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| Mestre Bimba | ||
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Every capoeirista has his mestre to which he owes respect and obedience and, in return, learns an example of life, a legacy of experience that is heard by students at the end of each roda. However, in Bahia at the beginning of the 20th century there was a special mestre. Mestre Bimba is today respected by all who revolutionized traditional capoeira and created Capoeira Regional, today found in all parts of Brazil and the world.
Mestre Bimba was a complete capoeirista, admired even by his adversaries. Bimba
was good in the “jogo”, knew how to “ginga” like no
one else, played the berimbau with unsurpassable skills, was an excellent singer
and knew everything baout the Afro-Brazilian culture.
Manoel dos Reis Machado, Mestre Bimba, was born in Bahia on the 23rd of November
1899, son of Dona Maria Martinha do Bonfim and the champion “batuque”
fighter Luiz Candido Machado. His initiation into capoeria was in the streets
of Boiadas, today the neighborhood of Liberdade, in Salvador, Bahia. Student
of Mestre Bentinho, an African captain of the Bahia Navigation Company, Mestre
Bimba practiced the Angola style of capoeira for more than ten years.
In 1932, Mestre Bimba founded the fist capoeira academy in Engenho Velho de
Brotas, the neighborhood in which he was born. By that time he had already developed
his own style, “Regional”. In 1937, he was registered as a physical
education professor and in 1939 was teaching “Regional” in the CPOR
headquarters. He inaugurated his second academy in 1942. Because the efficiency
of his method was always considered the most practical and perfected, it passed
many frontiers and became known worldwide.
Many important political and social figures of Bahia were students of Mestre
Bimba. Through his contacts he was able to take “Capoeira Regional”
to the Governor’s Palace under General Juracy Magalhães. He won
the respect and admiration of the state’s maximum authority and opended
the path which led to the president of the Republic, Getúlio Vargas.
The presentation for Vargas was fundamental for the evolution of African culture
in Brazil. Getulio legalized Capoeira, recognized it as the national Brazilian
fighting art and later made its practice official through the ministry of Education.
The social affirmation and the cultural and athletic recognition of Capoeira
are historically linked to the creative spirit and the administrative organization
of Mestre Bimba. He orgazined rodas, presentations, competitions and courses
which, each time, brought more people to capoeira. In the “Centro de Cultural
Fisica Regional”, Mestre Bimba’s academy, Capoeira Regional was
thought of and taught not only as an original style of playing Capoeira, but
more as a new method of giving value to capoeira’s past. Capoeira Regional
helped to build new relationships within society and point out other functions
of its use as a profession.
Capoeira Regional caused a revolution in the practice of Capoiera. Bimba had a profound knowledgde of Capoiera Anogla, the traditional form of capoeira and chose to change the ways of this Brazilian art. For the first time he took capoeira off the streets and into the academies of the “Centro de Cultura Fisica Regional”. Capoeira Regional was aimed at forming a more athletic capoeira; a faster and more efficient form. Bibma also saught societal recognition of the teaching and practice of the gelid fight of the African slaves.
Mestre Bimba showed a new reality for capoeira, his academy operated as a school:
training room, dressing room, equipment, chairs and tables. He had a mural for
his students full of photographs and newspaper clippings that presented a history
of Capoiera throughout times. He was very rigorous in his teaching and evaluation
of the students. He had a registration book, separate classes and hours, pamphlets
and bulletin boards. In spite of his limited educational background, Bimba utilized
sophisticated methods of organization and management. His contracts with tourists
agencies had specific clauses that were rigourously followed.. Another concern
of Mestre Bimba was promotion; when there was a formation (Batizado) each student
was responsible for promoting the event in the newspaper and selling a certain
number of tickets. In time, Mestre Bimba’s academy served as a model for
all the other capoeira schools of the time and today. We can still trace the
administrative practices back to the roots left by Bimba.
The speed of the movements the aggressive posture, without violence and trickery,
quick rationalization and accelerated rhythm, a more festive roda and white
uniforms are characteristics of Regional that are still present today. Bimba’s
style didn’t privilege anyone, white, black, strong or weak. Late in his
life, Mestre Bimba left to Goiania, in the interior of Brazil, in search of
a better quality of life. He died in 1974.
| Grao Mestre Camisa Roxa | ||
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When he was 10 years old, Grão-Mestre Camisa Roxa began
to play capoeira. At the time, it was only one of the many games he played to
entertain himself and to pass the long hours of childhood. He had no idea that,
19 years later, he would be a professional capoeirista and the first to carry
his art outside of Brazil—to Europe and around the world.
Born Edvaldo Carneiro da Silva in 1944, Grão-Mestre Camisa Roxa spent
his childhood in the Fazenda Estiva, a farm in the interior of Bahia. He was
the oldest of many children, and greatly admired by his younger brothers and
sisters, a number of whom followed in his footsteps, in life and in capoeira.
Perhaps the most recognized of his brothers is José Tadeu, or Mestre
Camisa, man also known in Brazil and around the world for his contributions
to the art and practice of capoeira.
Camisa Roxa first made his name as a capoeirista in Salvador, Bahia as a student
of the legendary Mestre Bimba. In the 1960s, he left rural Bahia for the capital
city in order to complete his high school education. In addition to his school
work, he began studying capoeira under the tutelage of Mestre Bimba. He was
an apt and hard working pupil, and eventually gained recognition as Bimba’s
best student. Soon, his reputation, talent, and knowledge of capoeira spread
beyond the walls of Mestre Bimba’s academy. As a young man playing in
the rodas at Mestre’s Pastinha’s academy and in the rodas of Mestres
Valdemar and Traira on Pero Vaz Street, Camisa Roxa was well-respected and highly
regarded.
When he was 21, Grão-Mestre Camisa Roxa’s father passed away, and
he became the patriarch of his family. He took on the responsibility of educating
his brothers and sisters and providing for their general welfare. He became
their second father, and was greatly admired by all. In fact, three of his brothers—Ermival,
Pedrinho, and José Tadeu—followed in his footsteps, also training
capoeira with Mestre Bimba at his academy in Salvador. Like their brother, all
three became alunos formados, graduates of the Acadamia de Mestre Bimba, Camisa
Roxa began teaching capoeira in a number of academies and clubs in Salvador.
He eventually formed a group dedicated to promoting the art of capoeira throughout the world. In 1973 he made his first trip to Europe. At the time, few people believed that his voyage would meet with success. Yet, trusting in his vision, his talent, and in the power of capoeira, Camisa Roxa made the journey, and along with the members or his group, he was very well received. That trip was the first step towards what has now become the internationalization of capoeira. Though the art remains firmly rooted in Brazil, it has been planted in 40 countries around the world, largely as a result of the travels and the work of Grão-Mestre Camisa Roxa.
| Mestre Camisa | ||
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When he was seven years old, Jose Tadeu Cardoso (the now famous
Mestre Camisa) began a life-long affair with capoeira. At the time, it was one
of several preferred childhood amusements, but capoeira soon became the boy’s
passion. As a teenager, Camisa began studying capoeira formally and by the time
turned seventeen, capoeira had already become his career. Years later, after
founding the organization ABADÁ-Capoeira and promoting his art around
the world, capoeira is Mestre Camisa’s family, his life’s work,
his philosophy and—still—his enduring passion.
Jose Tadeu Cardoso grew up in the interior of Bahia, on his family’s small farm, the Fazenda Estiva. He spent much of his childhood watching local men play spontaneous games of capoeira and listening to the older men in the area tell stories of the exploits of famous local capoeiras. But the boy’s first lessons in capoeira came from his older brother, Camisa Roxa, who had left the family farm as a teenager to attend high school in the capital city, Salvador. Whenever Camisa Roxa would return to the family farm, he would demonstrate the movements he had learned training capoeira with Mestre Bimba to his younger brothers and cousins. The young boys would transform these small lessons into games, and would play them during the idle hours of childhood.
After his father passed away, the young Jose Tadeu went with his brothers to
live in Lapinha, in Salvador. Whenever he had the opportunity, he would play
capoeira in street rodas and in the rodas of Mestre Valdemar, in the neighborhood
Liberdade. Late one night (or, early one morning), Camisa Roxa found his twelve-year-old
brother playing alone in a street roda full of adult capoeiristas. He took his
brother home and convinced their mother that the young Jose Tadeu should develop
his passion for capoeira inside the safer, controlled environment of Mestre
Bimba’s Academy. His mother consented, and Jose Tadeu enrolled as a student—but
he did not stop playing capoeira in street rodas around Salvador.
After training with Mestre Bimba for roughly a year, Camisa became an aluno formado, or graduate of the Academy. Soon after, he joined his brother in a traveling folkloric group that toured Brazil and the world, Olodum Maré, performing in various numbers—most frequently those featuring the art of capoeira. After a successful three month run in Rio de Janeiro, the group left for Europe with a new name, Brasil Tropical. Camisa remained in Rio, with a bus ticket to return to Salvador, where he was to continue, and complete, his studies. As soon as the boat carrying Brasil Tropical to Europe set sail, however, Camisa tore up his bus ticket and began what would become a long and prosperous career teaching capoeira in Rio de Janeiro.
Poor and alone in a strange city, Camisa struggled to build a name for himself
in Rio. He began teaching in various gyms, clubs, and schools, hoping to draw
students and earn his daily bread, but also in order to avoid being alone. During
this difficult period, he began developing, transforming, and expanding the
techniques he had learned from Mestre Bimba, in order to create his own style
of capoeira.
The idea for the organization ABADÁ-Capoeira grew out of Camisa’s
experiments during this period and, perhaps most importantly, from his longing
for family. The organization is structured like a family, in which knowledge
and tradition are passed on from one generation of capoeiristas to the next,
just as parents pass on customs and traditions, as well as life’s lessons,
to their children.
Now, ABADÁ-Capoeira is one of the largest families in the world, with
thousands of members in at least 16 countries around the world. Still, it remains
firmly rooted in Brazil, where its intention is to create citizens, preserve
cultural traditions, and to promote confidence in the art of capoeira, and in
the potential of Brazil.