Mestre Pastinha: the written mischiefs of a capoeira-author
By Mauricio Acuña Mestre Pastinha: the written mischiefs of a capoeira-author uses excerpts from the chapter “Quando as letras fazem, mizerer: práticas de escrita na…
The jackknife game
By Roberto Pereira. Little is known about the use of the jackknife in capoeira of former times. Some scholars attribute its origin to a Portuguese…
Frede Abreu
By Maria Luísa Pimenta Neves. Frederico José de Abreu (1946-2013), known in capoeira circles as Frede Abreu, was a native of Bahia who discovered and…
Capoeira politics in Teresina, Piauí: lineages, federations and political parties
By Celso de Brito. Encounters and mismatches Capoeira from Teresina emerged in the 1970s and consolidated itself in the following decade with a series of…
Sailors, Moleques and “Heroes”: Capoeira in Maranhão in the First Republic
By Roberto Pereira. When the gunboat Lamego, of the Brazilian Navy, left São Luís, on 18th June 1887, the city breathed a sigh of relief.…
In the “hippie era”: the rediscovery of capoeira in Pará in the 1970s
By Luiz Augusto Pinheiro Leal and Fabio Araújo Fernandes. The history of capoeira has for a long time been marred with myths. The most dangerous,…
Mestre Cosmo and his legacy to Piracicaba capoeira
By Letícia Vidor de Sousa Reis. Contemporary capoeira in Piracicaba has as its main representative Claudival da Costa, the late Mestre Cosmo, graduated capoeira master…
Classic sources of capoeira history: The Manuscripts of Mestre Noronha
Unlike many masters of his generation, Daniel Coutinho, better known as Mestre Noronha, could read and write. It was thus possible for him to leave…
Capoeira: The “national art” of São Paulo’s ring
By Filipe Amado. Beginning in 1920, there was a significant change in the way capoeira was referred to in the São Paulo newspapers. Following a…
Capoeira in the streets of São Paulo in the first decades of the 20th century
By Filipe Amado. Today we know that the history of capoeira is not restricted to Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. There is evidence in many…