painting by Michelle Doyle: unidade
 
     
  Capoeira originated as an African martial art developed by slaves to fight their masters. Capoeira was prohibited by the oppressors and banished from the senzalas (slave barracks). The slaves were forced to practice clandestinely in the forest. Later, in an attempt to disguise this dance of defiance from the authorities, capoeira was developed into a kind of acrobatic dance. The clapping of hands and plucking of the berimbau, a stringed musical instrument that looks like a fishing rod, originally served to alert fighters to the approach of the boss and subsequently became incorporated into the dance to maintain the rhythm.
 
     
 
 
 
capoeira in the 19th century
  
     
  As recently as the 1920s, capoeira was still prohibited and Salvador's police chief organized a police cavalry squad to ban capoeira from the streets. In the 1930s, Mestre Bimba established his academy and changed the emphasis of capoeira, from its original function as a tool of insurrection, to a form of artistic expression which has become an institution in Bahia.  
       
   
  Mestre Bimba, 1900 - 1974 Mestre Pastinha, 1889 - 1981  
     
 
Today, there are two schools of capoeira: the Capoeira de Angola, founded by Mestre Pastinha, and the more aggressive Capoeira Regional of Mestre Bimba. The former school holds that capoeira came from Angola; the latter believes that it was born in the plantations of Cachoeira and other cities of the recôncavo region.
 
     
 
 
 
painting by Michelle Doyle: praia
  
     
 
Capoeira combines the forms of the fight, the game and the dance. The movements are always fluid and circular, the fighters always playful and respectful. Capoeira has become very popular in recent years, and throughout Bahia and the rest of Brazil you will see the roda de capoeiras (semicircles of spectator-musicians who sing the initial chula before the fight and provide the percussion during the fight). In addition to the musical accompaniment from the berimbau, blows are exchanged between fighter/dancers to the beat of other instruments, such as caxixi, pandeiro, reco-reco, agogô and atabaque.
  
     
   
  berimbau and other Capoeira instruments for sale on a Salvador street  
     
     
 
In recent years, Capoeira has spread all over the world and gained thousands of adherents. There is hardly any small town in Europe, Canada or the US without its Capoeira school and led by some resident mestre.
  
     
     
 
 
       
 
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