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Art and Freedom

Sarah Kay Peters, Author

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Capoeira

Capoeira is a very complex art, grown out of revolution and continuing to liberate people hundreds of years later. There are many healing modalities present in capoeira, including the presence of the trickster, flow, play, homeplaces as well as principles found in Somatic Experiencing. Capoeira uses music, dance, ritual, play, and community to provide constant opportunity for individual development and growth.



To understand capoeira, you have to understand the roots. Capoeira grew out of an amalgam of several different African martial arts. It came to be what we now know as capoeira in Brazil. Capoeira comes from a people whose history has been silenced so there is much debate about how exactly it came into being. Currently, one of the more popular theories is that thought the rudimentary movements of capoeira may have started in slave quarters, it developed as a fighting style in the Quilombos, communities of escaped slaves and freeborn Afro-Brazilians. Initially, capoeira movements only needed to be enough to defend against whips from slave masters, depending heavily on the strength of the practitioners, in the Quilombos, the capoeiristas had to defend themselves from Portuguese guns and canons. When the Quilombos broke up, capoeira was spread with the people all over Brazil (Almeida 15-16). Though capoeira certainly has origins in African martial arts and culture, it is essentially Brazilian in that it does not exist anywhere else in the Caribbean or Americas where slaves were brought. Capoeira’s influences from African culture, include the music, movements, and spirituality. (20-21).
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