Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning from an Afro-Brazilian Art is
a provocative look at capoeira, a demanding acrobatic art that
combines dance, ritual, music, and fighting style. First created by
slaves, freedmen, and gang members, capoeira is a study in
contrasts that integrates African-descended rhythms and flowing
dance steps with hard lessons from the street. According to veteran
teachers, capoeira will transform novices, instilling in them a
sense of malicia, or "cunning," and changing how they walk, hear,
and interact.
Learning Capoeira is an ethnographic study based on author Greg
Downey's extensive research about capoeira and more than ten years
of apprenticeship. It looks at lessons from traditional capoeira
teachers in Salvador, Brazil, capturing the spoken and unspoken
ways in which they pass on the art to future generations. Downey
explores how bodily training can affect players' perceptions and
social interactions, both within the circular roda, the "ring"
where the game takes place, as well as outside it, in their daily
lives. He brings together an experience-centered, phenomenological
analysis of the art with recent discoveries in psychology and the
neurosciences about the effects of physical education on
perception. The text is enhanced by more than twenty photos of
capoeira sessions, many taken by veteran teacher, Mestre Cobra
Mansa.
Learning Capoeira breaks from many contemporary trends in cultural
studies of all sorts, looking at practice, education, music,
nonverbal communication, perception, and interaction. It will be of
interest to students of African Diaspora culture, performance,
sport, and anthropology. For anyone who has wondered how physical
training affects our perceptions, this close study of capoeira will
open new avenues for understanding how culture shapes the ways we
carry ourselves and see the world.
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