and the Ethnomusicological Study of Western Culture (An Essay in Four

Movements),” Yearbook for Traditional Music 21 (1989), 1-16.

5

while at the same time extending that tradition’s scope and range through various processes of

musicultural transformation. 5

Widely believed to have developed as a disguised form of slave rebellion during Brazil’s

colonial period (1500-1815), the practice of capoeira has survived multiple periods of prohibition

and marginalization over the course of centuries.6 In recent years, however, its status as a cultural

symbol of Brazilian identity and nationhood was elevated by UNESCO’s 2014 designation of

capoeira as a form of Brazilian “intangible cultural heritage.”7 Within the capoeira roda, martial

and dancelike movements flow seamlessly in a corporeal conversation between two capoeiristas

at a time. The two players are encircled by a group of fellow capoeiristas, who either play

percussion instruments or clap while singing songs about the history of slavery, that elude to

famous mestres and leaders, and songs about day-to-day life—working in the port, going to the

market, and playing capoeira—in Brazil.8

Capoeira is passed down from mestre, or master, to student in a dynamic, oral-aural mode

of transmission for the purpose of preserving and evolving cultural knowledge and values.

Within the context of such transmissions, the style of movements, the importance of ritual, and

the use of certain songs and rhythms vary across capoeira groups. Discourse typically divides

these distinctions into two main styles: the “whitened,” sport-like capoeira regional and the

“Africanist,” ritualistic capoeira Angola.9 The most widespread style of capoeira contemporânea

5 See Michael B. Bakan, World Music: Traditions and Transformations, 3rd edition (New York: McGraw-

Hill Education, 2018). 6 Matthias Röhrig Assunção, Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art (New York: Taylor &

Francis, Inc., 2005), chap. 1. 7 “Capoeira circle,” Intangible Cultural Heritage, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization, accessed January 13, 2020, https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/capoeira-circle-00892. 8 For song examples, see “Cajuê,” “É roda vem jogar,” “Jogo capoeira de Angola,” “Marinheiro só,” “No

Mercado Modelo tem acarajé,” “Vou dizer ao meu sinhô,” and “Vou vender minha novilha” in Appendix B. 9 See Lewis (1992: 104-114), Downey (2005, chap. 11), and Griffith (2016, chap. 1).

6

avoids these sharp delineations, however, sliding along a spectrum of variation or simply

affirming that “capoeira is capoeira,” that there is essentially just one capoeira.

Largely practiced by working-class Afro-Brazilians in urban public spaces in its early

history, capoeira was linked with street violence and vagrancy by mainstream Brazilian society.

By the 1930s-40s, capoeira was taken off the streets and institutionalized by the likes of Mestre

Bimba and Mestre Pastinha.10 Their capoeira academies attracted more and more middle-class

practitioners in Brazil, and by the 1970s, capoeira had become a Brazilian cultural export with

mestres emigrating to teach this tradition in the United States and Europe. Capoeira’s popularity

as a global fitness phenomenon has spread extensively in recent decades with an ever-increasing

number of upper and middle-class capoeiristas living in and outside of Brazil. As a result of its

globalization, various aspects of the tradition have been altered by its cultural commodification.

Like many other North American cities, Florida’s capital, Tallahassee, has become host

to an active capoeira scene. Central to this scene is Tallahassee Capoeira, located in the city’s

Midtown district. As noted, this capoeira contemporânea academy will be the main focus of this

thesis, which will situate Tallahassee Capoeira’s operation within the broader sphere of

capoeira’s cosmopolitan, international status as a globalized cultural export from Brazil.

Tallahassee Capoeira is one of four academies belonging to the consortium Allied Capoeira

League (ACL), which also has branches in Gainesville, Florida; Macon, Georgia; and

Sacramento, California. According to the league’s founder, Mestre Aranha, “[ACL’s] focus is on

using an objective-based, progressive curriculum to promote well-rounded students who use the

10 Matthias Röhrig Assunção, Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art (New York: Taylor

& Francis, Inc., 2005), 125.

7

core values and traditions of our art to stay modern in a uniquely authentic way.”11 While the

Tallahassee branch of ACL was formally launched in 2014, the Tallahassee-native instructors—

Professor Taz and Instrutora Texuga—have been teaching capoeira classes since 2009.

Purpose and Significance

This research explores how the Afro-Brazilian tradition of capoeira adapted to become relevant

for Tallahassee capoeiristas, who are primarily young, white, middle-class families with adults

ranging in age from late twenties to forties and children from three to seventeen years old.

Traditions like capoeira are not stagnant—they develop and adjust according to the values of the

people practicing them, responding to new situations and experimenting with new ideas. As

capoeira has become a global sport and its community has become increasingly diverse, are there

certain values and traditions that remain fundamental to its practice? How do they compare to

those of Tallahassee Capoeira and the Allied Capoeira League? Does Tallahassee Capoeira’s

recontextualization of this tradition yield novel approaches or elements relative to capoeira’s

mainstream practice? How do these capoeiristas in Tallahassee engage with the cultural context

of capoeira? How are those renegotiated values represented in their musical practices? While the

academy has shifted away from more traditional approaches in their organization and pedagogy,

I argue that Tallahassee capoeiristas maintain the art form’s traditional values by cultivating axé

through their physical movements and active music-making, and in building community through

positive results of ritual practices.

This study is significant in its focus on an emerging global trend of non-Brazilian

capoeiristas teaching this tradition to other non-Brazilians. Scholarship has largely been skewed

11 Mestre Aranha, “Allied Capoeira League Going Strong After 3 Years on Greatmats,” Newswire, May 30,

2018, accessed May 13, 2019, https://www.newswire.com/news/allied-capoeira-league-going-strong-after-3-years-on-greatmats-20501740.

8

toward the more traditionalist style of capoeira Angola in Brazil, focusing on its African and

Afro-Brazilian roots. As the practice has flourished for a number of decades around the world,

however, it has shifted to suit the needs of its diverse practitioners. Recently, scholars including

Aula (2017), Delamont and Stephens (2017), and Robitaille (2014) have published articles on

international capoeira practices outside of Brazil. In these cases where capoeira outside of Brazil

is discussed, it is still usually in reference to the tradition being taught by a Brazilian. This

remains a very new area of research, however, and with the exception of a single master’s thesis

(Humphrey 2018), capoeira taught by non-Brazilians outside of Brazil has remained unexplored

by ethnomusicologists.

My research adds to the limited discourse on capoeira contemporânea and the increasing

number of non-Brazilian instructors. Additionally, I focus closely on the treatment of axé and

music making within these contemporary expressions of capoeira and examine how capoeira

music is produced and consumed by Tallahassee capoeiristas. With a number of families

participating in Tallahassee Capoeira’s events, I have included the voices of children and adult

capoeiristas alike in my discussion. Their combined voices, in dialogue with my own, offer a

nuanced interaction with the Afro-diasporic concept of axé, which is fostered through

participatory music making in ways that bind Tallahassee Capoeira together with the larger

transnational capoeira community.

Survey of Literature

While there is an increasing amount of contemporary scholarship on capoeira, there are some

texts that have remained formative to the discourse of this tradition. These include J. Lowell

Lewis’s book Ring of Liberation (1992), as well as several publications by Greg Downey,

including his ethnography Learning Capoeira (2005), which focuses on the capoeirista’s

9

apprenticeship process; and his 2002 article “Listening to Capoeira,” which focuses more on

embodiment and musical interactions in the capoeira roda. Both authors draw from their

experiential knowledge based on their training in the art of capoeira Angola in Brazil, setting the

standard (or perhaps showing the inevitability) of deep, participatory engagement for non-native

scholars wishing to study capoeira.

Influenced by Geertz’s structuralist concept of “deep play,”12 Lewis provides a semiotic

reading of capoeira by examining how capoeiristas play out acts of conflict and liberation from

their everyday lives inside the capoeira roda. His approach, utilizing Victor Turner’s view of

ritual as a social drama and capoeira’s performance of deceptive discourse, is of particular

interest to my research, as I examine the emotional by-products of successful and failed rituals.

Downey examines how knowledge is passed on from mestre to student, how capoeiristas evoke

the origin and development of capoeira through shared histories and song evocations, and how

capoeiristas’ sense of cunning, bodily awareness, and vulnerability developed in the roda

translate to their everyday lives. Though he was taught by a Brazilian mestre, his experiences

learning as a non-Brazilian capoeirista informed my own at Tallahassee Capoeira.

Matthias Röhrig Assunção and Gerard Taylor’s works both put contemporary capoeira

practices into a historical context and discuss how capoeira has developed globally. Assunção

wraps the history of capoeira from slave culture to the present into a discussion of Brazilian

nationalism in his book Capoeira: A History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art (2005). He

problematizes the cultural significance of Afro-Brazilian and Brazilian identity in capoeira as it

became globalized and argues that capoeira is able to act as an instrument for racial

desegregation. Taylor’s second book, Capoeira: The Jogo de Angola from Luanda to

12 See Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” The Interpretation of Cultures, New

York: Basic Books, 1973: 412-454.

10

Cyberspace (2007), continues his critical engagement with capoeira from the start of the

twentieth century to its more contemporary manifestations around the world. His discussions of

capoeira’s multiple grading systems, increased interactions with dance, and representations in

films, computer games, and cyberspace highlight how the tradition has transformed as it has

become commodified. The historical contexts supplied by Assunção and Taylor helped me

situate Tallahassee Capoeira in the spectrum of capoeira expressions around the world.

Sara Delamont and Neil Stephens, Laurence Robitaille, and Jason Stanyek give more

pointed discussions of capoeira as a global sport phenomenon, its representations through non-

Brazilian bodies, and communities built on interactions with embodied Afro-Brazilianness.

Cultural sociologists Delamont and Stephens have written prolifically on diasporic capoeira

Angola communities in the United Kingdom. Their book Embodying Brazil: An Ethnography of

Diasporic Capoeira (2017) is just one example that explores the experiences of non-Brazilian

adults learning capoeira at a variety of levels and how Brazilian teachers experience their own

re-enculturation as they embody the exotic, Afro-Brazilian other.

Cultural theorist Laurence Robitaille largely focuses on the commercialization of

capoeira contemporânea in North American markets as immigrating Brazilians brought the Afro-

Brazilian practice abroad and used their embodied knowledge for economic gain. She argues that

a number of other indirect outcomes came from this cultural commodification as they also

“generated affective communities, disseminated a Brazilian imaginary soon transformed into

symbolic capital, and arguably transmitted an embodied memory that can be traced back to the

practice’s African ancestry.”13

13 Laurence Robitaille, “Capoeira as a Resource: Multiple Uses of Culture under Conditions

of Transnational Neoliberalism,” PhD diss., York University, 2013, ii.

11

In his dissertation, ethnomusicologist Jason Stanyek devotes a chapter to the issues of

representation of capoeira in the United States and examines the capoeira roda as a complex,

permeable, and corporeal boundary that allows capoeiristas to continually interact with and

shape individual and national identities. Utilizing Mark Slobin’s concept of “affinity

intercultures,” Stanyek believes capoeira communities in the United States are “constructed

across racial, gender, ethnic and class boundaries that don’t evaporate just because diverse

populations feel an affinity for a mode of creative production” and problematizes the simplified

notions of cultural tourism and exoticism with which these communities are often labeled.14

These forms of affinity interculture produce unity among people who normally would not have

the opportunity to communicate.

Beyond Delamont and Stephens, Robitaille, and Stanyek, several other scholars have

contributed to the literature on capoeira as a transnational phenomenon (Aula 2017, Brito 2012,

Fernandes 2018). Recently, Ashley Humphrey’s ethnomusicological thesis (2018), centered on

her fieldwork with the Michigan Center for Capoeira, problematizes the impact American culture

has had on capoeira aesthetics in its representations through American capoeira academies and

the media. She argues that dominant social structures in the United States ultimately highlight

performance and devalue various Afro-diasporic rituals and practices. The engagement with

capoeira’s transnationalism informed by these works has influenced my approach on multiple

levels, and by focusing on the day-to-day practices within a local academy run by two Floridians,

I hope to highlight the Afro-Brazilian rituals and practices that underpin the musicultural

processes of the genre’s internationalization specifically.

14 Jason Stanyek, “Diasporic Improvisation and the Articulation of Intercultural Music,” PhD

diss., University of California, San Diego, 2004, 193.

12

Within these readings of the increasingly rapid globalization of capoeira, issues

concerning the importance of nationality, racial identity, tradition, and authenticity have

proliferated. Anthropologist Lauren Miller Griffith discusses these debates throughout her book

In Search of Legitimacy: How Outsiders Become Part of the Afro-Brazilian Capoeira Tradition

(2016). Using the concept of apprenticeship pilgrimage, of studying an art form with a local

master at its place of origin, Griffith examines how non-Brazilians learn capoeira Angola and

claim legitimacy while navigating issues of wealth disparity, racial discrimination, and cultural

appropriation. With her educational background in philosophy, dance, and performance studies,

Ann Cooper Albright focuses on issues of phenomenology, gender, and sexuality through dance

and cultural theory. Her book Engaging Bodies: The Politics and Poetics of Corporeality (2013),

a collection of her publications over the past twenty-five years, includes a chapter on her

involvement in capoeira in which she applies a phenomenological approach. From her insights

into the practice’s particular approach to movement, Albright believes it can be used to dissolve

strict boundaries between the identities of self and other. Thomas Turino’s discussions on

participatory music making and authentic practices in old-time music and dance in his book

Music as Social Life (2008) have also provided me a frame with which to consider Tallahassee

Capoeira. While their approaches to teaching and playing capoeira may differ from more

‘traditional’ concepts of the art form, they ought to be considered just as meaningful.

In terms of interpreting capoeira as a form of ritual practice, I have been informed in this

work by my readings of Victor and Edith Turner and Randall Collins, especially with respect to

their insightful and varied approaches to discussing the diverse functions and outcomes of ritual

practices. According to Victor Turner, in his book The Ritual Process (1969), the liminal states

within rituals, where participants are able to exist in a time and place outside of normative social

13

behavior, emphasize a communion of equal individuals, or communitas. Edith Turner’s work

further develops the idea of communitas, applying it to a variety of social situations (festivals,

music, sports, work, disaster, revolution, etc.) and exploring its relation to collective joy more

specifically in her book Communitas: The Anthropology of Collective Joy (2012). Similar to the

Turners, Randall Collins (2004) proposes that successful rituals create social connections and

leave individuals with collective effervescence, while failed rituals drain emotional energy.

Individuals are drawn to those interactions that give them the best emotional energy payoff. My

theoretical framework for Tallahassee Capoeira draws largely from these discussions on ritual

practices, especially those of Collins.

Theoretical Approach

Even though capoeira has itself been institutionalized and commodified, its transnational practice

at Tallahassee Capoeira continues to emphasize community building alongside individual growth

through rituals. Rituals, according to Randall Collins, are mechanisms of “mutually focused

emotion and attention producing a momentarily shared reality,” which generate group solidarity

and individual emotional energy.15 Rituals are processes constructed from a combination of

factors with varying levels of intensity when human bodies come together in the same place,

with some barrier to outsiders, where they can experience heightened mutual awareness and

emotional arousal. Focusing on micro-situational processes, Collins’s theory on rituals shows

how and when symbols are created and when they dispel, why they are sometimes full of

magnetism and why they sometimes fade into indifference.16

15 Randall Collins, Interaction Ritual Chains, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 7. 16 Ibid., chap. 2.

14

The roda, the game of capoeira, is one of the most important rituals within the capoeira

community. In the roda, the participatory music-making and improvised, corporeal conversations

between capoeiristas lead to what Collins refers to as entrainment, or a syncing up of bodies

physically and mentally. When successful, these sorts of interaction rituals create social

connections and leave individuals with higher levels of confidence, enthusiasm, and initiative,

motivating them to return for more. Underlying the ritual interactions at Tallahassee Capoeira is

the group’s agency in shaping the positive axé. Axé is a transformative power, and similar to

rituals, it can either be positive or negative depending on the interactions between individuals

within a space. Gerard Béhague notes that like all types of force, axé is transmittable; it is

conducted by material and symbolic means and transmitted to objects or to human beings.17 In a

successful roda, capoeiristas manipulate the axé of the space by being fully engaged in the

movements within the game and participating in music making. The effervescence felt by

Tallahassee capoeiristas from imbuing the academy’s space with their singing voices, their

playing of instruments, their clapping, and their cheers during a roda to the final “Axé,

capoeira!” that has been called out at the end of the day is contagious. By invoking this Afro-

diasporic concept, Tallahassee Capoeira practitioners actively work to ensure positive

interactions that create strong social connections in this globalized sport. This communal

solidarity defines the idealized capoeira experience in all of its myriad manifestations.

Methodology

The bulk of my fieldwork research centers on the various activities at Tallahassee Capoeira from

the end of May to mid-October of 2019, including training sessions, music classes, and rodas as

17Gerard Béhague, “Regional and National Trends in Afro-Brazilian Religious Musics: A Case of Cultural

Pluralism,” Latin American Music Review 27, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2006): 94.

15

well as special events such as the week-long summer camp for advanced kids and fall batizado,

or baptism, ceremony. Utilizing a reflexive approach throughout this timeframe, I participated in

capoeira training and music class within the teen and adult beginners class division twice a week

on Monday and Wednesday evenings and played in the academy’s weekly Friday roda while

observing and engaging with fellow capoeiristas. I also observed, and oftentimes participated in,

the music classes offered for children ranging in age from six to twelve years old before Friday

rodas.

As a twenty-eight-year-old, white, female graduate student, I was within the average age

range of the teen and adult beginner classes, which were also pretty evenly balanced in terms of

gender. Like all beginner capoeiristas, I experienced periods of intense aching muscles and

blistered soles along with feelings of frustration, embarrassment, and anxiety. There was a great

sense of commiseration among myself and my informants. The large amount of joking during

classes and the “AHA!” moments of learning a sequence of moves counterbalanced the other

discomforts. After integrating myself into the academy’s culture over the summer, I conducted

formal and informal interviews during the fall with a majority of the Tallahassee Capoeira

instructors and adult participants, covering such topics as their personal experiences with

capoeira, cross-cultural learning and teaching, musical functions, song lyrics, and community

building. Typically lasting an hour, formal interviews took place in quieter establishments near

the academy or in informants’ homes. Shorter, informal interviews and follow-up conversations

were held before and/or after events at Tallahassee Capoeira as well. The names of my

informants are kept confidential, but I will refer to them using their apelidos, or nicknames, or in

one case, their artist pseudonym. 18

18 According to Mestre Poncianinho, “Capoeiristas assumed “apelidos” (nicknames) to avoid detection

from the police. This custom is still used today when capoeiristas assume capoeira nickname at their first “batizado”

16

My participation and observations focused on how music functions in the Tallahassee

Capoeira space and how participants of all ages interact with capoeira music inside and outside

of the academy. I analyzed the recorded music and live music played at the academy, finding out

how capoeira music is consumed and produced by participants. I also studied their style of

singing and playing capoeira instruments during events geared toward children and adults to

provide as rich a description of the soundscape of Tallahassee Capoeira as possible so that

readers of the thesis will be well equipped to understand how music is transmitted and how it

functions within capoeira’s space.

Overview of Chapters

In the following chapter, I will contextualize Tallahassee Capoeira within capoeira’s broader

history, discussing the stylistic developments of capoeira Angola, regional, and contemporânea

in Brazil, the emigration of Brazilian mestres searching for better economic opportunities, and

the emerging trend of non-Brazilians teaching capoeira outside of Brazil. Through the works of

Assunção (2005), Griffith (2016), Lewis (1992), and Taylor (2007), I highlight how the customs,

beliefs, music, and histories of these styles have always been in flux throughout capoeira’s

existence in Brazil. I explore how the dichotomies were created between capoeira regional and

Angola and how those tensions play out in capoeira contemporânea academies today.

Chapter three concentrates on a local manifestation of capoeira within this globalized

practice. Founded in 2014, Tallahassee Capoeira has become a compelling part of the capoeira

network in the southern United States. In this chapter, I consider how the city of Tallahassee is

conducive to the development of a vibrant capoeira scene and how the Tallahassee Capoeira

(baptism or grading ceremony).” In Essential Capoeira: The Guide to Mastering the Art (Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2007), 12.

17

academy emerged within this urban environment. I look at how their class schedule, curriculum,

graduation system, and community compare to other capoeira academies and how they might

reflect the values of the idealized capoeira experience.

The fourth chapter delves into the music making practices at Tallahassee Capoeira.

Described as the life force of capoeira, music is critical to the everyday operations inside the

academy. This chapter explores the various functions of music in a capoeira game through the

types of instruments, rhythms, and songs used. I consider questions surrounding musical

traditions and transformations such as: Which aspects of capoeira’s musical tradition have or

have not been retained? How is the music of capoeira, and the inherent values of axé and

community building, taught to non-Brazilian capoeiristas? How do primarily English-speaking

Tallahassee capoeiristas connect with Portuguese lyrics of capoeira songs?

The final chapter considers the vitality of axé through the rituals of Tallahassee Capoeira.

Applying Randall Collins’s theory of interaction ritual chains, I maintain that axé is built on

previous interactions—good or bad—among individual agents through learned rituals within the

daily operations at Tallahassee Capoeira. These rituals, in turn, connect individuals to a larger

community. Influenced by Thomas Turino’s discussion of participatory versus presentational

music styles (Turino 2008), I argue that the participatory aspects of capoeira music are what

ensures good axé, culminating in positive, collective energy from these interactions. By fostering

axé through music, Tallahassee capoeiristas not only connect with one another within the space

of the capoeira roda, but they also encourage ties to capoeira’s roots in Brazil.

18

CHAPTER TWO

CAPOEIRA CONTEMPORÂNEA: A SPECTRUM OF STYLES

É roda, vem jogar! Berimbau tá tocando; O jogo é regional.

É de ioiô, é de iaiá Capoeira de Angola jogar Lá na beira do mar.

It’s roda, come play! The berimbau is playing; The game is regional. It’s from the elders Capoeira Angola is playing There by the seashore

Passed down as an oral tradition, the importance of ritual, the lexicon of physical

movements, and the use of certain songs and rhythms in capoeira inevitably varies across

capoeira groups. Stylistic differences in capoeira are based on the emphasis of certain elements

like how capoeiristas move their bodies, what narratives are perpetuated, how practitioners are

dressed, and what music is performed. These distinctions typically fall into two categories: the

sport-like capoeira regional created by Mestre Bimba and the ritualistic capoeira Angola

attributed to Mestre Pastinha. The most widespread style, capoeira contemporânea, avoids these

sharp delineations, however. Songs, like the two listed above that reference either capoeira

Angola or regional, are embraced by contemporânea academies like Tallahassee Capoeira. In

these spaces, the sounds, movements, and stories of both styles intermingle and create a

multidimensional history of capoeira.

Commonly written off as a hybrid between capoeira Angola and regional, capoeira

contemporânea has largely been ignored by scholars. Instead, discourse is greatly skewed toward

the style of capoeira Angola in Brazil, focusing on its African and Afro-Brazilian roots. This

chapter will briefly overview the history of capoeira before addressing the stylistic developments

of capoeira contemporânea and the emerging global trend of non-Brazilians teaching capoeira to

other non-Brazilians. How did the dichotomy between capoeira regional and Angola emerge?

19

What is capoeira contemporânea and what are its distinguishing stylistic features and values?

How do they relate to the more commonly referenced styles of capoeira Angola and regional?

How did this art form that originated during Brazil’s colonial period find its way to present-day

Tallahassee, Florida? An exploration into how axé, the divine power of transformation in Yoruba

religion, became ingrained in capoeira will also be woven into this history.

Brazil, the largest country in South America both geographically and in population, is

also home to the largest population of African descendants outside of Africa with at least 3.65

million slaves shipped to its shores,19 and the current estimated population of Brazilians of

African descent is 14.5 million.20 As a colony of the Portuguese empire from 1500-1888, Brazil

largely served as an exporter of goods like hardwoods, coffee, sugar, and precious metals.

Portuguese colonizers transported vast numbers of Africans, more than any other European

country, from regions in West and Central Africa to Brazil. Researching the remaining ties to

African cultures, Nina Rodrigues identified cultural elements from Nagô (Yoruba), JeJe (Ewe),

Minas (Fanti/Ashanti), Haussá (Hausa), Tapa (Nupe), Gurúnci, Fulá (Fulani), Mandinga

(Mandé), and Bantu groups in Brazil.21 Sometime between the horrific journey over the Atlantic

and intensive labor conditions on Portuguese plantations to the abolishment of slavery in 1888

and urbanization of Brazil, the art form of capoeira was born.

With limited surviving documentation, historians have been unable to pinpoint the exact

circumstances of capoeira’s origins. Most capoeiristas agree that capoeira was a vehicle for

resistance and liberation for African slaves who developed this practice as self-defense on

19 Thomas Skidmore, Brazil: Five Centuries of Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 17-20. 20 “Tabela 1.3.1 - População residente, por cor ou raça, segundo o sexo e os grupos de idade - Brasil –

2010,” IGBE Census, 2010. 21 J. Lowell Lewis, Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1992), 23.

20

colonial Brazilian plantations. Through this belief, the violent movements of capoeira were

disguised in the form of a dance accompanied by music so slaves could practice under the eyes

of their plantation owners (see Figure 2.1).22

Figure 2.1. Early depiction of capoeira. Jogar Capoeira ou Danse de la Guerre, engraving by Bavarian painter Johann Moritz Rugendas, 1825, published in 1835.

Capoeira’s creation myths—its remote origins, its invention in Brazil by runaway slaves,

and its disguise as a dance—have been widely circulated by capoeiristas and reproduced by

scholars in books, academic journals, and dissertations, even though they ignore the lack of

evidence and overlook that which contradicts these claims. These myths are significant,

however, in forming identities through the processes in which communities decide to remember

and construct these narratives. According to Matthias Assunção, capoeira was critical in “the

formation of national, regional, and ethnic identities and in the interaction with these processes

organized its own foundational myths and transcendental meanings.”23 Assunção goes on to

deconstruct the master narratives surrounding capoeira that focus on Eurocentric repression, a

22 Barbara Browning, Samba: Resistance in Motion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 91-92. 23 Matthias Röhrig Assunção, Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art (Routledge: New

York, 2005) 9.

21

search for Brazilian nationalism, variations based on racialized theories, and Afrocentric

viewpoints.

Flowing through this expression of Afro-Brazilian culture is the power of axé. As a

syncretic extension of aṣe from Yoruba rituals, axé manifests in a number of Afro-Brazilian

traditions like capoeira, samba, and candomblé, and it has been explored by scholars including

Elbein dos Santos (1976), Béhague (2006), Browning (1995), Robitaille (2013), and Stanyek

(2004). In her definitive book Yoruba Ritual: Performers, Play, Agency (1992), Margaret

Thompson Drewal outlines the concept of aṣe in Yoruba ritual dances in Nigeria, defining it as a

power of transformation—the power to bring things into existence, to make things happen.

“Humans possess this generative force and through education, initiation, and experience, learn to

manipulate it to enhance their own lives and the lives of those around them.”24 This divine

energy allows orixás, Yoruba deities, to take the stage—and the bodies of the dancers—during

these rituals. Their presence brings significance to the dance.25 Axé is not restricted to the sacred

realm. It can exist within a secular rhythm such as samba or capoeira, though they likely entered

these traditions through practitioners of candomblé.26 Drawing upon her many years of

experience dancing in candomblé houses and practicing capoeira in Brazil and the United States,

Barbara Browning has greatly enriched the discourse surrounding axé through her writings and

related activities. She argues that within the roda de samba or roda de capoeira, “the human body

24 Margaret Thompson Drewal, Yoruba Ritual: Performers, Play, Agency (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 1992), 27. 25 Browning, Samba: Resistance in Motion, 28-29. 26 Many capoeiristas in early twentieth-century Bahia were actively involved in candomblé groups.

Commonalities between capoeira and candomblé can be found in their circular formations and the moments of performance associated with specific toques, or rhythmic patterns. The three berimbaus in the capoeira bateria echo the use of the three atabaque drums in candomblé. The alteration of the state of mind produced by playing capoeira has been linked to the accounts of trance in candomblé as well. In Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art (2005), 116-17.

22

assumes a heightened level of significance.”27 The potentiality of axé contained within

capoeiristas—the power to transform one’s surroundings—courses through capoeira’s history,

allowing it to survive, adapt, and flourish in a variety of environments.

The practice of capoeira has survived multiple periods of repression and attempted of

eradication over the course of Brazil’s history. After the Portuguese court moved to Rio de

Janeiro in 1808, an official police guard was established in Brazil. Their criminal records, for the

first known time, indicated that capoeira was vehemently condemned and criminalized. After

Brazil’s proclamation as an independent republic in 1889, the extinction of capoeira ranked even

higher as a governmental priority as they sought to present the country on par with European

nations.28 “For the new rulers, inspired by the authoritarian ideologies of conservative

modernization such as positivism and social Darwinism, the elimination of capoeira became part

of the necessary hygienization of Brazil’s capital.”29 Capoeira was a practice of the lower class

and African barbarism in the eyes of the ruling elite, and official edicts formally outlawing

capoeira followed. The Criminal Code of 1890 dedicated one chapter to vagrants and the practice

of capoeira—the first three articles criminalized idleness, while the last three dealt with

capoeira.30

As European racial theories in the nineteenth-century spread, Brazil’s largely mestiço

population became the focus of discourse among the country’s ruling elite and intellectuals. Most

discussions tended to lament the racial handicap of Brazilians whose ancestors were primarily

Africans or indigenous peoples. Since European racial theories espoused the belief in white

superiority but differed over issues like miscegenation, some Brazilian scholars handpicked

27 Browning, Samba, 28. 28 Assunção, Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art, 9-10. 29 Assunção, 11. 30 Ibid., 11.

23

aspects of different theories that suited them best. Prominent among these was the theory of

branqueamento, or whitening, where a population with inferior racial characteristics could

gradually improve over time through the continuous influx of European immigrants. While

capoeira was being eradicated from the streets of Rio de Janeiro, its criminalization was

increasingly questioned by a growing number of middle-class Brazilians. Some considered it a

possible tool in the construction of Brazilian identity. For capoeira to become a marker of

brasilidade, or Brazilianness, its slave origins had to be hidden and its mestiço character

emphasized.31

As miscegenation in Brazil was beginning to be marketed as a symbol of national

identity, rivalries among European countries in the decades prior to World War I increased. In

response to the growing tensions in Europe, physical training for men was emphasized, marking

the development of physical education and gymnastics programs in countries like Denmark and

Germany. Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905 contributed to the questioning of the stereotype of

the effeminate East and awakened Western interest in Oriental martial arts, in particular the

Japanese judo. Jiu-jitsu masters started to travel around the world to show their skills and

challenge local fighters, resulting in an intense interaction between Eastern and Western martial

arts. 32 For Brazilian nationalists, these developments confirmed the urgency to identify and

develop a national fighting art, and once again they turned their attention towards capoeira.33

31 Assunção, 11-15. 32 With a decrease in European immigration and a heightened need for coffee workers during the early

twentieth century, Brazil signed an agreement with Japan to open its doors to immigrant workers. Japanese immigrants searching for better economic opportunities began arriving in Brazil in 1908. See Meiko Nishida’s Diaspora and Identity: Japanese Brazilians in Brazil and Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2018). Brazil’s first jiu-jitsu schools were established in Belém and Rio de Janeiro in 1914 and 1927, respectively. See Assunção’s Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art, 127.

33 Assunção, 14-15. Examining connections that may exist between the processes of institutionalization and the affirmation of national identity in capoeira and those present in other Afro-diasporic martial art forms in Latin America and the Caribbean, such as ag’ya in Martinique, chatou in Guadaloupe, and rara and tire machèt in Haiti—

24

In one of the first detailed reports on capoeira (1906), Lima Campos compared the

characteristics of French savate, Japanese jiu-jitsu, English boxing, Portuguese stick fighting,

and Brazilian capoeira. In his report, the slave origins of capoeira were negated or greatly

diminished. Instead, capoeira became an indigenous tradition, which had the advantage of

appearing truly Brazilian.34 In 1928, Anibal Burlamaqui designed the first method for a Brazilian

national gymnastics practice based on capoeira. Burlamaqui departed from earlier nationalist

views by recognizing capoeira’s slave origins. According to him, runaway slaves invented the

art. They did not build on previous African traditions but they developed a “strange game of

arms, legs, head and rump, with such an agility and such violence, able to give them a fabulous

superiority [over the slave catchers]” in Brazil.35

After 1920, racial theories became increasingly scrutinized. Anthropologists like Franz

Boas (1858–1942) and Ashley Montagu (1905–1999) challenged the common assumptions of

racial inferiority of non-whites and the existence of human races. Gilberto Freyre, a student of

Boas, became particularly influential through his essay The Masters and The Slaves (1933),

which valorized, for the first time, the miscegenation of white masters and enslaved Indians and

Africans. His work was paramount to formulating Brazil’s myth of racial democracy, a belief of

racial harmony through miscegenation, that still maintained ideologies of white dominance in

social hierarchies through the progressive whitening of Brazilian society.36

After the 1930 revolution, Getúlio Vargas was installed as interim president by the

military from 1930-1934 and would later serve as a constitutionally elected president from 1934-

as well as Eastern martial arts like jiu-jitsu, karate, taekwondo, and kung fu—would be a fruitful avenue for future research.

34 Assunção, 15. 35 Ibid., 17. 36 Gilberto Freyre, Samuel Putnam, and David Maybury-Lewis, The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the

Development of Brazilian Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

25

1937, and dictator from 1937-1945. One of Vargas’s goals was to reduce socioeconomic class

conflict by integrating lower-class individuals into Brazilian society and elevating their folk

traditions to the level of national culture.37 The Vargas regime greatly expanded the budget for

education and created new institutions to foster cultural development and support patriotic

causes. During this time, capoeira was de-criminalized and became institutionalized through the

efforts of Mestre Bimba and his newly developed style of capoeira, named A Luta Regional

Baiana and later referred to as capoeira regional. His school became officially licensed by the

Brazilian government in 1937.38

The previously mentioned narratives that highlight either Brazilian nationalist or

Afrocentric discourse are the basis for the dichotomies between capoeira regional and capoeira

Angola, the style of capoeira that is believed to keep the traditions held before Bimba’s creation

of regional. The codification of capoeira regional was essential to its popularity and elevation as

a national sport, leading to the institutionalization of capoeira Angola by Mestre Pastinha in

1941.

Mestre Bimba was born Manoel dos Reis Machado on November 23, 1900, in the

neighborhood of Engenho Velho in Salvador, Bahia. His father, a famous batuqueiro, was born

in Feira de Santana, and his mother, a descendant of indigenous Brazilians and a member of a

candomblé de caboclo, came from Cachoeira. He was initiated into capoeira at the age of twelve

by an African nicknamed Nozinho Bento.39 Bimba grew increasingly dissatisfied with capoeira

as it was practiced at the time. For him, public exhibitions put too much emphasis on show, and

kicks were not efficient enough to face more serious challengers, especially those trained in the

37 Maya Talmon-Chvaicer, The Hidden History of Capoeira: A Collision of Cultures in the Brazilian Battle

Dance (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008), 114. 38 Lewis, Ring of Liberation, 60. 39 Assunção, 128.

26

new martial arts coming from abroad. In response, Bimba developed a new style later referred to

as capoeira regional that added kicks and other movements from other Afro-Brazilian

competitive, circle dances like batuque, a form of dance that combines leg wrestling, and

maculelê, a mock stick-fighting dance, as well as Greco-Roman wrestling, jiu-jitsu, judo, and

French savate to those commonly used in the existing capoeira practice.40 He saw no problem in

introducing kicks from other martial arts, as long as they were effective and could be executed

from capoeira’s basic dance movement, the ginga.

Beyond introducing new moves into the capoeira language, Bimba moved capoeira off

the streets and into academies, and he developed a system of teaching that utilized sequences of

movements. He also instituted two new rituals into his regional style: the batizado, or baptism,

and the graduated corda (belt) system. Batizados were held when a new student was allowed to

play in the roda for the first time. After the game, Bimba gave an apelido, or nickname, to the

novice standing in the middle of the roda, followed by general applause. Following a further

training period during which the baptized student had to acquire the basic skills of how to play in

a roda, he would graduate. The graduating students would then receive a colored silk scarf

depending on their skill level. The introduction of colors to represent levels of hierarchy similar

to Japanese judo. Group identity was reinforced through uniforms, which resembled the style of

port workers’ clothes, the abadá—collarless shirts and trousers ending just below the knees.

Bimba adopted white abadás with the emblem of the school sewn onto the shirt. Well-acquainted

with Afro-Bahian traditions from his parents, Mestre Bimba favored “Axé” as his choice for the

capoeira regional greeting.41

40 Assunção, 129. 41 Ibid., 143.

27

His institutionalization and introduction of a formalized hierarchy among students

represented the modernization of capoeira. J. Lowell Lewis notes, “Perhaps the most significant

thing about Bimba’s academy was his special interest in attracting students form the middle and

upper socioeconomic sectors of Bahian society.”42 On July 23, 1953, Bimba met Getúlio Vargas

who allegedly said on that occasion, “Capoeira is the only truly national sport.”43 Many

capoeiristas, however, were critical of Bimba’s innovations. “Because Bimba’s structured

hierarchy required long-term enrollment and payment, it excluded poor Afro-Brazilians. This has

led many to consider Capoeira Regional “whiter” than Capoeira Angola, despite the fact that

Capoeira Regional groups today are quite racially diverse.”44

Mestre Pastinha, born Vicente Ferreira Pastinha, immortalized the style known as

capoeira Angola when he opened the Centro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola on February 23,

1941. The son of a poor, Spanish immigrant and an Afro-Bahian housewife, Pastinha grew up

learning capoeira from an African named Benedito in Salvador, Bahia.45 Pastinha opposed

Bimba’s incorporation of other martial art movements into capoeira. Throughout his career, he

upheld the ludic aspects of the game over the martial art elements and dedicated himself to

preserving the African traditions in capoeira. He established which instruments were a part of the

capoeira bateria and which songs, movements, and types of games were acceptable. Like Bimba,

Pastinha moved trainings and rodas off the street, created uniforms, and started teaching capoeira

to new audiences. When the Movimento Negro (Black Movement) emerged in Brazil during the

1980s, its proponents turned towards Afro-Brazilian cultural expressions like capoeira in search

42 Lewis, 60. 43 Assunção, 18. 44 Lauren Miller Griffith, In Search of Legitimacy: How Outsiders Become Part of the Afro-

Brazilian Capoeira Tradition (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016), 31. 45 Assunção, 152.

28

for a Black alternative to hegemonic Western values. During this time, capoeira Angola was

being revitalized by Mestre Moraes who put forward more explicitly the idea that capoeira, and

in particular the Angola style, symbolized African identity. Capoeira Angola was reclaimed as a

positive symbol, as a metaphor for tradition.

Mestres Bimba and Pastinha have provoked passionate debates about tradition and

transformation in the capoeira community. Prominent among the early critics was Brazilian

ethnologist Edison Carneiro, who asserted, “the popular, folkloric capoeira, the heritage of

Angola, has nothing to do with Bimba’s.”46 Later, the celebrated Bahian writer Jorge Amado

stated, “Regional does not deserve respect and is a distortion of the old capoeira ‘angola,’ the

only genuine one.”47 Similar to the Eurocentric or Brazilian nationalist viewpoints, the

Afrocentric narrative can become one-sided in its approach. The over-emphasis on capoeira’s

African traits also reduces history into black and white thinking. It can lead to views that freeze

culture in a static pre-modern and non-Western state of authenticity, regarding purity over

transformations.48 Lauren Miller Griffith observed the distinctions between these two styles have

been overtly exaggerated in a way to maintain clear boundaries between the two. A capoeirista’s

stylistic leaning is believed to be detected through the ways in which they move their body. In

capoeira Angola, there is an aspect of mandinga, or trickery, that capoeiristas will use to lure

their partner into a particular part of the roda that is said to not be found in regional. Angola is

said to be played slower and lower to the ground compared to the flashy, upright movements of

regional capoeiristas. “Regional is fighting so Angola must be ludic; Regional allows no shirt so

46 Waldeloir Rego, Capoeira Angola: Ensaio Sócio-Etnográfico (Salvador: Itapuâ, 1968), 269. 47 Ibid., 269. 48 Assunção, 27.

29

Angoleiros have to tuck in their shirts; Regional wears their pants low and sexy so Angola wears

their pants up high.”49

Categorizations such as white, bourgeois, or Western are still popular among

practitioners of Angola style and capoeira scholars. The problem with reified conceptions of

African and black, white and Western is that their meaning was and is an object of constant

renegotiation. Assunção argues, however, that “behaviors, customs, and symbols are seldom

easily identifiable with one of these poles.”50 From her years of practicing capoeira and dancing

candomblé in the United States and Brazil, Barbara Browning noted, “Regional and angola styles

strike me rather as in dialogue with one another, and speaking, finally, the same double-talk,

whether or not you call it ‘up-to-date.’ …[T]he majority of capoeiristas, at least until very

recently, did not necessarily ally themselves with one camp…How do you make rigid alliances

in a world where you must trust everyone but can’t trust anyone?”51

The formation of capoeira academies in Brazil under the influence of Bimba’s regional

style brought drastic changes in training methods, even for Pastinha’s Angola academy.

Previously in charge of managing the local street rodas, the mestre assumed the role as the head

of an academy, organizing the finances and day-to-day operations of the school. With this added

responsibility, the mestre had to delegate his authority to a contramestre, a new instructor role

created for the needs of the academy. With the growth of academies, the process of relegating

authority and breaking training into various levels through which a student must pass and

graduate became more and more structured.52 Throughout the 1950s and 60s, capoeira regional

academies became far more prevalent than those of capoeira Angola. After the mid-1960s,

49 Griffith, In Search of Legitimacy, 25. 50 Assunção, 141. 51 Browning, Samba, 114-15. 52 Lewis, 63.

30

Pastinha’s academy may have been the only one dedicated to capoeira Angola.53 Pastinha was

forced to vacate his academy located in the historic Pelourinho district of Salvador in the

1970s.54 After Mestre Pastinha’s departure from the capoeira scene, regional became more

visible throughout Brazil due in large part to the incentives of the new military government

established in 1964, which stressed the importance of sports and physical education.55 In 1972,

Brazil officially declared capoeira a national sport.56

The 1970s also saw a great expansion of capoeira beyond Brazil’s borders, especially to

Europe and the United States. Better economic opportunities elsewhere were a pull factor for

many capoeira mestres, and touring folkloric dance troupes also took capoeiristas outside the

country with some choosing to stay in the cities where they performed.57 I also argue that the

political tension and economic instability in Brazil during this time would have been push factors

for Brazilian capoeiristas as well. Following the military coup in 1964, leftist politicians,

intellectuals, academics, and artists began fleeing Brazil in exile. The dictatorship used

indiscriminate arrests, kidnapping, and horrific forms of torture on its left-wing opponents

throughout the early 1960s and 1970s.58 From 1970 to 1980, Brazil’s inflation rate grew from

16.4% to 110% due to the OPEC oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 and the rocketing interest rates on

Brazil’s foreign loans.59 Under these circumstances, capoeiristas found fertile ground for the

growth of capoeira in Europe and the United States because it appealed to a wide demographic

that included both martial artists and dancers, as well as students of African-American history.60

53 Griffith, 32. 54 Assunção, 166. 55 Talmon-Chvaicer, The Hidden History of Capoeira, 123. 56 Gerard Taylor, Capoeira: The Jogo de Angola from Luanda to Cyberspace, Volume Two (Berkeley:

Blue Snake Books, 2007), 9. 57 Taylor, Capoeira: The Jogo de Angola from Luanda to Cyberspace, 162. 58 Skidmore, Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, 158-69. 59 Skidmore, 169-72. 60 Taylor, 164.

31

Capoeiristas such as Jelon Vieira, Loremil Machado, Bira Almeida, Marcelo Pereira,

Ricardo Suassuna, Nestor Capoeira, and many other pioneers emigrated to the United States.61

Vieira, a dancer, choreographer, and capoeira mestre, is credited as the first to introduce capoeira

to the USA, arriving in New York in 1975. Finding engaged audiences and interested students,

he began teaching workshops and serving as a guest instructor at Yale University’s African-

American Studies Department in 1982 and taught at a number of dance companies, universities,

and cultural institutes across the country.62 In the early 1980s, there were only four capoeira

academies in the United States—Mestre Jelon and Loremil taught in New York City, Mestre

Acordeon in San Francisco, and Eusebio da Silva Lobo in East St. Louis (Illinois).63 The number

of capoeira academies has exploded since then with the art being taught in all fifty states now.

Most senior teachers are Brazilians who left Brazil in search of a better life, teaching capoeira to

foreigners. Twenty-five years after capoeira’s introduction into the country, a number of North

Americans have now graduated and are now in positions to teach capoeira. Some have even been

granted the title of contramestre and mestre.64

With the proliferation of individualistic styles growing exponentially in the United States

and Europe, a new generation of capoeiristas is starting to refute the regional/Angola dichotomy.

Tallahassee Capoeira and its fellow academies under the Allied Capoeira League subscribe to

this belief and embrace the label capoeira contemporânea. Professor Taz of Tallahassee Capoeira

describes the contemporânea style as a spectrum between regional and Angola. “We can play in

both realms.”65 For him, these blurred stylistic lines started with the creation of capoeira regional

61 Ashley Humphrey, “Where’s the Roda?: Understanding Capoeira Culture in an American Context.”

Master’s thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2018, 26. 62 Taylor, 164. 63 Assunção, 190-191. 64 Ibid., 191. 65 Taz, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, February 10, 2020.

32

by Mestre Bimba, which incorporated new movements from other martial arts. Following his

innovations, Bimba’s students then began further experimenting with what worked best in their

game. Taz explained, “You won’t have the same game as some guy who is six-foot-four. You

won’t move the same way in the roda. Students would connect with the style that suited them

best. There are no set boundaries between the styles—it’s a sliding scale.”66

Capoeira was just capoeira at the beginning, and some capoeiristas affirm that these sharp

distinctions should dissolve. While capoeiristas learn the values, styles, and histories of capoeira

from their mestre, they will always have their own approaches to moving their bodies within the

capoeira roda. As it has become a global phenomenon, capoeira has shifted to suit the needs of

its diverse practitioners. Capoeira contemporânea can encompass the customs, beliefs, songs,

rhythms, and histories of both Angola and regional depending on the values of its practitioners.

The following chapter will discuss how these shifting values are exhibited within the local

context of Tallahassee Capoeira.

66 Taz, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, February 10, 2020.

33

CHAPTER THREE

CAPOEIRA IN TALLAHASSEE

Quem vem lá? Sou eu. Quem vem lá? Sou eu. Berimbau bateu. Capoeira sou eu.

Who goes there? It’s me. Who goes there? It’s me. The berimbau played. Capoeira is me.

The overall axé of a particular academy like Tallahassee Capoeira has developed

gradually over many years through the accumulation of daily interactions and rituals happening

inside its walls. But how did Tallahassee Capoeira come to be? As previously mentioned,

Tallahassee Capoeira belongs to the Allied Capoeira League (ACL), a North American capoeira

contemporânea consortium that also has academies in Gainesville, FL, Macon, GA, and

Sacramento, CA.67 The Tallahassee branch of ACL was formally established in 2014, though the

Florida-native instructors—Dr. Brandon Alkire, otherwise known as Professor Taz, and his wife

Joyleigh, or Instrutora Texuga—have been teaching capoeira in town since 2009. In this chapter,

I explore the various geographic, socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors that contribute to

this capital city being an urban space favorable to the development of an active capoeira scene

and how Tallahassee Capoeira emerged within this urban environment.

Capoeira in the Tallahassee Area

Tallahassee is located within Leon County in Florida’s Big Bend and Panhandle regions, only

fourteen miles from Georgia’s border. With an estimated population of 193,551 in 2018, it is the

seventh-largest city in Florida.68 As the state capital, the host city of two state universities and a

67 The academy in Gainesville is led by Mestrando Mico, while Monitor Camburão runs the one in Macon,

and Mestre Aranha is in charge of the Sacramento academy. 68 “Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2018,” United States Census

Bureau, Population Division, accessed December 2, 2019, https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk.

34

large community college, and a center for trade and agriculture in the region, Tallahassee is a

significant hub of political action, research and education, arts and culture, and business and

finance for the state of Florida—and for the northern portion of the state in particular. The Visit

Tallahassee website describes the city as “a place where college town meets cultural center,

politics meets performing arts, and history meets nature.”69

Tallahassee’s early history bears comparison to that of certain cities and regions in Brazil

during the colonial period. It is a history filled with violence through multiple periods of

settlement by Spanish and British colonists, who either forced out or decimated the Apalachee

and Seminole tribes living in the region, and also through its participation in the plantation

economy.70 After the territory of Florida was ceded to the United States by Spain, Leon County

became one of the largest cotton plantation counties in the state, and the city of Tallahassee was

a center for Florida’s slave trade prior to the Civil War.71 The structural violence and persecution

of the slavery era persisted post-emancipation in Tallahassee as well—as was also the case in

countless other Southern cities—through myriad forms of racial oppression including lynchings

and policies of legal racial segregation that persisted through the mid-1960s.72 Recently, in a

2015 report by the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute, Tallahassee was ranked as

the most economically segregated city in the United States.73

69 “About Tallahassee,” Visit Tallahassee: A Division of Leon County. Leon County Division of Tourism,

accessed December 2, 2019, https://www.visittallahassee.com/about-tallahassee/#history-4. 70 “History and Characteristics,” City of Tallahassee, accessed April 4, 2020,

https://www.talgov.com/place/pln-ac-history.aspx. 71 See Larry E. Rivers (1981) and Julia Floyd Smith (1973). 72 For an in-depth discussion on Tallahassee residents’ contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, see

Glenda Alice Rabby’s The Pain and the Promise: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee, Florida (1999). 73 This report has been disputed by Tallahassee government officials. See Karl Etters, “Chamber refutes

economic report,” Tallahassee Democrat, February 25, 2015, accessed April 4, 2020, https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2015/02/25/report-calls-tallahassee-economically-segregated/24030153/.

35

Higher education institutions play a significant role in Tallahassee’s demographics and

everyday operations. The city’s two universities, Florida State University (FSU) and Florida

Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), in many ways define the flow of cultural life

from football to finance, with Tallahassee Community College (TCC) contributing to this flow in

substantial ways as well. Established in 1887, FAMU is the oldest HBCU in Florida,74 and

according to its website, FAMU is “the highest-ranked public HBCU in the U.S. according to

News & World Report's list of national public universities.”75 TCC is also a large, highly

ranked state college that serves as a feeder school to FSU and FAMU, as well as to other state

universities, and that also offers a range of workforce development and professional trade

programs that directly qualify graduates for key local positions from hospitals to state

government agencies.

These institutions attract a population of students and faculty from across Florida, the

United States, and abroad, many of whom seek to engage with different perspectives, experience

diverse cultural expressions, and find outlets for stress release while living in Tallahassee. As the

state capital and seat of state government, Tallahassee has a large number of residents with

sufficient disposable income and desires for fitness and stress reduction programs for themselves

and their children to provide a solid economic base for an institution like Tallahassee Capoeira.

Several of Tallahassee Capoeira’s current participants are affiliated with either FSU or FAMU as

graduate students or faculty members, often training capoeira in conjunction with their kids.

College towns are ideal environments for capoeira academies and communities and there are two

74 “About Tallahassee,” Visit Tallahassee: A Division of Leon County. Leon County Division of Tourism,

accessed December 2, 2019, https://www.visittallahassee.com/about-tallahassee/#history-4. 75 “HBCU Excellence,” Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, accessed December 2, 2019,

http://admissions.famu.edu/.

36

universities and a community college here. FAMU is an HBCU and capoeira connects to a broad

Afrocentric ideal, which may be another attraction for this art in this city.

Pensador, a graduate student in clinical psychology at FSU, first learned about capoeira

from playing the video games Tekken III (1997) and Tekken IV (2001) as a child, and he

eventually tried a drop-in capoeira class as an undergraduate student in Oakland, CA. “I always

knew about capoeira, and I just thought it was cool and beautiful, but I had a lot of social anxiety

when I was younger and was just more inhibited and scared to try things like that.”76 He started

taking classes at Tallahassee Capoeira shortly after he moved from California to Florida to begin

his program in fall 2018. “I saw a therapist for three sessions that fall semester because I was

overwhelmed and stressed, and she assigned me some homework to find a hobby like doing

something outdoors or something like. I was like, ‘Oh, this is a perfect opportunity to start a

physical hobby,’ and capoeira was something that I’ve always wanted to do.”77

Careta, a recent graduate of FSU’s English Literature Ph.D. program, started training at

Tallahassee Capoeira over a year ago, but his eight-year old son Sapinho has been taking

capoeira classes there for four years now. “I was really busy with the Ph.D. work, so even though

I wanted to [join] even at the beginning, I didn’t feel like I had enough time…We were just

taking [Sapinho] to the practices on Mondays and Wednesdays. We’d go to the batizados, and

those were always really, really fun. I always wished that I was a part of it, you know? I didn’t

know about the Friday rodas until the summer I started. So, I took him to one Friday, and it was

just, like, irresistible. I was, like, clapping. I was sitting on the side, but I was still clapping. I

76 Pensador, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 30, 2019. 77 Ibid.

37

wanted to sing the songs. I think there might have been one or two other adults who were around

at that time…. I just couldn’t bear not being a part of it.”78

In its beginnings, Tallahassee Capoeira’s membership was primarily made up of adults,

but it has shifted more toward children between the ages of six and twelve in recent years.

Currently, there are about thirty kids and ten adults who regularly train at Tallahassee Capoeira,

with a near equal proportion of male and female participants. The community is made up of

primarily white, middle-class, English speakers, though many other ethnicities are also

represented, including Black or African-American, Indian, Lebanese-Armenian, New Zealander,

Puerto Rican, and Sri Lankan. The monthly membership fees, cost of uniforms, and biannual

graduation testing rate may prevent those with little discretionary income to participate in

capoeira. Free family classes and training sessions are offered intermittently to boost

membership, and Professor and Instrutora often volunteer their time to present capoeira

workshops at various schools and community events around town. The Tallahassee Capoeira

community remains connected outside the walls of the academy through monthly e-mail

newsletters, Facebook and Instagram posts, and GroupMe messages that announce upcoming

capoeira or Brazilian-related events, share photos and videos, and post song lyrics and

recordings.

On weekdays from 4:15pm to 8pm, the academy offers classes for preschoolers and for

kids four and five years old to classes for ages six through twelve, as well as classes for teens and

adults ages thirteen and up. Beyond those main offerings, classes for Intermediate kids,

Intermediate teens and adults, a teens and adult strength and conditioning session, and a teens

and adult music class fill up the schedule. Each week culminates with a Friday evening roda,

78 Careta, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 13, 2019.

38

open to all ages, which follows a kid’s music class, and a Saturday morning Capo-Tot class for

eighteen-month old to three-year old kids with their parents followed by a family class for all

ages. Tallahassee Capoeira is currently the only academy within the Allied Capoeira League that

offers stand-alone music classes as part of their schedule.

The entrance to Tallahassee Capoeira is nestled between a Cuts by Us hair salon and an

Edible Arrangements branch in a shopping plaza next to the bustling Publix supermarket across

from Lake Ella Park.79 Its entryway features a table of flyers of the academy’s weekly schedule,

various graduation level requirements, and other Tallahassee events alongside a cubby unit for

participants to stow their shoes, water bottles, and other personal belongings while they train.

With a quasi-open floor plan, the main training space is bordered by a carpeted waiting area

lined with chairs and a hallway that leads to a back playroom filled with toys, books, and art

supplies for kids. The bright, teal walls display many capoeira-related artworks drawn by kids

involved with Tallahassee Capoeira and the ACL, creating a vibrant, inviting atmosphere for

participants young and old.

Lit with fluorescent lights, the main training space has light wooden floorboards with a

ten-foot diameter circle traced on the floor with blue painters’ tape. The front wall is covered

with floor to ceiling mirrors, which are often scrawled with sequences of capoeira movements

and various Portuguese song lyrics written in dry-erase marker. The side wall features a large,

Styrofoam coin covered with the Allied Capoeira League’s logo, which prominently features

capoeira’s chief musical instrument, the berimbau, as does the logo for Tallahassee Capoeira (see

Figure 3.1). Gymnastic rings hanging from the high-vaulted ceiling are secured against the back

79 Prior to this location, Tallahassee capoeiristas trained in various shared spaces in community centers,

gyms, dance studios, and other martial arts schools located on Jackson Street, Pensacola Street, Thomasville Road, and North Monroe Street. Their location in Midtown opened in early 2018.

39

wall, and the back corner is filled with a host of Brazilian instruments, kicking pads, tumbling

mats, weight lifting equipment, and a bundle of hula hoops.

Figure 3.1. Allied Capoeira League and Tallahassee Capoeira logos.

Building the Academy: Tallahassee Capoeira’s Origin Story

As the parents of four homeschooled daughters ranging in age from one to twelve years old and

owners of two private businesses, Tallahassee Capoeira and Body Mechanix Physiotherapy and

Fitness, Taz and Texuga are an industrious team who divide the academy’s teaching load

depending on the other’s availability. Currently in their early forties, the two have been

practicing capoeira in Florida for roughly twenty years. When asked about their early years in

capoeira, Texuga responded, “Brandon and I, we both have had times where either I would walk

away from it for some reason—maybe it was a baby or when I was nearing the end of my degree,

and I didn’t have time. He walked away from it less than I did because of babies, but he had an

injury at one time, and I was the only one training. But we just both kept coming back to it—it

was something we enjoyed doing.”80

80 Instrutora Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019.

40

Like most young adults growing up in the United States during the 1990s, Taz first

learned about capoeira from seeing the movie Only the Strong (1993) and playing video games

like Tekken III (1997).81 By the time he was an undergraduate at Florida State University in

1999, he had been studying kung fu for seven to eight years under the instruction of a man

named Roger, or Cachorrão, who was trying to learn capoeira at that time. Since there were no

capoeira instructors in Tallahassee, Cachorrão and Taz would intermittently travel to Sarasota,

Florida, and practice with Mestre Rony Costa at Capoeira Volta ao Mundo.82 They would come

back to Tallahassee and train capoeira in a warehouse off of Tennessee Street until their next trip

down to Sarasota. Shortly after Taz started learning capoeira, he began dating Texuga and

invited her to try it out. She had never heard of capoeira prior to meeting Taz but came to relish

its rewarding physical challenges coupled with her blossoming relationship with Taz.83

Concerned with the quality of information that was getting transferred through these

sporadic trips, Mestre Rony contacted his students Aranha and Mico and asked that they move to

Tallahassee to teach capoeira. Both men were at various stages in the teaching level cordas with

Aranha being higher-ranked than Mico. At that time, Aranha was teaching in Ukiah, CA, and

Mico was in Sarasota, FL. They were both living in Tallahassee and offering capoeira classes by

2000. Aranha and Mico eventually cut ties with Volta ao Mundo and became affiliated with

Capoeira Maculelê, headed by Mestre Fran, in Atlanta, GA.84 Around 2010, Mico left

Tallahassee to establish a capoeira academy in Gainesville, FL, and Aranha moved to

Sacramento, CA, to do the same, so Taz, Texuga, and their fellow advanced-level students

81 Professor Taz, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, February 10, 2020. 82 Mestre Rony graduated in Brazil and has been teaching since 1985. According to Texuga, his school in

Sarasota has one of the largest kids’ programs in the country. 83 Instrutora Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019. 84 Mestre Fran is a capoeirista from Londrina, PR, Brazil, who founded the Associação Cultural de

Capoeira Maculelê in 1991 and established the academy in Atlanta in 2003. See “Mestre Fran,” Capoeira Maculelê Decatur Brazilian Art Center, accessed March 19, 2020, http://capoeiraatlanta.com/mestre-fran/.

41

Camburão and Jibóia formed a committee and began teaching capoeira classes in Tallahassee

even though they had not yet earned their teaching cordas. These academies remained tied to

Mestre Fran and Capoeira Maculelê but under the supervision of Aranha.

Over the years, Aranha, Mico, Taz, Texuga, and Camburão became frustrated with the

large capoeira organizations that they were involved with and eventually set out to establish their

own—the Allied Capoeira League. Their primary dissatisfaction stemmed from capoeira

mestres’ seemingly indiscriminate practices for graduating students and the inability to level up

for those capoeiristas who want to continue developing their skills without becoming a capoeira

instructor. Texuga commented that in some capoeira schools, students only receive higher cordas

if they master acrobatic moves, while in other schools, capoeiristas will get to a certain point in

the corda system and will not graduate unless they travel to give workshops. “There are these

other expectations—that aren’t necessarily capoeira-based—placed on students, and [Mestre]

Aranha wanted to minimize that. He wanted to make sure it was about the movements, about the

music. So that’s what the curriculum does.”85 Taz also noted, “It’s not standardized across the

schools, so one mestre might just level up a kid just because they’ve been training for a couple of

months. We also wanted to reward the kids that were developing past their age bracket.”86

While Texuga and Taz were first studying capoeira under the umbrella of Volta ao

Mundo, batizados were elaborate events that involved workshops held over the course of three or

four days. Mestre Rony would invite anywhere from eight to twenty big-name mestres to come

in and lead these workshops. A $200 registration fee would be required to attend these batizados,

which covered the cost of a t-shirt, corda, workshop, and travel fees for the visiting instructors.

The paradigm of these enormous batizado events was also a source of discord for the instructors

85 Instrutora Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019. 86 Professor Taz, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, February 10, 2020.

42

of ACL. Anytime their students wanted to level up, they would have to travel to one of these

large batizados in Sarasota or in Atlanta once they became affiliated with Capoeira Maculelê. If

they wanted to host a local batizado, they would have to front the money to buy plane tickets and

lodging for all the visiting mestres. Mestre Aranha wanted to make this optional so more

intimate, pared-down batizados would be perfectly acceptable as well. With smaller batizados,

students are able to play more compared to the big events where many capoeiristas come to train

with visiting mestres and oftentimes the newer players do not get the opportunity to play as

much.87

Since the formation of the Allied Capoeira League, group identity for ACL capoeiristas is

enforced through uniforms, which resemble the traditional white abadás endorsed by Mestre

Bimba and his students, and through apelidos given by one’s teacher. The black, red, and yellow-

colored logo of the Allied Capoeira League is embroidered on the front of the abadás and printed

on the fronts and backs of t-shirts and tank tops. Though not a hard rule, capoeiristas are

expected to wear their uniforms and corda to every class and roda, especially after their first

batizado. Chosen based on an individual’s idiosyncrasies, an apelido is also an important

component of the capoeira community. Receiving a Portuguese nickname from one’s main

instructor marks a capoeirista as being officially a part of the ACL community. Generally given

after a capoeirista’s first batizado, the apelido serves as an alter identity used only within

capoeira-related social contexts.

Teaching and Evaluating Capoeiristas

The ACL instructors have continued to refine their approaches to teaching and practicing

capoeira. Larger capoeira organizations do not typically have written curriculum, but the ACL

87 Instrutora Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019.

43

instructors wanted to systematize how and why students graduate to higher corda levels. Taz

started working with Mico in Gainesville, who also has a large kid’s program, to create a rubric

built on kids’ developmental abilities. “The rubric is based on their listening, leading, and

movement—are they listening first time, every time? Are they able to lead by example?”88

According to the ACL rubrics, the yellow bracket rewards students who listen and follow

directions, the orange bracket rewards those who show determination and accept failure as a

normal part of growth, while the teal bracket rewards students’ leadership skills and those who

motivate and encourage others.89

Utilizing his background as a physical therapist, Taz categorized movements into

difficulty levels based on developmental abilities. For example, in the first level, the yellow

bracket, there are no rotational kicks or defense moves. Once a student moves up into the orange

bracket, they get some rotational moves and they are asked to sequence those movements on

their own, adding an extra mental capacity requirement on top of the physical development. By

the time kids graduate through the five cordas of the yellow bracket, they should be able to clap

correctly with the music and be able to play pandeiro in the correct rhythmic pattern. The orange

bracket rubric requires students to consistently clap and play the basic rhythms on atabaque and

pandeiro and regularly play in time on the berimbau before graduating into the teal bracket,

which has no further musical requirements listed. The kids’ corda levels are instituted up until

they are thirteen years old to protect them from adults playing them in the roda. The visual

difference of the cordas between kids and adults should inform an adult to play with more care

(see Figure 3.2).90

88 Professor Taz, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, February 10, 2020. 89 See Appendix A for the ACL’s rubrics for kids and adults. 90 Professor Taz, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, February 10, 2020.

44

Figure 3.2. Standardized corda levels for adult and kids in the Allied Capoeira League

For adults, the path to graduado, or graduated, is divided into four brackets—Novice,

Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced—with five cordas in each bracket. The goals for each

division develop from mastering the four basic kicks (meia lua de frente, queixada, armada, and

meia lua de compasso) while maintaining basic ginga form and demonstrating proper escapes to

adding movement and dimension into the game, and finally proving mastery of strategy and

control of the game through more advanced kicks, escapes, and acrobatic moves. There is still no

curriculum for the teacher brackets—Monitor, Instrutor, Professor, Mestrando, and Mestre. ACL

capoeiristas in these brackets can only advance up a level at the discretion of Mestre Aranha.

Those graduations are still largely based on time and teaching experience according to Graduado

Raptor.91

Expectations for acquiring fluency in capoeira music are also incorporated into the

requirements for each adult level bracket. Novice players should be able to play the São Bento

91 Graduado Raptor, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, October 15, 2019.

45

Grande rhythm on the berimbau and play pandeiro and atabaque in time with São Bento

Grande.92 They should attempt to sing along to most choruses and be able to clap along with the

music. Beginners must demonstrate that they can consistently produce a quality sound on the

berimbau, always come in on the right beat on the berimbau, atabaque, and pandeiro, and sing

the correct words for many simple choruses. Intermediate capoeiristas should be able to sing the

lead part to five songs, consistently sing the responses for other songs, improvise variations

while playing berimbau, be able to sing while playing any of the instruments, and tune the

pandeiro and atabaque as necessary. The musical requirements for the Advanced bracket include

being able to lead twenty songs while playing berimbau and being able to tune and lead the

various instruments of the bateria.

Connecting to a Larger Capoeira Network

Since Tallahassee Capoeira is linked to several other academies in north/central Florida and

central Georgia, the infrastructure for an academy in Tallahassee was readily available (see

Figure 3.3). Professor and Instrutora maintain connections to their previous capoeira

organizations and make frequent trips to Sarasota and Boynton Beach to attend workshops,

tournaments, and batizados at Volta ao Mundo and Maculelê. Instructors and students of the

Allied Capoeira League academies in Tallahassee, Gainesville, and Macon travel to visit one

another throughout the year.

Graduado Raptor and Sabiá also actively build relationships with other capoeira

academies, trying to attend as many events as they can in the area and elsewhere in the States

during work trips. Sabiá explained, “We try to go to all the events in Florida, and it’s probably

better for him as a teacher to make that connection with other schools, and I just do it for fun.”

92 Capoeira rhythms like São Bento Grande will be discussed in further detail in chapter four.

46

With Raptor nodding in agreement, Sabiá added, “It’s fun to play different people that you’ve

never played before and lots of higher ups.” Turning to Raptor, I asked, “Why are those

connections important with the other schools?” He clarified by saying, “From an academy stand

point, it’s good to make those friendships with other schools not only for expanding your reach

but also just to give to their school. The more friendships that you make with other academies,

the more people will come out to your academy to make your events bigger, make your events

more enjoyable for your own students. There’s more energy involved when there’s more

people.” Reflecting on their experiences outside of Tallahassee Capoeira, Sabiá also mentioned,

“Every school has a different style so you can learn everyone’s style. Like in Boynton Beach,

they’re super handsy.” “What school is that?” I asked, and they both answered Karkará. “We’ve

slowly been developing a good relationship with their school going down to their events and

having them come up to Gainesville,” explained Raptor.93

Figure 3.3. Tallahassee Capoeira’s network with capoeira academies in the surrounding area.

93 Graduado Raptor and Sabia, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, October 15, 2019.

47

These recent changes may seem like the Allied Capoeira League is further

institutionalizing capoeira with their curriculum and rubrics and playing into the American ethos

of upward mobility, but Tallahassee Capoeira and the other Allied Capoeira League schools are

also aiming to make their graduation system more reflective of capoeira’s main values by

prioritizing the mastery of both movement and music and not just acrobatics. They are striving to

cultivate personal growth in each student by allowing capoeiristas to continue to advance toward

a goal without having to become a mestre. The Allied Capoeira League places value on being a

part of the community and developing respect, determination, and motivation in each capoeirista

through movement and music making.

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CHAPTER FOUR

MAKING MUSIC AT TALLAHASSEE CAPOEIRA

La lauê lauê lauê lauá Lalaêlauê Em cada som, em cada toque, Em cada ginga, no estilo do jogo

La lauê lauê lauê lauá Lalaêlauê In every sound, in every rhythm, In every ginga, is the style of the game.

On the first Friday of September, 2019, twenty-two capoeiristas—ten children and twelve

adults—came to play capoeira. For the first time during a regular roda at Tallahassee Capoeira,

there were enough participants to have a full bateria, and I could sense the excitement rippling

through the room. Professor ran through the rules of roda for the kids, the first rule being “Don’t

blast your buddies!” followed by the second, “Always pay attention.” Building off of the energy

already in the space from having a full bateria and so many people attending, Professor started

the roda with the greatest hits—“‘Tamos Juntos,” “Santo Antônio quero água,” “ABC,”

“AEIOU,” “A hora é essa,” “O dendê,” and “Cajuê”—so everyone would be singing along,

loudly.

With her determined eyes locked on her partner and a wicked grin planted on her face,

Biscoitinha was set on taking down the higher-ranked players like Instrutor Salamandra, Monitor

Morcego, and Graduado Raptor. Though she was unsuccessful, it was exhilarating to watch her

long limbs move nimbly around the roda. Professor eventually paused the game for a water break

and had us split into two rodas—one for kids and one for adults—for the second half of roda.

Instrutora had placed colorful rubber circles on the floor to help the kids maintain a circular

formation. Once Salamandra and Pensador entered the roda, my anxiety rocketed from watching

their rapid-fire exchange of spinning kicks and near misses. Taz’s high energy was never-ending;

he didn’t pass the berimbau off once, shouting, “Iê!” throughout various games, and engaging

49

with other bateria players by turning to look at them and making faces when there were some

close calls from the capoeiristas playing inside the roda.

He called “Uma volta só” towards the end of roda to bring the energy up even more. In

this part of the game, anyone can buy in at any time, so games between two players are shorter

and faster. Professor switched over to the academy’s traditional closer, “La la é” after sensing the

energy dwindle. The last game dissolved into a dance party as everyone, including the bateria

members, gathered in the center of what was once the roda, jumping up and down and pumping

their fists back and forth into the air, breathlessly chanting the response, “La la é, la la é, la la é a

la é la.” After the last note of the berimbau was struck to end the roda, we huddled up to listen to

Professor’s take on the evening. He said he cut off the game because he wanted “to end on a high

note” to which Viking immediately started singing in falsetto. We all chuckled at his antics and

stacked our right hands together into the middle of the huddle to begin the closing ritual. “UM,

DOIS, TRÊS!” Professor yelled, to which everyone responded, “AXÉ, CAPOEIRA!” as we

threw our hands up into the air.94

Taking up space, being aware of one’s own physical body, and conversing with another

body through improvised movements are of crucial importance when playing capoeira, but these

movements would be meaningless without the music accompanying it. Music is the life force of

capoeira—there is an intimate interdependence between the music and the movement in

capoeira. As the physical movements within the roda change, so will the music, and if the music

changes, the players will take note and adjust accordingly. J. Lowell Lewis argues that music is

the “privileged domain of comradeship (communitas) relative to the physical interaction, which

tends to foreground competition…” and “instrumental music is preferentially weighted toward

94 Author’s field notes, September 6, 2019.

50

the expression of cooperation, as a check against the violent tendencies of physical play.”95 He

goes on to claim that capoeira’s agonistic styles like capoeira regional place less importance on

music compared to the more ludic style of capoeira Angola. Though Tallahassee Capoeira may

resemble more of the regional style in movement, music is still emphasized throughout its

everyday operations.

Figure 4.1. Pensador throwing a kick during the ACL tournament hosted by Tallahassee Capoeira. While the rapid physical movements may resemble regional, music still plays a

significant role in ACL academies. For Texuga, “[The music] gives the mood; it can tell the players the intention of the

game. If the music is bad, usually the capoeira is bad…It has a huge influence on how the

capoeira is played and what the intentions are.”96 The music dictates the mood of the game by

setting the tempo and the style of the game through the toques, or distinct rhythmic patterns,

played. Maintaining that relationship, the mestre plays a role similar to that of a DJ by getting a

feel for the room and manipulating the energy of the space. Various factors like the songs

95 J. Lowell Lewis, Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1992), 146. 96 Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019.

51

chosen, shifting tempos, indoors versus outdoor settings, and even room temperature can play

into the energy of a game. In our conversation, Viking observed the differences between

Mestrando Mico and Professor Taz’s approaches to calling songs, noting, “When Mico is calling,

he’s got a pattern that he follows. It starts out, it builds, then there’s a couple of really big [songs]

like everybody is throwing axé, and he brings it back down. He follows a rising and falling

action. It really depends on who’s playing, how it’s going, if people are participating. There’s a

lot that factors into it.” “Have you noticed that with Professor calling?” I asked, thinking back on

last Friday’s roda. Viking answered promptly, “It seems like a lot of his [song choices] are what

comes to mind. And sometimes he’ll react. As people are coming up, he’ll change the song.

When he sees what might a particularly really good match up, he’ll change to something else like

he’ll do “Laué” or he’ll throw one of the songs that have no lyrics like (singing) “La la é” to get

everyone pumped up for it. Or if the action is falling too much, he’ll change tact.”97

Many of my informants expressed it was the music that originally attracted them to

Tallahassee Capoeira. Elunacy, a computer programmer and amateur DJ who frequently

composes metal and electronic music that incorporates his collection of world music instruments,

began attending classes in January 2019 after seeing Taz and a group of others performing in

Tallahassee’s Cascades Park. “I saw Taz with the berimbau, so since I had one, I was like,

‘Whooooaaa, look somebody with a berimbau!’…I knew about the berimbau because of a band

from Brazil called Sepultura and later Soulfly. I knew that it was used in capoeira, but I never got

into the martial art aspect of it, more of the music partially because of the berimbau by itself.”98

After attending a couple of Tallahassee Capoeira’s family classes with his daughter Coruja,

Viking had a similar attraction to capoeira, stating, “When I learned of capoeira and learned

97 Viking, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 11, 2019. 98 Elunacy, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 22, 2019.

52

about the musical component to it, how much emphasis there is on learning the songs,

participating, singing along, clapping, playing the instruments…that was probably the biggest

hook for me, the music.”99

Instruments

Live music always accompanies rodas and larger events at Tallahassee Capoeira, whereas

recorded music from CDs and YouTube or Spotify playlists sound through a Bluetooth speaker

during training sessions.100 A full bateria, or percussion ensemble, at Tallahassee Capoeira

consists of the following instruments: three berimbaus (one-stringed musical bow), one atabaque

(tall, rope-tension drum), and one pandeiro (tambourine). Some instruments may or may not be

doubled depending on the number of capoeiristas available and occasionally the agogô (double

bell) will be added to the bateria. Other schools may include the reco-reco, or wooden scraper,

within the bateria as well. With a smaller number of participants, it is rare to have a full bateria

in Tallahassee outside of special events like batizados and tournaments, so rodas are typically

accompanied with just a berimbau and an atabaque or pandeiro. All participants will alternate

between sparring, singing and clapping, and playing instruments.

Capoeira games begin with the sound of the berimbau. The berimbau is a single-string

musical bow from Brazil. It determines the style of game played by its rhythm and leads the

capoeiristas’ movements in the roda, manipulating the tempo of the game. The berimbau is made

of a verga, a staff traditionally made from indigenous biriba wood about four to five feet long,

that is strung from one end of the verga to the other with a steel string or arame that is often

pulled from the inside of a car tire. Acting as a resonator, the cabaça, or dried gourd that has

99 Viking, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 11, 2019. 100 Only during conditioning class does the music switch over from capoeira to metal, which many of the

adults, including Taz, are avid listeners of.

53

been opened and hollowed-out, is positioned about a hand’s width from the bottom of the verga

with a loop of string, creating a bridge that divides the arame into two pitches—one high, one

low.

The instrument is secured in the left hand by wrapping the two middle fingers around the

verga and placing the top joint of the pinky finger under the cabaça's string bridge. Learning to

balance the top-heavy instrument on that joint and build the stamina to support the weight of the

berimbau is often a great challenge for novice capoeiristas. Even more experienced players will

continue to joke about the numbing pain in their left pinky. The dobrão, a small stone or coin, is

held between the left hand’s index finger and thumb, while the cabaça rests against the player’s

stomach. The right hand holds a thin, wooden stick called the baqueta with the thumb and index

finger and a caxixi, or shaker, is looped through the two middle fingers. One strikes the arame

just above the bridge of the cabaça with the baqueta to produce an open string sound. Beyond the

open string of the berimbau, the dobrão is used to manipulate the pitch of the instrument, either

producing a buzzing sound by lightly pressing the dobrão to the arame or playing a raised pitch

by firmly pressing the coin into the wire. The berimbau’s sound can also be altered by moving

the cabaça back and forth from the stomach, producing a wah-wah effect. There are three

berimbaus in capoeira: the gunga, médio, and viola. The gunga has the lowest tone of the three,

followed by the médio which is tuned to the raised pitch of the gunga, and the viola, the

berimbau with the highest tone, tuned to the raised pitch of the médio. The gunga is reserved for

the highest-ranking capoeirista who will also lead the songs. The médio holds down a

complementary rhythm to the gunga, and the viola improvises around the main rhythm of the

gunga. If there are not enough qualified berimbau players available, the gunga alone suffices for

a roda.

54

To begin a capoeira game, the gunga player, typically the most senior member, may play

Cavalaria, a rhythmic call for the participants to know the roda is about to start and they need to

circle up. A string of four groupings of eighth-note triplets is then played, which quickly

transition into the São Bento Grande rhythm, while the médio player layers in with a counter-

rhythm to São Bento Grande,101 followed by the viola playing São Bento Grande. After the

berimbaus have all entered, the atabaque player will add to the lower spectrum with its deep,

booming voice playing the underlying rhythm of two eighth-notes followed by a quarter note and

keeping the tempo steady. The pandeiro will follow shortly, and lastly, the ringing, metal agogô,

which hovers sonically over all the other percussion instruments. Slight variations on the

instruments are typically welcomed as long as they do not disrupt the flow of the music. Once all

the instruments of the bateria have entered, the gunga player (typically Professor or Instrutora)

will begin to lead songs in Portuguese.

Figure 4.2. Layering of instrumental toques in Tallahassee Capoeira bateria.

101 This counter-rhythm is the same as the Benguela toque played for Benguela-style games. In our

interview, Taz explained he usually just refers to the médio part as a counter-rhythm to São Bento Grande, though he might teach it as Benguela if that is how a student is able to understand it better.

São Bento Grande toque

Counter-rhythm to São Bento

Grande

Palma de Bimba

São Bento Grande + improvising

( ) ) (

55

Capoeira Songs

A capoeira Angola game always begins with the ladainha, or litany, which is a solo sung by the

most senior member present, who is playing the gunga. These songs can be improvised but are

usually chosen from a canon of preexisting ladainhas. They may speak of moral values, praise

God, recount histories and legends, and honor historical figures. Two players crouch at the foot

of their mestre and listen attentively to the ladainha before beginning to play. Once the person

singing finishes, they will begin to sing the call-and-response sections—the chula, which primes

the participants to get ready by invoking God, the mestre, and capoeira, followed by a string of

corridos, shorter songs that often analyze the rules of the game and comment on the players’

actions. The corridos are always accompanied with clapping in the palma de Bimba rhythm—

two eighth-notes followed by a quarter note—or the palma de terreiro rhythm, a syncopated three

quarter-note triplet pattern. Once a first call and response has been sung, the gunga player will

motion with the instrument for the two capoeiristas to begin playing and when another player

may buy into the game.

Regional and contemporânea schools like Tallahassee Capoeira commonly leave out the

ladainha and chula and begin singing a corrido or a quadra, a four-line solo verse, followed by

the response and accompanied with clapping throughout. Each song form has a different length

of calls and responses. The calls often change or vary slightly as well. Taz believes about seventy

percent of the songs sung are corridos, and most contain themes about places and people

important to capoeira like the historic quilombo Palmares; Aruanda, a former slave port; Bahia;

and the sea. From analyzing the compilation of songs that I have gathered during my fieldwork,

there is a mix of songs that reference both capoeira Angola and capoeira regional as well as other

56

Brazilian cultural references like samba, dendê, and Santo Antônio, one of the saints celebrated

during the Festas Juninas in Brazil.102

New capoeira songs are created all the time and are circulated throughout the capoeira

network via YouTube videos of rodas,103 Spotify and SoundCloud playlists, and among

participants at special events like workshops and tournaments. Styles of songs have gone through

phases, from longer poetic forms in the 2000s to a more “bubblegum pop” stage as Mestrando

Mico describes the current emphasis on catchy corridos. Often referred to as “capoeira’s greatest

hits” by Taz, a handful of songs like "Paraná ê,” “La la é,” and “Santo Antônio quero água”

appear at some point during the weekly Friday evening roda at Tallahassee Capoeira. The poetic

nuance and the improvised lyrics in the conveyed histories, morals, and myths of the ladainhas

would not translate to English speakers at Tallahassee Capoeira. As shorter call-and-response

song forms, corridos and quadras serve to maximize participation for a community of non-

Portuguese speakers and even they can be difficult for non-Brazilian capoeiristas to learn.104

Tallahassee capoeiristas familiarize themselves with Portuguese the more they train,

acquiring vocabulary here and there when words are translated at the academy. Beyond picking

102 See Appendix B for Tallahassee Capoeira’s song repertoire. 103 YouTube video clips of the Sunday rodas at the historic Praça da República in São Paulo, Brazil, are

popular among ACL instructors. Some subscribe to capoeiraviva.net to pay to watch the complete rodas. The weekly capoeira roda at the Praça was established by Mestre Ananias in 1953 and is frequented by capoeiristas from various schools. Street rodas like those at Salvador’s Mercado Modelo and the Praça da República often explore the boundaries between games and fights. They sometimes turn into real fights and often result in injuries. In Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art, 195. Tourists frequent this area as well, and the capoeiristas play to their crowd, staging games with knives and other weapons.

104 The only English lyrics that may appear during a roda at Tallahassee Capoeira are those to the “Happy Birthday” song. Birthday rodas are celebratory events that can happen during part of a regular Friday roda where each person will play the capoeirista with the recent birthday in succession until everyone has played them. Professor begins by playing the São Bento Grande toque on the berimbau and calling the Portuguese “Happy Birthday” lyrics “Parabéns pra você nesta data querida. Muitas felicidades, muitos anos de vida,” and everyone responding in Portuguese. The music continues in this call-and-response fashion as people buy in to play with the birthday capoeirista. Taz eventually switches to singing the English version in which the person’s apelido will be used instead of their real name. By the end, the capoeirista with the birthday is utterly exhausted after playing a long sequence of games. Careta’s fortieth birthday coincided with one of the largest rodas of the year, and he ended up playing seventeen games in a row.

57

up translations for capoeira moves, apelidos, numbers, and some song lyrics during classes, they

may or may not engage with the Portuguese language any further, depending on their desire and

amount of time willing to spend on learning another language. Pensador expressed, “I’d like to

learn Portuguese too, but it’s not something I’m going to prioritize heavily, you know? I started

doing some Duolingo classes when I was in California but then stopped.”105 When asked how his

Portuguese has improved the more he has trained, Careta said, “We were practicing Portuguese

with notecards just to get some vocab down, but we’ve slacked off on it.”106 For Elunacy, a

native Spanish-speaker, Portuguese song lyrics are easier to translate. “For the most part, I

already know what the hell they’re singing, and sometimes I’m like can you translate that word

for me? And when they say it, I’m like oh, that makes sense to me because it connects to the

Spanish word.”107

The relationship of the teachers and students at Tallahassee Capoeira to the Portuguese

language is fragmented. Though they may not engage with the language outside of classes, many

of my informants believe that being able to understand Portuguese is an important aspect of

practicing capoeira. Pensador shared, “I often ask what songs mean. I always want to, but I often

don’t because it seems annoying, and I would do it every time, you know? And when I could just

look it up myself. I find it harder to connect with the songs because I don’t know what they mean

a lot of the time and I don’t know how to say them. When I learn what a song means, I like it so

much more.”108 When asked about her future goals as a capoeirista, Texuga answered she wanted

to get better at leading the music and understanding Portuguese. “One of the reasons why

knowing more Portuguese would be really helpful [is] because you never know when someone’s

105 Pensador, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 30, 2019. 106 Careta, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 13, 2019. 107 Elunacy, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 22, 2019. 108 Pensador, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 30, 2019.

58

just singing songs because those are the songs they sing and they fit well together or whether

they’re actually trying to tell the people in the roda something. Whereas if I think you were

fluent in the language, if we were singing English songs, we would know if someone started

something that applied to what we were doing right then or not.”109 Whatever degree they choose

to engage with the Portuguese language, the participants of ACL have been ingrained with the

idea that being fully engaged in singing trumps their semantic understanding of the lyrics. Careta

recalled a roda led by ACL-Gainesville’s leader, Mestrando Mico, “He stopped the roda, and he

was like, ‘Even if you don’t know the words, you just mumble through it. You’re still singing. It

doesn’t matter if you don’t know the words.’ So I still do that. I took that to heart.”110

With all participants contributing their voices, songs should flow seamlessly from one to

the next during a roda. Texuga reminded me, “We talked about the lifeline, so if you stopped

singing, the energy goes down for the players inside the roda. One of the nuances, something that

in the last two or three years that I’ve really worked on, is not switching songs in the middle of

someone’s game because that can change the game. Waiting until the right time to change the

song is important.”111 Most capoeira songs can be sung over a variety of toques, though Viking

noted there are certain songs like “Canarinho da Alemanha” that stylistically fit better with a

particular toque. “The song “Canarinho da Alemanha” works a lot better with a Benguela toque

than São Bento Grande. It’s a slower, more deliberate toque which matches the patterns that song

uses. That song is traditionally done in a Benguela style. It’s a little slower; it’s a song of

mourning. The response for it: ‘Eu vou encontrar só, Canarinho da Alemanha que matou meu

curio,’ is ‘I am going to find the German canary who killed my brother’,” explained Viking. I

109 Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019. 110 Careta, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 13, 2019. 111 Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019.

59

paused, thinking those lyrics sounded familiar. “Were we singing that on Friday?” “Yes, we

were,” Viking verified, adding, “That one is a mourning and vengeance song. So, all the songs

have different moods that they fit. “Zum Zum Zum” is a good reactionary song when somebody

gets the snot knocked of them. The words go ‘Zum zum zum capoeira mata um’ so ‘another one

dies; another capoeirista dies.’112 And then ‘Where’s the wasp? Ahh zum zum zum’ and then

‘Quero ver bater, quero ver cair,’ ‘I wanna see hits; I wanna see strikes’.”113

“Quero Aprender” / “I Want to Learn”

Stand-alone music classes are not always offered at capoeira academies. For Tallahassee

Capoeira, these classes emphasize the importance of music in capoeira, starting off with the goal

that all students sing and play instruments. The curriculum was developed after years of

experience and communication among teachers. Texuga explained, “How we can get a student to

come in, who doesn’t have a music background, who may not even like music, and get to a point

where they’re comfortable playing and singing at the same time in a foreign language? I mean,

that is a huge jump. And how to do that without making it scary and not letting that scare them

out of capoeira because I think sometimes that’s the breaking point.” When asked what sort of

strategies they use, Texuga answered, “I think just breaking it down. You know starting off with

just clapping and singing. That’s one of the things. Then building on that, starting with pandeiro

and atabaque and learning the berimbau. Introducing the instruments at the beginning but not

having high expectations until later on.” Music classes are especially important spaces for adults

to relinquish some of their anxieties about playing and singing in front of others. “We’re much

more self-conscious. Adults get used to not making mistakes in front of people, and capoeira is

112 This is not an entirely accurate translation of the lyrics. A literal translation would be ‘Zum zum zum,

capoeira kills one,’ expressing the deadliness of capoeira. 113 Viking, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 11, 2019.

60

just full of that. It takes someone who really loves capoeira or they’re not taking themselves so

seriously.”114

Sabiá was one of those students who came into Tallahassee Capoeira having never played

a musical instrument before. “[The music] brought me out of my comfort zone,” said Sabiá,

laughing at herself. Raptor, also chuckling, agreed, “Yeah, for sure, for sure.” Thinking back on

previous music classes and noticing Sabiá take on more of a leadership role, I countered, “I mean

you lead songs too…” She quickly responded, “But it took a very long time. “She used to never

sing at all,” added Raptor. “She couldn’t even sing in front of me.” Sabiá laughed at that and

said, “It took a really long time. And still. There’s a couple songs I could lead right now that I

just haven’t because I haven’t done it before in music class…I’m super shy.” After I asked her

which songs she wanted to be able to lead, Sabiá answered, “There’s the “Sabiá cantou” one. I

know that song, but when I sing it out loud, it doesn’t sound right to me…I know a lot of the

songs. I could lead a lot of them…but then coming with the instrument at the right time. It’s hard

for me to do the two at once. (laughs) I’ve never played any instrument before so I have no

musical…like no rhythm or what’s the word I’m looking for? Musical…knowledge.” “Just like

musical sense,” Raptor interjected. Laughing once more at herself, Sabiá said, “I’m a hot mess,”

and added, “But it’s fun once you get it!”115

Many of the adult participants at Tallahassee Capoeira do have a musical upbringing of

some sort—Professor played viola up until college; Corva, a junior in high school, currently

plays in the Leon High School steel band program; Viking, a software consultant, studied

composition and clarinet at a performing arts high school in the Orlando area; Pensador grew up

in a musically gifted family and sang in a cappella groups throughout his undergraduate studies

114 Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019. 115 Sabiá and Graduado Raptor, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, October 15, 2019.

61

at UCLA; and as mentioned before, Elunacy frequently composes metal and electronic music

that incorporates his collection of world music instruments. Though their previous musical

backgrounds help them learn rhythms and song lyrics at a faster rate, it also built in expectations

of tuning and singing on key.

When asked to explain why she did not care for some of the capoeira songs, Corva

shared, “A lot of people in capoeira can’t sing so it’s sort of like…it’s like when I went to this

church function for a friend, and they had this mariachi band. The mariachi band was out of tune

and one of the persons was singing slightly off key, and it was driving me nuts.”116 Pensador had

similar sentiments, stating, “I think what’s been frustrating to me from the beginning with the

music classes in particular is that the berimbaus are not tuned to each other and they’re also not

tuned to the voices so that people are constantly singing in a different key from the berimbaus

and they’re constantly changing key within the song. I hate to sound so annoying about it, but

it’s basically just always frustrating to me how the singing is…bad because that’s like the part I

most connect with, you know? Or I want to most connect with but don’t.”117

Despite the varying levels of musical background, most capoeiristas regularly attend

music class. Taz often mentions to the group that music classes are there to prepare for and

enhance rodas in the future by giving everyone extra practice singing certain songs and learning

more repertoire to cycle through during the roda. If Professor’s voice goes out, if he needs to

restring a berimbau, or if he and Instrutora need to tend to their infant daughter, there are others

who can lead songs. Music class functions as an experimental lab where people can try playing

different instruments, test out variations, try singing along while playing each instrument, and get

used to hearing how their part fits in with the rest of the ensemble.

116 Corva, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 23, 2019. 117 Pensador, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 30, 2019.

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Musical concepts are taught in an inclusive, encouraging environment through the use of

imitative techniques. Standing in a circular formation, participants mimic the space of the roda in

which capoeiristas would play during a game. Their physical arrangement implies a sense of

unity and movement. Everyone is given the opportunity to lead songs during class. Usually the

more experienced players like Raptor will jump in with a round of songs they want to lead,

teaching the words to the response if necessary. Lyrics are written on the mirrors to help students

visualize and retain the foreign words, though Professor does not always offer translations or

explain the meaning of songs. Nonverbal cues convey most musical instruction. Like learning

the physical movements in training classes, rhythmic patterns are learned by watching Professor

or Instrutora play and replicating their actions. There are different levels of difficulty between

the instrumental parts for students of varying experience to choose from. The pandeiro and

atabaque have simpler rhythmic patterns that are not as physically demanding compared to the

berimbaus, whose rhythms are more involved and require more coordination between both hands

(and the voice). Classes may focus on practicing variations, swapping instruments, reviewing the

different functions of instruments, discussing song lyrics, or learning songs depending on the

week.

Games like Capoeira Hot Potato and Capoeira Radio are played to help kids learn song

lyrics, practice singing and clapping loudly, and feel more comfortable leading songs. For

Capoeira Hot Potato, everyone sits cross-legged in a circle and whoever is holding the small, teal

rubber ball gets to choose a song to lead. The ball is quickly thrust from one set of hands to the

next around the circle after the first call has been sung and everyone else joins in singing the

responses. Once the responses have concluded, whoever is last holding the ball gets to select and

lead the next song. It results in lots of giggling and often strategic displays of their knowledge of

63

response lengths if they want a particular friend to lead a song. In Capoeira Radio, any of the

players can request their favorite capoeira ‘hit’ song and either lead it themselves or ask

Professor or Instrutora to lead while the rest of the group sings the responses. “Paraná ê” and

“Zum, zum, zum” are favorites among those who have seen the movie Only the Strong. Shorter

capoeira songs for kids like “AEIOU” and “ABC,” which teach the vowels and the first three

letters of the alphabet in Portuguese, are part of the canon in the kids’ music class, though longer,

tongue twisters like “Vivo no ninho de cobra” or songs that have their apelidos in the lyrics like

“Fogo queimou” are frequently requested by the kids. In a music class during one of the summer

camp sessions for Advanced kids, Professor began improvising lyrics, inserting their apelidos

into known capoeira songs to their great delight. Texuga likes to teach the song “Só prestar

atenção” because it emphasizes the various instrument parts and encourages improvisation.

Hands-on activities like creating their own berimbaus out of papier-mâché cabaças and vergas

made of myrtle and oak branches collected locally allows younger capoeiristas to actively

engage with similar processes for making the instrument traditionally.

A large portion of musical learning happens outside of class. Many of the higher-ranking

members like Raptor, Careta, Viking, and Sabiá take the initiative to learn songs and practice

instruments on their own time. Texuga tends to write down the lyrics to visualize the words as

she tries to sing along. She states her biggest struggle is with the language, the pronunciation of

the words and the memorization.118 Careta has a notebook filled with lyrics to songs he wants to

try to learn how to sing. His process for learning songs starts with listening to the YouTube and

Spotify playlists he and Sapinho created and eventually being able to sing along to the lyrics

during their car rides. He then attempts to write the words down in Portuguese if he knows them

118 Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019.

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or he writes them phonetically and searches on Google for the rest of the lyrics. “That’s super

hilariously hard thing to do,” Careta explained to me. “I try to hear the chorus, and I don’t know

the Portuguese word, but I think it looks like this, and I misspell it and can’t find it. Sometimes I

search for like forty-five minutes to an hour for a song, and I end up searching a couple words

strung together and I do ‘capoeira song’ and ‘gavião pegou.’ Sometimes I’ll ask Raptor or

Professor too. It’s a more reliable, timely way to do it. Singing the songs in the car and then

trying to play it and sing at the same time is really hard. The berimbau has got a couple extra

notes, you know, and it’s also a little more complex, so I start with the pandeiro, just the three

beats, try to sing it with that and try to figure out where the words are hitting with the hands.”119

Altered States of Mind

Accumulating musical knowledge leads to successful interactions during rodas since the music

plays a significant role in altering states of mind. Lewis notes, “Scholars of play emphasize the

feeling of flow in describing how one can ‘lose’ oneself in the activity. This also relates to an

altered sense of time, which many agree is an important characteristic of play states. Many

capoeiristas report that they experience altered states during play, and they relate these states

specifically to the music, but they are not often consciously aware of the structures which help to

create, for example, the sense of flow.”120 Viking describes the ways in which he reacts to the

music during rodas, saying, “The berimbau is a very hypnotic instrument. When you combine it

with the full bateria when everyone is singing and clapping—if one lets oneself—you get into

this trance with it where you feel more than here.” “I’ve noticed you moving around a lot in roda

or in music class playing around. It seems like you’re very engaged,” I remarked. “I let go.

119 Careta, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 13, 2019. 120 Lewis, Ring of Liberation, 145.

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That’s one of the few places where I feel like I let go.” I asked Viking if he felt like that in his

previous musical experiences in school. “Mmmhmm like in symphony classes or composition

when I was working with headphones on, using the ancient technology of the time where you

had to put the notes as code. But the trance state that I feel when we’re practicing in music class

or practicing in roda is a lot deeper.” “How so?” I inquired further. “I don’t notice the passage of

time. There’s a sense of loss of self and sense of community in place of that that I experience

through that that I didn’t get elsewhere. Not even recreational drugs.” 121 For Corva, capoeira felt

more relaxed and fun compared to her experience training karate. “I think it just gives you

something to focus on that isn’t capoeira while you’re doing capoeira. It’s really intense, and half

the time, I’m just thinking, ‘Ow, my legs. When’s water break??’ But during roda, I’m sort of

focused on the music so you sort of flow with it. Like capoeira is all about flow, it’s less about

taking people down.”122

These states of mind are reliant on the quality of the music. When asked about his

emotional connection to the music during a Friday evening roda, Pensador responded, “That’s a

good question. I don’t think I was connecting emotionally to the music today. It wasn’t that

good. (laughing) I’m such a critic. I think it’s most helpful to be honest…When there’s a full

bateria and there are a lot of advanced people, it’s way better. And also, when someone who can

sing on pitch and sing loudly is leading, that’s so much fun. When Morcego was singing tonight,

he has a little bit more flair when he sings.” “He was growling!” I exclaimed. “Yeah, he growls

and he makes the songs his own and he sings on key, so I think I was feeling it a little bit more

121 Viking, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 11, 2019. 122 Corva, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 23, 2019.

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and just enjoying listening to it more. And when Professor Taz sings, he kinda shouts. He’s

trying to get the axé up.”123

Others mentioned how the energy from capoeira’s music creates social bonds. Pensador

believes the music brings capoeiristas together. “If you all know the same song or the same set of

songs, it’s good for bonding…other functions—it creates axé, you know? When the music is

hopping and everyone is singing and clapping, it’s just exciting! I think it feeds back and forth

from the game to the music and the music to the game, so you can boost the other one by

focusing on it. I also think it serves to function keeping modern capoeira tied to its roots.”124

Careta reflected, “I think people probably have a similar experience in church. When I was

young, I went to church. When I was in high school in the early 90s, that seemed to be the thing

people cared about the most, and it started to be such an issue, at least at my church, that they

had a whole other hour in between the two services that was just worship service. I think people

really felt connected to the music. It feels similar to that.”125

The capacity for states of flow and social bonding in capoeira are based in the

participatory music style features that Thomas Turino outlines in Music as Social Life (2008).

Participatory music making is driven by the value of inclusion and favors musical strategies like

short, repeated forms, dense textures, wide tunings, constant rhythmic groove, slight variations,

and few dramatic contrasts that downplay individual virtuosity. The continuous stream of

corridos and quadras that can be repeated as long as the lead singer wants to and the overlapping

texture of berimbaus, atabaque, pandeiro, hand-clapping, and different voices enhances

participation. Variations are concentrated on the viola or lead singer, but other instruments are

123 Pensador, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 30, 2019. 124 Ibid. 125 Careta, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 13, 2019.

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able to vary their parts for short periods of time as long as they do not disrupt the groove.

Virtuosic soloing subtly merges with the overall sound of the group and provides a space for

more advanced musicians to be challenged so they can stay interested in the activity and

experience flow as well. The consistently loud volume, wide tuning among of the pitches of the

berimbaus and voices, and slightly out of phase rhythmic groove from the bateria, and the buzzy

timbres from the caxixi are all aspects that “provide a crucial cloaking function that helps inspire

musical participation.”126 Without scripted music and movement, participants have to be hyper-

focused on the sounds and interactions of others on a moment-to-moment basis. For Turino,

“This need to pay attention results in a kind of heightened, immediate social intercourse; when

the performance is going well, differences among participants melt away as attention is focused

on the seamlessness of sound and motion. Moving together and sounding together in a group

creates a direct sense of being together and of deeply felt similarity, and hence identity, among

participants.”127 Through participatory music making, the music of capoeira generates solidarity

among participants, and as many of my informants mentioned, it is also a conducting agent of

axé, which will be discussed further in the following chapter.

126 Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 46. 127 Turino, 43.

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CHAPTER FIVE

THE VITALITY OF AXÉ

‘Tamos juntos, misturados, Quando berimbau tocar. Me diga quem é você; Vamos vadiar.

We’re together, mixed together, When the berimbau plays. Tell me who you are; Let’s hang out and play.

During my first music class at Tallahassee Capoeira, the song “‘Tamos Juntos” was

chosen by Professor to end with an ear worm. He first heard the song during a roda at the ACL

academy in Sacramento and said it changed the roda completely. Standing around in a tight

circle either playing the tall atabaque drum, the top-heavy berimbaus, or the more manageable

pandeiro, Raptor, Sabiá, Careta, Sapinho, and I learned the lyrics to this new song by imitating

Professor and repeating short phrases back to him, occasionally stumbling through the

Portuguese pronunciations. I glanced into the floor-to-ceiling length mirrors to observe the five

of us concentrating on the coordination between our hands playing the instruments and our

voices forming the foreign words on our lips. At the end of the class, everyone instinctively

gathered in a circle and extended their right hand into the middle. I timidly placed my hand into

the mix, and at the count of “três,” we threw our hands up into the air and yelled, “Axé,

capoeira!” My venture to unearth the meaning of axé had begun.

Defining Axé

Capoeiristas often invoke the word axé as a form of salutation or to describe the energy of the

space. It is simply defined as ‘energy’ or ‘spirit’ by Tallahassee Capoeira members. Viking

distinguished axé as “the energy that somebody has in the roda, the energy that the crowd has,

and there’s this thought or concept in capoeira that the capoeiristas have their own axé they bring

to it, but then the crowd, it’s their job to pile it on so that within the ring, so it just builds. It

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produces a really good, high quality, meaningful game, or set of games as a group, so everybody

is important.”128

Pensador, Sapinho, and Careta cited the need to be fully engaged in the present to have

axé. Pensador described it as “…a combination of energy, kind of like a vibe of excitement, and

then also there’s a component of love and respect for the game. And enjoyment of what’s

happening in the moment, being really present with the game, being engaged, everyone’s

clapping, everyone’s singing, everyone’s watching. People who are playing are just on fire or at

least focused, and it just feels good for everyone.”129 During our conversation in a local coffee

shop, Careta turned to his son, Sapinho, and asked, “What does it look like when somebody has

axé? Like if you see somebody in roda and they have axé, what does that look like?” Sapinho

looked up from his blueberry muffin and emphatically stated, “They’re really energetic and

ready.” “Really energetic and ready,” Careta repeated. Then he asked, “What does it look like

when somebody doesn’t have axe?” to which Sapinho responded, “They’re tired and not feeling

it.” As Sapinho returned to eating his muffin, I asked Careta how he feels axé personally. “I

don’t know. It’s easy to kind of be clapping. Do you feel like this? To be clapping and watching

the game and kinda zone out a little bit? I think that’s losing some of the axé. So sometimes I

have to be real conscious and be like I gotta sing…I’m making a conscious effort to clap loud, to

sing loud, and then be a part of it or feel present. I think maybe the axé comes from that. I don’t

think it’s just a passive feeling of energy, but I think I can feel it.”130

Their descriptions of axé parallel those illustrated by Drewal and Browning. In her

detailing of the features of aṣe in Yoruba rituals, Drewal states, “The concept of axé presupposes

128 Viking, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 11, 2019. 129 Pensador, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 30, 2019. 130 Careta and Sapinho, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 13, 2019.

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the instrumentality of actors as agents in structuring, in processing, in contextualizing, in playing

tropes off one other [sic], at once performing operations on structure, process, and context and

improvising on, in, with, and around them...Improvisations take diverse forms: transformations

of esoteric verses into narratives, spontaneous interpretations, recontextualizations, drumming,

dancing, chanting, parody, ruses, reconstitutions of conventions, competing interests, and

individual interventions into the ritual event.”131 Axé, for Tallahassee capoeiristas, is a form of

energy they themselves possess that can be multiplied and manipulated to enhance their

surroundings as long as they are in a state of active intention focused on the present.

Building Axé

The success of interactions within Tallahassee Capoeira like the music class described earlier

and those occurring within the roda is determined by axé. Processes through which the academy

fosters axé are analogous to the same methods required for successful ritual interactions Randall

Collins discusses in his book Interaction Ritual Chains (2004). “At the center of an interaction

ritual is the process in which participants develop a mutual focus of attention and become

entrained in each other’s bodily micro-rhythms and emotions.”132 Chains of successful ritual

interactions create group solidarity; individual emotional energy built on confidence, elation,

strength, enthusiasm, and initiative; symbolic meaning among participants; and feelings of

morality, while failed rituals have the opposite reactions. Failed rituals are missing ingredients

like shared attention and initial emotion. People are attracted to successful rituals with their

higher degrees of emotion, motivation, and symbolic charge and are repelled by lesser

interactions.133

131 Drewal, Yoruba Ritual, 27. 132 Randall Collins, Interaction Ritual Chains (Princeton: Princeton University Press: 2004), 47. 133 Collins, Interaction Ritual Chains, 51.

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Axé is built on previous interaction chains—good or bad—among individual agents

through learned rituals within the daily operations at Tallahassee Capoeira. These interactions

are defined and promoted through weeks, months, and years of work setting the culture of the

group, as well as teaching the values of capoeira, expectations for classes and rodas, and daily

rituals to participants. Instrutora shared, “We really want it to be kind of like a family. I hope that

that’s what it’s like for people. It’s hard to say from where I’m standing because it’s something

Brandon and I have worked hard to create and we’ve seen it for…we’ve had sets of years where

we did not have adults and it was just kids that were coming. We had a time where there was a

couple of guys that had bad axé, and it was so hard to teach them. We were trying to facilitate a

positive space where people can have fun exercising and can have fun learning capoeira so I

guess that’s what we’re going for…To see the way it is now, we’re so thankful for all of you

guys that come, and it’s so great because this is the way capoeira is supposed to be.” Bouncing

her youngest daughter on her knee, Texuga added, “We want it to be able to be that way, and it

happens here which is really fun.” Her daughter squealed with delight as her dad’s voice

resonated from the other room while he called songs during the kid’s music class.

Taz and Texuga strive to make the culture of their space as welcoming as possible,

beginning with a simple ritual, the capoeira hello. Kids and adults, alike, will greet one another at

the academy with a high-five followed immediately by a fist bump. 134 Another daily ritual

occurs after classes at the academy, which will always end with a line-up of everyone according

to their corda levels, highest to lowest. Starting with either Professor or Instrutora, everyone will

high-five and fist bump the highest-ranked capoeiristas followed by the next highest until they

134 This form of greeting is common across many capoeira academies according to Taz. “Yeah, the high

five and fist bump is just a capoeira thing. It’s like a secret handshake, and once you learn it, you’re like, ‘Man, I belong!’ We all look for tribes—it’s one of the identifiers to that tribe.” Professor Taz, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, February 10, 2020.

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reach the end of the line. There, he or she will stand and high-five/fist bump the next

capoeirista(s) if they are lower ranked. Words of encouragement are exchanged between each

capoeirista as they walk through the line. These positive exchanges at the end of every class

motivate capoeiristas to continue training. Taz explained, “Capoeira tends to be a sport where

there’s both…it’s not quite an individual sport; there’s also a group, a team dynamic to it. The

line-up at the end is where you’re connecting to and congratulating each person. ‘You put in

good effort today!’ You’re looking out for each other and building each other up. The line-up is

deliberate to focus attention on being there for each other.”135 Following the line-up or after the

end of a roda, everyone circles up and piles their right or left hand into the middle. Professor

rapidly counts to three in Portuguese, “um, dois, três,” and everyone throws their hand into the

air, shouting, “Axé, capoeira!” This ritual was created by Mestre Aranha in his early years

teaching and has been continued by the rest of the ACL instructors.136 These learned greeting and

closing rituals connect individuals to the community and create axé.

Studying its role in the Afro-Brazilian religion candomblé, ethnomusicologist Gerard

Béhague observed that axé can diminish or grow according to the ritual activity and the behavior

of candomblé initiates.137 Stanyek and Robitaille maintain that axé is the fuel for the

improvisatory dimensions of the capoeira game. Capoeiristas are able to engage in bodily

dialogues with each other while using personal agency to shape the flow of the game for their

own advantage. For Robitaille, “[C]apoeira only really comes to its full materialization in the

roda where the games are improvised, the outcomes are uncertain, and the balance of power is

unstable and always potentially changing. Only in those conditions will capoeiristas come

135 Professor Taz, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, February 10, 2020. 136 Ibid. 137 Gerard Béhague, “Regional and National Trends in Afro-Brazilian Religious Musics: A Case of Cultural

Pluralism,” Latin American Music Review 27, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2006): 94.

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together to play, compete, and collectively create energy – axé – all of which then drives the roda

and the interactions therein.”138 While axé is manipulated through the improvisatory physical

dialogues between participants described by Stanyek and Robitaille, it is the music that

ultimately drives the energy of these interactions. The power of transformation relies on musical

sound. Through his research in candomblé rituals, Érico de Souza Brito found that axé is

irrevocably tied to sound. “[S]ound emitted by the practitioners, both through speech and

through instruments, becomes strength, axé. To produce axé, the sacred force, the energy of the

orixás, sound is necessary…Sound needs axé, and axé needs sound.”139 Béhague also

maintained, “Through speech and sound, the orixás [the pantheon of deities in candomblé] will

be able to communicate directly with human beings. As an extension, the sounds of ritual

instruments and all of their symbolic contents are also conducting agents of axé.”140 The

participatory aspects of capoeira’s music ensure mutual, focused attention on the actions in the

roda that add axé to the game, resulting in a successful ritual interaction and the collective

effervescence of the group.

The force of axé is malleable—it can be present or not, and either good or bad, depending

on the agents creating and manipulating that energy. Capoeiristas strive to accumulate good axé

within the game of capoeira through music making. During one roda at the end of May,

Professor was recovering from a cold, and his voice was beginning to crack as he called songs.

The group’s responses, in turn, became less and less concentrated. He eventually paused the

game to sternly instruct us to sing and clap louder to build up the energy. After starting up the

138 Laurence Robitaille, “Capoeira as a Resource: Multiple Uses of Culture under Conditions of

Transnational Neoliberalism,” PhD diss., York University, 2013, 334. 139 Érico de Souza Brito, “O axé do som e o som do axé: multiplicidades sonoras em um terreiro de

candomblé da nação ketu,” Ponto Urbe (Online) 23 (December 2018), accessed June 24, 2019, http://journals.openedition.org/pontourbe/5716.

140 Gerard Béhague, “Regional and National Trends in Afro-Brazilian Religious Musics: A Case of Cultural Pluralism,” 95.

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roda again and with everyone enthusiastically singing the responses, the arame on his berimbau

snapped. Taz joked that it was too much axé and began to call a new song, inserting improvised

lyrics like “a corda quebrou | the cord broke.”141 On a separate occasion, Raptor, taking the lead

on vocals and berimbau, stopped the music in the middle of a game, stating, “There’s no

energy.”142 Viking explained, “Sometimes the roda will stop when people are standing around

and not clapping or not singing or whatever. Sometimes they’ll stop the whole thing because it’s

killing the axé…You can feel the difference. Especially in the roda, when the roda itself isn’t

working.”143

It can take considerable effort to build good axé and ensure positive interactions, and

capoeiristas are not always effective. When asked how he actively contributes or adds good

energy into the roda, Viking said, “I’ll remind the kids, ‘Hey, we’re supposed to clapping and

singing,’ and I make sure that we keep the ring [formation]. I’ll make sure people stay spaced out

so we still have the ring formation. If I’m on the atabaque, I’ll stop and put my arms up and clap

really loud…And then I’ll sing louder. Move around a bit. Throw my arms up and down. If I’m

at the boca getting ready to go in and the energy is just zapped while I’m crouched, I’ll start

throwing my arms around. ‘Hey, let’s get excited; let’s build this back up’.” “I definitely noticed

you doing some of those moves on Friday!” I laughed. “Well, yeah, the kids were dead tired.

And the adults were too.”144 While leading songs and playing berimbau during roda, Professor

will often shout requests for everyone to “fix the roda!” sometimes even stopping the game

entirely to address the issue. Capoeiristas, especially younger players, frequently wander off

from the roda to check in with their parents who are observing from the waiting area or clump

141 Author’s field notes, May 31, 2019. 142 Author’s field notes, September 20, 2019. 143 Viking, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 11, 2019. 144 Ibid.

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together to talk or giggle with one another, creating wide gaps in the circle. Both Taz and Texuga

stress the importance of maintaining the circle formation during rodas, so the energy does not

escape the space. Drawing connections between her practice of contact improvisation and

capoeira in the United States, dance scholar Ann Cooper Albright references the need to keep

energy contained within the game, explaining, “…the roda creates a protective ring that insulates

the players from outside interference, and keeps them focused…It is important to keep the circles

evenly spaced so that there are no black holes, no breaks in energy. This is a question of safety,

of course, but the cohesive energy of the circle also creates an uncanny attentiveness that draws

out the magic within these interactions and encourages the participants to realize their fullest

potential.”145

Practicing an Afro-Brazilian Tradition

Axé in the context of American (US) capoeira academies is not always viewed in a positive light.

For ethnomusicologist Ashley Humphrey, axé represents the disconnect between Brazilian and

American knowledge base of the influence of the African diaspora in capoeira. During her

fieldwork at the Michigan Center for Capoeira, Humphrey observed, “A problem arises when

American capoeira academies and their students attribute axé and other concepts within capoeira

as only relevant to capoeira, inadvertently omitting spiritual contributions of Afro-Brazilians

from the African-diaspora.”146 Through her understanding of Afro-diasporic cultural values

within American capoeira academies, students do not consider capoeira history or contributions

of Afro-Brazilians to be the most important aspect of their interaction with the art form. “This is

145 Ann Cooper Albright, Engaging Bodies: The Politics and Poetics of Corporeality.

(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan, 2013), 228. 146 Ashley Humphrey, “Where’s the Roda?: Understanding Capoeira Culture in an American Context.”

Master’s thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2018, 52.

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not because of ignorance or lack of access, but because of a shift in values within the capoeira

community which is a result of the migration of the sport.”147

With the increasingly rapid globalization of capoeira, issues concerning the importance of

nationality, racial identity, tradition, and authenticity have proliferated.148 However, a shift of

values is a natural part of the tradition-making process. Tradition, as defined by Michael Bakan,

is “a process of creative transformation whose most remarkable feature is the continuity it

nurtures and sustains.”149 The ethnomusicologist Henry Spiller believes traditions teach,

reinforce, and create social values of their producers and consumers.150 Traditions like capoeira

and axé are not static objects stuck in the past—they grow and adjust according to the values of

the people practicing them, responding to new situations and experimenting with new ideas.

Though she states she prefers the game of Angola, Barbara Browning defends the validity for

capoeira regional’s modifications of the game, “cannibalizing gymnastics, kick-boxing, ballet,

and, in the ‘80s, breakdancing,” and is moved by the speed, athleticism, flexibility, and precision

within the regional game. She argues the history of capoeira must constantly be reaffirmed

though. “Hot dog regionalistas can spin so fast they sometimes lose sight of the past, and the

present, Browning quips. “The postmodern cultural critic must acknowledge that she, too, is a

product of the times. We’re sometimes giddy with the new language available to us for

expressing our enthusiasms for cultural cross-fertilization. But in rejecting a restrictive, strict

notion of cultural authenticity, we risk losing some of the political potential of rootedness.”151

147 Humphrey, “Where’s the Roda?,” 53. 148 Despite the changing demographics of capoeiristas, blackness, Brazilian nationality, and masculinity

remain at the top of the capoeira hierarchy of traditional claims to legitimacy as argued by Lauren Miller Griffith. These issues are further explored through the context of apprenticeship pilgrimages in her book In Search of Legitimacy: How Outsiders Become Part of the Afro-Brazilian Capoeira Tradition.

149 Michael B. Bakan, World Music: Traditions and Transformations, 3rd edition (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2019), 31.

150 Henry Spiller, Focus: Gamelan Music of Indonesia (New York: Routledge, 2008), 4. 151 Browning, Samba, 124.

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Capoeiristas at Tallahassee Capoeira are mindful of their participation and contributions

to capoeira’s traditions. Texuga voiced her concerns about capoeira maintaining its ties to Brazil:

“I hope capoeira doesn’t lose its Brazilian culture. I know that that happens. There’s been a lot of

discussion about that. Brazilian capoeiristas don’t want it to lose that and that makes good sense

because if you look at some of the other martial arts, they have kind of lost their background.”152

Considering the academy’s approach to discussing capoeira’s history, Careta shared, “I think

when we’re singing the songs, that’s where it is emphasized. But it’s not emphasized in an

academic way. If you know the lyrics in the verses and what they mean, the translations, that’s

where it comes in…the main things I’ve learned though from the songs that I didn’t know, is

how much capoeira is not just about slavery. A lot of its history is after slavery with black

communities in cities.”

When asked about how he connects to capoeira’s historical background, Viking

responded, “On a superficial level, it’s really easy to rationalize away anything. Hey, it’s fun.

I’m working out. On a different level, on an introspective level, for me, just as important as

practicing the moves, is understanding the history and having a bit of respect or reverence for

where it came from. To me, it’s really important that I’m mindful as I practice of where it came

from…And so, practicing it, being mindful of where it came from, having respect for it, I think is

important in order to honor the tradition without appropriating. I don’t profess to be an expert at

this; I’m merely learning a tradition and doing my bit to keep it alive.”153 I asked Careta what

traditional aspects of capoeira he believes are still being practiced in the United States. “My

sense of it is that it’s like an oral history. I think there are discussions and debates about this, at

least what little I could pick up on social media, about what’s authentic and what’s not. …I think

152 Texuga, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 16, 2019. 153 Viking, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 11, 2019.

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what’s passed down is…it may not be authentic in the way that it’s just like the past, but in a

different way. Maybe this is a debate, but there’s an authenticity about the fact that it’s still a

community, it’s still practicing the same moves, the same rituals but maybe in a different

form.”154

While they are aware of the capoeira’s roots in the African slave experience in Brazil,

most of the capoeiristas at Tallahassee Capoeira define it as a Brazilian martial art form, omitting

the ‘Afro’ prefix. Graduado Raptor, however, made the distinction in our interview. “I describe it

as an Afro-Brazilian martial art that was cultivated by African slaves in Brazil. It combines

kicks, dodges, acrobatics, and music, and it’s very culture and community oriented.” Sabiá

bemoaned, “I always forget to say the ‘Afro’ part. I always just say it’s a Brazilian martial art.”

“Do you think that’s an important distinction?” I asked them. “For sure, yeah,” Raptor answered,

adding, “It’s more accurate…The history is very important. I think a lot of times people can

leave out the culture and the history aspect and just focus on the flips and pretty moves, but

there’s a lot of history behind it.” I asked him if he found that being the case at Tallahassee. “Not

so much. I think our teacher does a good job of, where he can, fitting in lots of aspects of the

culture whether that’s during music, or how certain moves came to be about, the different styles

of capoeira, he does a good job of making those distinctions.”155

A Search for Authenticity

From Bimba’s institutional and stylistic innovations to the art form to the fluidity of modes in

contemporary capoeira academies around the world, anxieties over authentic expressions of

capoeira have flourished. The maintenance of cultural traditions has preoccupied adherents in all

154 Careta, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 13, 2019. 155 Graduado Raptor and Sabiá, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, October 15, 2019.

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parts of the world. In chapter six of Music as Social Life (2008), ethnomusicologist Thomas

Turino examines issues of authenticity between two settings old-time music and dance in the

United States—one where these events are attended by local, rural people and serve as a fabric of

their community’s social life and one where these events involve white, middle-class participants

from urban and suburban backgrounds who did not grow up with this music and dance as a basic

part of their community. In the first setting, individuals are enculturated from an early age with

the habits needed to perform this music and dance in culturally appropriate ways, resulting in

little self-consciousness about performance and creative liberties. Here, the values guiding

performance complement the values of social life. In the other setting, the middle-class

participants involved with old-time music and dance came to it on their own because of an

attraction to the style as well as the imagery and the participatory values that surround it. “They

are an intentional interest group that forms around a particular style complex, as well as a

particular discourse about the style and activity which, in this case, involves notions of ‘folk’

community and ‘traditional’ Americanness.”156 These events contrast their everyday lives and

social networks. “The style of interaction and values of the middle-class old-time cohort stand in

stark opposition to the basic tenets of the capitalist cultural formation which prominently

influenced participants’ socialization. The importance of this cohort for many of its members is

precisely that it provides a temporary alternative to the values and lifeways of the ‘modern’

capitalist formation.”157 When questions of authenticity emerge, Turino believes the middle-class

scene should be considered a unique tradition with its own evolving values, practices, and styles.

One is not more authentic than the other.158

156 Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 161. 157 Turino, 161. 158 Ibid., 161-163.

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Like the middle-class scene in old-time music and dance, Tallahassee Capoeira is a

unique tradition that has its own evolving values, practices, and style. My informants affirm that

their practicing of capoeira is not any less authentic or meaningful because it is not in accordance

with the tradition. Many believe their involvement in cross-cultural learning is an integral part to

society today. Referring to his collection of world music instruments and interest in other

cultures, Elunacy contended, “I have so much stuff from around the world because I love it. I

was born Puerto Rican so I’m going to stick with only Puerto Rican stuff? Hell no…There’s so

much in other rich cultures that you can learn from and apply to your daily lives… If you want to

learn something from our culture and want me to teach something in Puerto Rican, I will do it.

By all means, learn it, share it. That’s the whole point. People gotta learn from other cultures so

they actually can understand and not have a problem with it.” “Does it make a different if it’s

taught by a culture-bearer or not?” I asked. Elunacy paused for a second, sighing. “The thing is,

if you are from that area, you’re born and raised there, and you’re showing it to other people,

better yet. Because you’re the root of everything. But in this case, if it’s taught by somebody who

learned from somebody else like…well, it’s not like you’re going to find a perfect Brazilian

capoeirista anywhere, on every corner, every city. It’s not like that. So you gotta learn from

somebody else who actually knows about it.”159

When asked the same question about learning from culture-bearers, Corva also had no

concerns about learning capoeira from non-Brazilians, believing it would be more of an issue if

people did not learn about other cultures. “If no one practiced a little bit of other people’s

cultures, no one would understand anybody… you’re learning about the culture and learning to

respect it. You’re not saying it’s our culture now. It’s their culture, but we’re enjoying it too…I

159 Elunacy, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 22, 2019.

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really wouldn’t mind if someone decided to partake in Middle Eastern traditions. My mom is

from Lebanon. But if they make tabbouleh wrong, I’m going to shame them. Like people eat

hummus all the time. I can’t say that’s cultural appropriation because everyone eats hummus.

But I can see it as cultural appropriation if you make your tabbouleh without tomatoes,” Corva

said, laughing. “Can you apply that to capoeira with things that aren’t authentic?” I inquired.

“Yeah, I think it’s more like chai tea capoeira because you know you’re not making it super

authentically. Like chai tea lattes, but it’s a twist on it.” “How is a normal chai tea prepared?”

“Well, it’s just tea and milk—it’s not frothy.” “Then what do you think is the frothy milk of

capoeira in Tallahassee?” I asked, amused. “I’d say it’s the people because none of us are really

Brazilian. We’re just sort of…people respectfully practicing the traditions.”160

Does it make a difference to learn capoeira from a non-culture bearer? Can Tallahassee

capoeiristas respectfully practice this tradition and adhere to its values? Do these delineations

truly matter? Observing decades of scholarly discourse cataloguing categories of difference—

differences in race and class, differences in physical ability and sexuality—and the subsequent

marginalization of such distinctions, Ann Cooper Albright offers a direction for moving forward,

“The problem with an encyclopedic detailing of differences is that they run the risk of reifying

the binary, reducing difference to a static, monolithic fact of difference. Rather than seeing

difference as one set position, I am arguing for a positioning (and, by extension, a repositioning)

that is always in motion.”161 For Albright, capoeira is a movement form that “incorporate[s] that

physical confrontation with the other—in which difference can be acknowledged and still moved

through, with, toward, under, beyond, in accordance with, etc.”162

160 Corva, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 23, 2019. 161 Albright, Engaging Bodies, 220. 162 Albright, 220.

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The cartwheels, handstands, head spins, and other inverted movements in capoeira

compel capoeiristas to see the world through a new perspective. For Tallahassee capoeiristas, the

act of singing in a new language and performing on Brazilian instruments also adds another

dimension to experiencing the world in a different light. Albright argues, “These forms train

practitioners to circumvent the usual panic at finding oneself in odd positions, retraining one’s

immediate physical responses by substituting a willingness to experience the sensation of being

upside down or inside out. The willingness to be caught off guard, at risk, to enter unusual

situations, is connected to the improvisational impulse in capoeira.”163

Postmodern critical theories have put into question long held dynamics of power and

privilege, urging scholars to stop and reconsider the structures we operate within. While Albright

fully agrees with these perspectives, she finds “…a hyper-awareness of difference brings people

to a self-consciousness that can be completely debilitating. The result is that everyone retreats

into their respective corners, so nervous about offending or being offended that the gulf between

us all widens.”164 Similar to Corva and Elunacy’s sentiments, Albright believes we need to

connect with others even at the discomfort of crossing secure boundaries. “[W]e must take the

risk of failure, risk the embarrassments and the awkwardness, risk feeling uncomfortable and

having our toes stepped on, in order to launch ourselves across that metaphysical slash between

self/other. The first moves of any new partnership are rarely smooth, but we must take that

chance and ask an “other” to dance.”165 The concern over whether or not capoeira should be

taught and practiced by non-culture bearers is a debilitating one. Like Albright, I see

163Albright, 227. 164 Ibid., 220. 165 Ibid., 220-21.

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contemporary capoeira practices around the world like those at Tallahassee Capoeira as “a sign

of [capoeira’s] willingness to survive its own historical moment and continue to evolve.”166

Concluding Remarks

Capoeira as a tradition experiences constant processes of re-negotiation by its practitioners, but

its capacities of resilience, strength, and communal solidarity continue to define the idealized

capoeira experience. In its mutability, axé is the prevailing concept of the power of positivity—

of actively manipulating one’s space and the community’s space to improve one’s

circumstances—that has given meaning to capoeira in its myriad of manifestations. For Careta,

capoeira represents the endurance of positivity, sharing, “I imagine as powerless as the slaves

were, to think that something they created was spread worldwide and had a positive way of

bringing people together, it’s hard for me to think that that would be something that they

wouldn’t like. That they created something as positive that spread around the world.”167

Tallahassee Capoeira places value on cultivating positivity, community building, and

individual growth through its daily rituals. The success of interactions within Tallahassee

Capoeira is ensured through axé—capoeiristas manipulate the axé of a space by being

completely engaged in the movements within the game, cheering on one another, and fully

participating in music making. Barbara Browning affirms, “…[I]t is undeniably a good thing to

have axé. One uses the term not only to imply the capability to effect divine change. Having axé

is akin to what we call in the United States having soul. It means you feel deeply, swing low—

and carry African culture. The figure of cultural memory as a communicable agent carried in the

blood is inherent in the notion of axé.”168 The effectiveness of axé sustains the cultural memory

166 Albright, 227. 167 Careta, interview with Abby Rehard, personal interview, August 13, 2019. 168 Browning, Samba, 178.

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and values of capoeira’s creators in today’s global community of capoeiristas. “Society,” Randall

Collins states, “is held together to just the extent that rituals are effectively carried out, and

during those periods of time when the effects of those rituals are still fresh in people’s minds and

reverberating in their emotions…And the ‘society’ that is held together is no abstract unity of a

social system, but is just those groups of people assembled in particular places who feel

solidarity with each other through the effects of participation and ritually charged symbolism.”169

From Mestre Bimba’s innovations and Mestre Pastinha’s emphasis on capoeira’s roots to

diasporic Brazilian mestres spreading the practice around the world, capoeiristas have imbued its

practice with multiple layers of meaning that reflect, embody, and inform their diverse identities

and more specific Afro-Brazilian cultural values.

Reflecting on my first music class, I hear the transnational expressions of capoeira,

community building, and the value of music within a globalized capoeira culture resonate in the

lyrics of “‘Tamos Juntos.” Music making practices permeate the space of Tallahassee Capoeira

and create encouraging, communal bonds among participants. The vivacity of these experiences

is built on their singing, their playing of instruments, their clapping, and their cheers during a

roda to the final “Axé, capoeira!” called out at the end of the day. By invoking the Afro-

Brazilian concept of axé, Tallahassee Capoeira practitioners actively work to ensure positive

interactions that create strong social connections in this globalized sport. Axé is a transformative

power dependent on the interactions between individuals, and the more people playing capoeira,

the better chance of maximizing good axé. No matter one’s background, as capoeiristas, “We are

together, mixed together, when the berimbau plays. Tell me who you are; let’s hang out and

play.”

169 Collins, 41.

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APPENDIX A

ACL TESTING REQUIREMENTS

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ACL Curriculum

The path to Graduado is divided into four brackets in the curriculum: Novice, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. There are five cords in each bracket. Please note that while each cord does not have specific requirements, each bracket does. Therefore, to advance from Novice to Beginner bracket, or Beginner to Intermediate bracket (and so on), there are specific sets of requirements that a student must meet.

The curriculum is specifically designed in brackets to ensure that all Allied Capoeira League students are reaching the same milestones, while giving the individual ACL teachers some freedom to manage their students' growth and progression.

This curriculum is designed to reward all students who put in the required time and effort to advance. Some people may skip several cords at promotion time, and others may only get the next cord, but no one who is giving effort should be held back entirely.

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Novice Bracket

Bracket Goal: In partners, flow with the four basic kicks. Basic form and defense.

Required Moves:• Four Basic Kicks:

1. Meia lua de frente2. Queixada3. Armada4. Meia lua de compasso

• Martelo • Bencao• Vingativa• Esquiva• Esquivinha• Cadeira• Guarda Baixa• Guarda Alta• Leque• Meia Lua Troca• Au

Required Skills:1. Demonstrate proper form of all required kicks. (4BK: land square queixada/armada; ML d C finish

guarda baixa w/ weight on front foot, ML d F weight on toes on support leg; martelo-kick horizontal, strike with shin, opposite hand protect head; bencao-push forward with hips, support heel off floor)

2. Demonstrate proper form of escapes 3. Quickly use esquivinhas between a series of meia lua de compassos (alternating directions)4. Follow or oppose the 4 basic kicks with queixada, armada, or meia lua de compasso5. Use martelo as a counter kick versus the 4 basic kicks6. Use leque as a response to bencao in a game7. From ginga position (stationary stance) demonstrate ability to follow any of the 4 basic kicks with Meia

Lua de Compasso by going straight in or doing Meia Lua Troca with proper form and in the appropriate direction. (step with or switch with)

8. Dodge 4 basic kicks with au9. Consistently apply vingativa in training and sometimes in games10. Show ability to use all required moves to create flow in games with partners.

Music: Play sao bento grande on berimbau keeping rhythm with the rest of the bateriaPlay pandeiro and atabaque in time with sao bento grande on the berimbauAttempts to sing most chorusesClaps with the music

GingaCorrect arms up & elbow stays upLegs correct widths in ginga position

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Beginner BracketBracket Goal: Add movement and dimension into the game. Required Moves (must be proficient):

• base• negativa (de ataque); negativa (de defesa); negativa (de costa)• guarda baixa• role baixo (4 pts on floor, solid) from base; from negativa; from guarda baixa• cocorinha• queda de quatro• passar pra tras• xis• costura• queda de rim• voltar pra tras

Secondary Moves (basic form):• chapeu de couro• tesoura de frente• rasteira do chao• rasteira do mao• role alto• negativa (lateral)• resistencia• bloqueado• passagem• cocorinha de costa• macaco

Required Skills: 1. Can change directions at any point in negativa/role and guarda baixa/role2. Regularly uses attacks in combination with transitions and defenses to build a dimensional game3. Uses defenses for different purposes (changing positions, counter attacks, etc.)4. Creates new sequences of transitions that are logical and effective for different purposes (change

directions, reposition for attack, evade an attack)5. Demonstrates spatial awareness in motion, can react and navigate around opponent’s

maneuverings 6. Remains aligned with target throughout games and sequences (chest, hips, and toes square)7. Can enter in 3 ways and exit in 3 ways each of the following moves:

• negativa (de ataque)• negativa (de costa)• guarda baixa• queda de quatro• au• queda de rim• xis• costura• passar pra tras• voltar pra tras

Music:Can consistently produce quality sound with the berimbau (sbg); Always comes in on the correct beat on berimbau, pandeiro, and atabaque; Demonstrates knowledge of many simple choruses (correct words)Ginga:Consistently demonstrates low, powerful hips in all 3 stepsShoulders back in base

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Intermediate BracketBracket Goal: Attacking counters and escapes.

Required Moves:• Gancho• Chapa Giratoria• Parafuso (queixada/martelo)• Tesoura de costa• Rasteira em pe• Banda de costa• Arrastao• Troca de frente• Finta martelo• Pendulo• Cabecada• Various quebradas

Required Skills: 1. Can attack queixada, armada, and martelo with gancho2. Can attack queixada, armada, and chapa giratoria with chapa giratoria3. Can attack queixada, armada, and martelo with martelo4. Can attack martelo, queixada, armada, and vingativa with banda de costa5. Can attack queixada, armada with tesoura de costa6. Can attack martelo with rasteira em pe7. Can attack au, queixada, armada, and meia lua de compasso with cabecada.8. Can attack meia lua de frente, queixada, armada, and meia lua de compasso with chapeu de

couro9. Can escape vingativa, tesoura de frente, banda de costa10. Can escape counter martelos and ganchos11. Can use parafuso as an attack12. Demonstrate arrastao13. Can use quebradas to disguise basic kicks (harder to counter) and add variety to the game

Music: Sings the lead on five songsAlways sings the chorusesPlays variations while playing berimbauDemonstrates the ability to sing while playing the instrumentsCan tune pandeiro and atabaque as necessary

Ginga:Body movement in all 3 positions with rhythmConsistently light on feet (weight on toes) but with deep center of balance (hips low).

Advanced Bracket

Bracket Goal: Reading and reacting, strategy, control of the game.

Required Moves: All previous bracket moves should be done with excellent form

Required Skills: 1. Reads and reacts to cues to set up traps in training from ginga and balanca 2. In partners, when given up to 3 sets of prescribed, paired movements, a student can identify

specifically how and at what moment to respond.3. Can effectively do branching sequences (initiate move, gauge response, find appropriate

counter). Eventually this can be done in partners with the other person doing required skill #2.4. Self reflects and recognizes errors (demonstrates higher understanding)5. Demonstrates basic flurry attack defense6. Must pass fitness test

Music:Can sing lead on 20 songs while playing berimbau.Can tune bateria.Can lead bateria (sbg).Can sing while playing all instruments

Ginga:Demonstrates effective and appropriate balanca.Demonstrates effective footwork to and from kicks, dodges, and repositioning in all directions (bridge footwork).Shoulders up, chin down.

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APPENDIX B

SELECTION OF SONGS FROM TALLAHASSEE CAPOEIRA The following songs represent a selection of the repertoire sung during my fieldwork at Tallahassee Capoeira. Bolded text signifies the lead singer’s part, while regular text signifies the chorus’s part. As part of an oral tradition, capoeira song lyrics vary. Sections of each song may be repeated and reordered at the lead singer’s discretion.

ABC O A o B o A o B o C O A o B o A o B o C Eu não sei ler Quero aprender Eu não sei ler Quero aprender O A de aú, o B berimbau, O C de capoeira O A de aú, o B berimbau, O C de capoeira AEIOU Eu aprendi a ler Aprendi a cantar E foi na capoeira Que eu aprendi a jogar A e i o u U e i o a A e i o u vem criança, vem jogar Eu estudo na escola E treino na academia Eu respeito a minha mãe O meu pai, e minha tia A e i o u U e i o a A e i o u vem criança, vem jogar Sou criança sou pequeno Mas um dia eu vou crescer Vou treinando capoeira Pra poder me defender A e i o u U e i o a A e i o u vem criança, vem jogar Capoeira é harmonia E amor no coração Capoeira tem criança

O futuro da nação A e i o u U e i o a A e i o u vem criança, vem jogar Aquinderre Ai ai ai ai aquinderre a la é la é la Ai ai ai ai aquinderre a la é la é la Aquinderre A la é la é la O lê lê A la é la é la A hora é essa A hora é essa, a hora é essa Berimbau tocou na capoeira Berimbau tocou eu vou jogar A hora é essa, a hora é essa Berimbau tocou na capoeira Berimbau tocou eu vou jogar Aqui é minha casa Aqui é minha casa, minha varanda, meu dendê Aqui é minha casa minha varanda meu dendê Meu chapéu de palha, minha massapê Meu chapéu de palha minha massapê Cada um tem sua história é bom respeitar para conquistar minha varanda não foi fácil camará Aqui é minha casa minha varanda meu dendê Aqui é minha casa minha varanda meu dendê Aqui é minha casa minha varanda meu dendê

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Batuque é diferente Abre a roda minha gente Que o batuque é diferente Abre a roda minha gente Que o batuque é diferente É tumba, moleque é tumba É tumba pra derrubar Tiririca faca de ponta Capoeira vai te pegar Nhazinha do Tabuleiro Quem derrubou seu companheiro Abre a roda minha gente Que o batuque é diferente Abre a roda minha gente Que o batuque é diferente Cajuê Cajuê Cajuê E manda Lecô Cajuê E manda Loiá Cajuê Mestre Bimba Cajuê Mestre Pastinha Cajuê Mestre Bimba Cajuê... O seu Traíra Cajuê Cobrinha Verde Cajuê Canjiquinha Cajuê Mestre Gigante Cajuê Ezequiel Cajuê Seu Caiçara Cajuê O seu Nagé Cajuê

Canarinho da Alemanha Eu vou encontrar só Canarinho da Alemanha Quem matou meu curió Eu vou encontrar só Canarinho da Alemanha Quem matou meu curió Dendê Dendê o dendê Lala é la, lala é la O dendê Dendê dendê Lala é la, lala é la É de ioiô, é de iaia É de ioiô, é de iaia Capoeira de Angola jogar lá na beira do mar É de ioiô, é de iaia Capoeira de Angola jogar lá na beira do mar Ê me leva Ê me leva Vai jogar capoeira Berimbau me leva Me leva ê Ê me leva Vai jogar capoeira Berimbau me leva É roda, vem jogar É roda, vem jogar Berimbau tá tocando O jogo é regional É roda, vem jogar Berimbau tá tocando O jogo é regional Escuta só quem está chamando A roda já se formou Agora é berimbau Oi pandeiro, atabaque e agogô É roda, vem jogar Berimbau tá tocando O jogo é regional

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Berimbau toca regional O corpo se arrepia Criada por Mestre Bimba Esse jogo na Bahia É roda, vem jogar Berimbau tá tocando O jogo é regional Regional Bimba criou Essa luta eficiente Essa luta só funciona Quando incorporada a gente É roda, vem jogar Berimbau tá tocando O jogo é regional É tanto que peço a Deus É tanto que peço a Deus É tanto que Deus me da É tão pouco que eu mereço Mas nada me faltara É tanto que peço a Deus É tanto que peço a Deus É tanto que Deus me da É tão pouco que eu mereço Mas nada me faltara Eu fui lá na Bahia Eu fui lá na Bahia escutei berimbau tocar a roda já começou é hora de vadiar Ooeeoo eu vou voltar pra lá Leleleleoo é hora de vadiar Ooeeoo eu vou voltar pra lá Leleleleoo é hora de vadiar... Capoeira lá na Bahia tem dendê e tem muito axé você que é mandingueiro quero ver ficar de pé Ooeeoo eu vou volta pra lá Leleleleoo é hora de vadiar É terra de Bimba, Canjiquinha, e seu Pastinha É terra de Valdemar a vontade de voltar pra Bahia Ooeeoo eu vou volta pra lá Leleleleoo é hora de vadiar Comecei no jogo de Iúna

toque bonito é da Benguela São Bento Grande do seu Bimba jogo duro é muito queda Ooeeoo eu vou volta pra lá Leleleleoo é hora de vadiar Eu pisei na folha seca Eu pisei na folha seca Ouvi fazer xué xuá Xué xué xué xuá Ouvi fazer xué xuá Xué xué xué xuá Ouvi fazer xué xuá Mas quem não pode com mandinga Não carrega patuá Ouvi fazer xué xuá Joga nego para cima Deixa o nego invadiar Ouvi fazer xué xuá Xué xué xué xuá Ouvi fazer xué xuá Fogo queimou, fogo comeu Fogo queimou, fogo comeu Mercado Modelo desapareceu Fogo queimou, fogo comeu Mercado Modelo desapareceu Gunga é meu Gunga é meu, gunga é meu Gunga é meu Eu não dou á ninguém Gunga é meu, gunga é meu Gunga é meu Foi meu pai quem me deu Gunga é meu, gunga é meu Jogo capoeira de Angola Jogo capoeira de Angola Não é brincadeira Menino vem ver Le le com a cabeça no chão Vai saindo de aú Completando rolê Jogo capoeira de Angola Não é brincadeira

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Menino vem ver Le le com a cabeça no chão Vai saindo de aú Completando role La la é O la la é, la la é, la la é a la é la O la la é, la la é, la la é a la é la O la la é, la la é, la la é a la é la O la la é, la la é, la la é a la é la O lê lê La la é la O lê lê La la é la La lauê La lauê lauê lauê lauá lalaêlauê La lauê lauê lauê lauá lalaêlauê Que som, o que arte essa De luta brincadeira Que roda maravilhosa é essa É axé capoeira Em cada som em cada toque Em cada ginga, no estilo do jogo Em cada som em cada toque Em cada ginga, no estilo do jogo La lauê lauê lauê lauá Lalaêlauê La lauê lauê lauê lauá Lalaêlauê Lá na Bahia coco no dendê Lá na Bahia coco no dendê Lá na Bahia coco no dendê Lá na Bahia coco no dendê Lá na Bahia coco no dendê Pega devagar Com dendê Pega devagar Com dendê Maré tá cheia Maré tá cheia ioio, a mare tá cheia iaia Maré tá cheia ioio, a mare tá cheia iaia Maré tá cheia ioio, a mare tá cheia iaia Maré tá cheia ioio, a mare tá cheia iaia

A mare subiu Sobe mare A mare desce Desce mare Olha a mare de mare Fui pra ilha de mare Olha a mare de mare Fui pra ilha de mare Marinheiro só Eu não sou daqui Marinheiro só Eu não tenho amor Marinheiro só Eu sou da Bahia Marinheiro só De São Salvador Marinheiro só O marinheiro, marinheiro Marinheiro só Quem te ensinou a nadar Marinheiro só O foi o tombo do navio Marinheiro só O foi o balanço do mar Marinheiro só Lá vem lá vem Marinheiro só Ele vem faceiro Marinheiro só Todo de branco Marinheiro só Com seu bonezinho Marinheiro só Meu barco, minha canoa Meu barco, minha canoa Não paro de remar Eu remo a favor da maré Não deixo essa fonte secar Meu barco, minha canoa Não paro de remar Eu remo a favor da maré Não deixo essa fonte secar Não deixo essa fonte secar

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Moleque é tu É você que é moleque Moleque é tu Ê não me chama moleque Moleque é tu Ê moleque é você Moleque é tu Ê moleque danado Moleque é tu Ê danado pra falar Moleque é tu É você que é moleque Moleque é tu Ê não me chama moleque Moleque é tu Ê mais moleque é você Moleque é tu No Mercado Modelo tem acarajé No Mercado Modelo tem acarajé No Mercado Modelo tem acarajé Io io io io Modelo Io io io io Modelo Oio io io Modelo Io io io io Modelo Parabéns pra você Parabéns pra você Nesta data querida Muitas felicidades Muitos anos de vida Parabéns pra Você Nesta data querida Muitas felicidades Muitos anos de vida (Followed by “Happy Birthday” in English) Pai é pai, mãe é mãe O pai é pai, mãe é mãe Eu sou xodó de papai, Eu sou xodó de mamãe Pai é pai, mãe é mãe Eu sou xodó de papai, Eu sou xodó de mamãe

Paraná ê Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Vou me embora vou me embora, Parana Tão sedo não venho cá, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Se não for essa semana Paraná A semana que passou, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Na roda de capoeira, Paraná Deu o seu valor, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Puxa puxa, leva leva, Paraná Leva pra cima de mim, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Capoeira de Angola, Paraná Capoeira é assim, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Eu sou braço de maré, Paraná Mas não sou maré sem fim, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Ê Paraná ê, Paraná Paraná Paraná ê Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Capoeira de Angola, Paraná Quero ouvir vocês cantar, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Quem não pode com mandinga, Paraná Não carrega patuá, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Quem não pode não intima, Paraná Deixa quem pode intimar, Paraná Paraná ê, Paraná ê, Paraná Pomba voou Pomba voou, pomba voou Pomba voou, gavião pegou Pomba voou, pomba voou Pomba voou, voou, voou Pomba voou deixa voar Pomba voou, pomba voou Pomba voou, voou, voou Quem é você, o que vem de lá Quem é você, o que vem de lá Quem é você, o que vem de lá Eu vim da Bahia, vim me apresentar

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Eu vim da Bahia, vim me apresentar Um arame, a cabaça, a moeda, E um pedaço de pau Meu berimbau toca é assim Tchi-tchi, dim dim dim, tchi-tchi dim dom dom Meu berimbau toca é assim Tchi-tchi, dim dim dim, tchi-tchi dim dom dom Quem foi diz capoeira é só pra homem Quem foi que diz capoeira é só pra homem Quem foi que diz capoeira é só pra homem Mas não é, capoeira é para homem, menino, e a mulher Mas não é, capoeira é para homem, menino, e a mulher Quem vem lá Quem vem lá sou eu Quem vem lá sou eu Berimbau bateu Capoeira sou eu Quem vem lá sou eu Quem vem lá sou eu Berimbau bateu Capoeira sou eu Roda no terreiro lá de casa Roda no terreiro lá de casa é boa pra vadiar Roda no terreiro lá de casa é boa pra vadiar Sabiá cantou Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar

capoeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Ela cantou ao som de uma viola Ela cantou ao som de uma viola Vou fazer jogo de dentro, vou fazer jogo de fora Vou fazer jogo de dentro, vou fazer jogo de fora Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Ela cantou ao som do berimbau Ela cantou ao som do berimbau Vou fazer jogo de angola e também regional Vou fazer jogo de angola e também regional Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Sabiá cantou, bonito de se ver Sabiá cantou e é bonito de se ver Vou jogar a capoeira e bater maculelê Vou jogar a capoeira e bater maculelê Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Sabiá cantou no pé da laranjeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Vou tocar meu berimbau e vou jogar capoeira Sai, sai Catarina Sai sai Catarina Saia do mar venha ver Idalina Sai sai Catarina Oi Catarina venha ver Sai sai Catarina Ô saia do mato venha ver Idalina Sai sai Catarina Oi Catarina venha ver Sai sai Catarina Ô mas saia do mar venha ver, venha ver Sai sai Catarina

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Ê saia do mar venha ver Idalina Sai sai Catarina Ê saia do mar venha ver, venha ver Sai sai Catarina Ê saia do mato venha ver Idalina Sai sai Catarina Ê saia do mato venha ver Idalina Sai sai Catarina Ê saia do mar venha ver, venha ver Sai sai Catarina Samba lê lê Samba lê lê bate a porta Samba lê lê vai ver quem é Samba lê lê o meu amor Samba lê lê samba de pé Samba lê lê bate a porta Samba lê lê vai ver quem é Samba lê lê o meu amor Samba lê lê samba de pé Santo Antônio quero água Santo Antônio, quero água Santo Antônio, quero água Quero água pra beber, quero água pra lavar Quero água pra benzer, quero água Quero água pra beber, quero água pra lavar Quero água pra benzer, quero água Sereno cai Sereno cai, sereno cai Eu ralo tanto no cumbuco do balaio Sereno cai, sereno cai Eu ralo tanto no cumbuco do balaio Quero papai, quero mamãe, quero dindinha Eu quero anel, quero dedo, quero linha Sou rapaz não tenho dinheiro A moça garante o cabelo Cascavel de vareta É danado pra bater chocalho Papai tu corta caminho Que hoje vai cair orvalho Aê aê aê aô

Aê aê aê aô Sereno cai, sereno cai Eu ralo tanto no cumbuco do balaio Sereno cai, sereno cai Eu ralo tanto no cumbuco do balaio Sim sim sim, não não não O sim sim sim, o não não não O sim sim sim, o não não não Mas hoje tem amanhã não Mas hoje tem amanhã não O sim sim sim, o não não não Mas hoje tem amanhã não Olha a pisada de Lampião O sim sim sim, o não não não Só prestar atenção Só prestar atenção que esse som é a capoeira A capoeira meu irmão Só prestar atenção que esse som é a capoeira A capoeira meu irmão Quero ouvir o som dos…atabaques, berimbaus, pandeiro, agogô, vozes (solo on instrument) ‘Tá na hora de jogar ‘Tá na hora de jogar, vamos a vadiar ‘Tá na hora de jogar, vamos a vadiar Eu vou, eu vou, vou vadiar Eu vou, eu vou, vou vadiar ‘Tamos juntos ‘Tamos juntos, misturados Quando berimbau tocar Me diga quem é você Vamos vadiar ‘Tamos juntos, misturados Quando berimbau tocar Me diga quem é você Vamos vadiar Tem, tem, tem areia Sereia mandou dizer Sereia mandou falar

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Que o mar tem muita areia Tem muita areia no mar Tem, tem, tem areia Tem, tem, tem areia do mar Um pouquinho de dendê Eu vim aqui buscar Um pouquinho de dendê Eu vim aqui buscar Um pouquinho de dendê Morena morena me da Um pouquinho de dendê Morena morena me da Um pouquinho de dendê Uma volta só E iaiá mandou dá uma volta só Ô iaiá mandou dá Uma volta só Ô iaiá mandou dá Uma volta só E mas que volta ligeira Uma volta só Ô que volta danada Uma volta só Ô iaiá mandou dá Uma volta só Ô me leva, ô me volta Uma volta só Mas que volta ligeira Uma volta só Vento que balança cana no canavial Na varanda da casa grande Coronel descansava na rede O negro no canavial Morria de fome e de sede Vento que balança cana no canavial Vento que balança cana no canavial Na capela da fazenda Sinha ia se confessar Coberta com manto de renda A joelhada no pé do altar Vento que balança cana no canavial Vento que balança cana no canavial

Sinhozinho na fazenda Maltratava o erê A mucamba na cozinha Lamentava por nada fazer Vento que balança cana no canavial Vento que balança cana no canavial... Capataz de madrugada Acordava em desespero Uma família de escravo Havia fugido do cativeiro Vento que balança cana no canavial Vento que balança cana no canavial Vim lá da Bahia pra lhe ver Vim lá da Bahia pra lhe ver Vim lá da Bahia pra lhe ver Vim lá da Bahia pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver Pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver, eu vim Vim lá da Bahia pra lhe ver Vim lá da Bahia pra lhe ver Vim lá da Bahia pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver Pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver Pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver Pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver Pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver Pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver, pra lhe ver Vim no navio de Aruanda Vim no navio de Aruanda, Aruanda ê Vim no navio de Aruanda, Aruanda á Porque me trouxeram de Aruanda... Porque me trouxeram de Aruanda Vim no navio de Aruanda, Aruanda ê Vim no navio de Aruanda, Aruanda ê Vim no navio de Aruanda, Aruanda á Porque me trouxeram de Aruanda... Porque me trouxeram de Aruanda Vim no navio de Aruanda, Aruanda ê Vivo no ninho de cobra Vivo no ninho de cobra Sou cobra que cobra não morde Uma cobra conhece outra cobra Não precisa dizer quem é cobra Vivo no ninho de cobra Sou cobra que cobra não morde

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Uma cobra conhece outra cobra Não precisa dizer quem é cobra Vou dizer ao meu sinhô Vou dizer ao meu sinhô que a manteiga derramou Vou dizer ao meu sinhô que a manteiga derramou Vou dizer ao meu sinhô que a manteiga derramou Vou dizer ao meu sinhô que a manteiga derramou Ô a manteiga não é minha, é para filha de ioiô Vou dizer ao meu sinhô que a manteiga derramou Ô a manteiga é do patrão, caiu no chão e derramou Vou dizer ao meu sinhô que a manteiga derramou

Vou vender minha novilha Vou vender minha novilha Vou vender minha novilha Novilha ligeira, ligeira novilha Saiu pra carreiras pra Santa Lúcia Vou vender minha novilha Vou vender minha novilha Novilha ligeira, ligeira novilha Saiu pra carreiras pra Santa Lúcia Zum, zum, zum Zum, zum, zum capoeira mata um Zum, zum, zum capoeira mata um Onde tem marimbondo É zum, zum, zum O A O A E Quero ver bater, quero ver cair O A O A E Quero ver bater, quero ver cair

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APPENDIX C

IRB APPROVAL LETTER

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APPENDIX D

SAMPLE CONSENT FORM

Permission to Take Part in a Human Research Study

06/27/2019

IRB Approval Date

Page 1 of 5

Title of research study: “Axé, Tallahassee Capoeira!”: A Local Manifestation of a Globalized Afro-Brazilian Tradition

Investigator: Abigail Rehard

Key Information: The following is a short summary of this study to help you decide whether or not to be a part of this study. More detailed information is listed later on in this form.

Why am I being invited to take part in a research study? We invite you to take part in a research study because you are currently taking classes or have taken classes at Tallahassee Capoeira.

What should I know about a research study? x Someone will explain this research study to you. x Whether or not you take part is up to you. x You can choose not to take part. x You can agree to take part and later change your mind. x Your decision will not be held against you. x You can ask all the questions you want before you decide.

Why is this research being done? The purpose of this research project is to explore and better understand how capoeira has transformed as it has moved outside of Brazil. This study aims to find out how and why Tallahassee capoeira players engage with this Afro-Brazilian tradition. Possible public benefits of your participation are that other communities may be able to benefit from the knowledge and insights that I learn from you.

How long will the research last and what will I need to do? You will be contacted several times over the next eight months in both planned interviews in person or by phone and spontaneously in person before or after Tallahassee Capoeira events. Planned interviews will be scheduled in advance, and you may cancel if necessary. You may decline to answer any question, and you may stop any interview at any time. It is possible that I will request follow-up interview(s) with you during later phases of the research project, which may have a duration of up to 18 months, though this is not very likely.

More detailed information about the study procedures can be found under “What happens if I say yes, I want to be in this research?”

Is there any way being in this study could be bad for me? As this is a research study, there may be risks that are unforeseeable, but are not expected to cause harm or discomfort that exceeds that which is ordinarily encountered in daily life. You have the option to keep all your responses confidential through use of a pseudonym. You will not be paid for participating in this study.

More detailed information about the risks of this study can be found under “Is there any way being in this study could be bad for me? (Detailed Risks)”

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Abby Rehard is a master’s student in the FSU Musicology program and a percussionist.

She is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia, earning a B.M. in Percussion

Performance, and a graduate of Northern Illinois University, earning a M.M. in Percussion

Performance. Her research interests focus on embodiment in community drumming and

movement forms in Brazil and facilitating mental wellness through participatory music making.

She directs and plays in Mas ‘n’ Steel on FSU’s campus and enjoys performing Shona mbira and

contemporary percussion chamber music.