About the project
The Angolan Roots of Capoeira. Transatlantic Links of a Globalised Performing Art
Initial seed-corn funding for the first trip to Angola in 2006 was provided by the Research Promotion Fund of the University of Essex. The British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) kindly provided the core funding to carry out the research project from 2010 to 2013.
A crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo supplied the funds to finish the edit of the documentary film in 2013 (See film credits).
The University of Essex Pro-Vice Chancellor’s Strategic Fund supported the web design of this section in 2020.
The project “The Angolan Roots of Capoeira. Transatlantic Links of a Globalised Martial Art” did not follow a traditional “listening-only” approach. We took capoeira to our interlocutors to help them understand why we were interested in their musical bows and their combat games. Whilst this led to very productive exchanges between Angolan forms and capoeira and the berimbau (Brazilian musical bow, main instrument of modern capoeira), it of course also shaped our focus.
