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 encounters and disagreements. Among the traditions and lineages that met and shaped the city’s capoeira are those of Mestre Zé da Volks, from São Paulo, Mestre Mão-de-Ouro, from Brasília, and Mestre Camisa, from Rio de Janeiro. The disagreements, in turn, were fundamental to the formation of the local capoeira community, whose contours are visible to this day.

The “street rodas” were the stage for fights between “bandeiras” around an incipient capoeira market. Obviously, over the years these traditions have become segmented and other traditions have been established, but despite being extremely fragmented in a number of groups, the first two lineages that consolidated and shaped the local capoeira community still function as references for “renewed” social processes, such as the current formation of federations and political party affiliations.

Among the local representatives of the main lineages are Mestre Albino from Piauí, leader and founder of the Escravos Brancos Capoeira Group, who migrated to São Bernardo do Campo – SP in the early 1970s, where he learnt capoeira from mestre Zé da Volks. The brothers and mestres Bobby, Chocolate and Tucano joined John Grandão to represent the former Senzala Piauí Group and, later, Abadá Piauí, under the general coordination of Mestre Camisa. With the exception of Mestre Albino, all the other mestres from Piauí are now in different groups.

The federations

Capoeira from Teresina has been strongly linked to the bureaucratic-administrative structure of the federations since its beginnings. When Mestre Albino returned from São Bernardo do Campo in 1977, he brought the model of the São Paulo Capoeira Federation to Piauí, as well as the teachings of Mestre Zé da Volks. He then founded the Federação Piauiense de Capoeira (FPC) and tried to bring together all the local capoeiristas around its principles.

However, only his own “graduates”, members of the Escravos Brancos Group became part of the FPC, since the mestres affiliated to the Senzala Group were opposed to the founding principles of the federation, especially the graduation system and the rules for sporting competitions.

Years passed and this federation model became hegemonic in the city. At first, it was seen as a condition imposed by the government in order to obtain subsidies for events. As mestre Albino says, “there was always pressure from the authorities, every time we went to the [Sports] secretariat, any capoeirista, they said: ‘no, it has to be everyone together, there has to be a federation'”. Then the federation came to be understood as a political tool from which demands and strategies for obtaining rights emerged. The new generation of mestres, heirs to the lineage of the old Senzala Piauí, realised the importance that the bureaucratisation of capoeira was acquiring in the city and founded their own federation, the Federação de Capoeira Piauiense (FECAPI).

Municipal elections and capoeirista candidates

In recent years, capoeira in Teresina has sought to elect a capoeirista as a city councillor, with the argument that the number of capoeiristas in the city would be large enough for the election, and that all that would be needed would be the mobilisation of the community around a “single candidacy” under the slogan “capo-eirista votes for capoeirista!”. However, in addition to the fact that there is no evidence that there are 1,500 capoei-ristas voting in the city, both the FPC and FECAPI presented their own candidacies, halving their chances of success in the 2020 elections.(1)

(1) The result of municipal elections depends on the relationship between the number of voting inhabitants and the number of councillor seats on the city council, this number is called the Electoral Quotient (EQ). The EQ is used to define the number of votes that each party (or coalition of parties) must obtain in order to secure a seat on the city council. Each candidate must obtain at least 10 per cent of the total votes of this EQ. In Teresina, the QE is around 15,000 votes. So, for a candidate to be elected, he must be part of a party that obtained at least 15,000 votes, and he himself must be the most voted candidate among the candidates of his party (or coalition) with at least 1,500 votes.

The FPC supported Marcelo Capoeira (PSD), Mestre Albino’s former disciple in the Escravos Brancos Group, who won 581 votes. FECAPI supported the collective slate Capoeira e Periferia (PCdoB), made up almost entirely of its members: Contramestre Boquinha, Mestre Kunta, Mestre Parafuso and Dj Laís, which won 108 votes.

More interesting than the result of the vote itself is the segmented dynamic of the candidacies, which corresponds to the differences between the two main lineages representing the two state capoeira federations

Contramestre Boquinha e Mestre John Grandão em batizado do Grupo Senzala em Teresina. 1989. Acervo Contramestre Boquinha.

Aniversário de 20 anos do Grupo Escravos Brancos: Mestre Albino, Mestre Oscar, Contramestre Bobby. 2000. Acervo Mestre Albino)

Evento do grupo Abadá Teresina: Mestre Bobby, Mestre John, Professora Cândida, Mestre Tucano e Contramestre Boquinha. 1995. Acervo Contramestre Boquinha).

The challenge that transcends the local community

The bureaucratisation of capoeira in Teresina in the form of federations is seen as inherent to the practice itself, but insufficient to guarantee the rights of capoeiristas, which motivates party political action and the search for representation in the city council.

There is a challenge here that arises from the contradiction between a force that tends to separate and guarantee the diversity of capoeira and another force that seeks to aggregate and strengthen the community as a whole.

Unfortunately, after many attempts to unify the overall community, the capoeiristas of Teresina continue to reproduce, in the bureaucratic and political spheres, the differences that exist in the field of lineages. This is also what we see happening on a national scale, with the creation of the Brazilian Capoeira Party (PBC). The intention of the mestres involved was to bring together the national community and elect some deputies who would actually represent capoeira in Congress. However, before they even managed to register with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the PBC split and an opposition party, the National Capoeira Party (PNC), emerged. Both continue with the arduous work of gathering state delegations (now divided) to get the parties registered with the TSE. This is the challenge for capoeiristas in Teresina, Brazil and perhaps the world: How to maintain the richness of capoeira with its own lineages, traditions, styles and ideologies, while at the same time creating political bridges that strengthen the community as a whole? Because if there are many differences, there must be many points of convergence!

Celso de Brito holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). He is now Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences of the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI) and teaches on the Graduate Anthropology Programme. He has been a capoeira teacher since 2018, being responsible for the Grupo de Capoeira Angola Zimba in Teresina, Piauí.

Read the full article (in Portuguese) here:

BRITO, Celso de; SILVA, Robson Carlos da. A capoeira teresinense: linhagens, federações e suas posições no espectro político. Revista Entrerios, vol. 4, n. 2, p. 60-97, (2021). Disponível em: https://revistas.ufpi.br/index.php/entrerios/article/view/12938/8235. Acessado em jun. 2023.