Capoeira and Break-Dancing

"A community that doesn't have a ritual cannot exist." -- Malidoma Patrice Some

Hollow back to a head spin into a leg sweep, followed by some old, next-type floor work. Slick's fast moves all seem like a routine he choreographed with his boy who moves in perfect sync with him. The music that accompanies what seems like an impromptu battle isn't Hip Hop, and despite a few recognizable moves, these guys definitely aren't breaking -- they're playing capoeira. If you've ever followed breaking, been to a house club or to Brazil, chances are you've heard of or seen the dance-fight-looking art that many believe to be either the cousin, once removed or father of breaking's movement and flow.

Many art voyeurs agree that the similarities in movement and energy between capoeira and breaking seem endless -- whether this is coincidence or continuity remains disputed. While breaking has been at the forefront of Hip Hop culture for close to 30 years, the last five years or so have put capoeira, an age-old Brazilian martial art form, on the tip of everyone's tongue.

For a seasoned perspective in my quest for answers, I went to reps from both camps: Furacao of Abada-Capoeira and Ken Swift of Rock Steady Crew. Furacao a.k.a. Freddy Correa of Washington Heights, lived in Brazil for three years studying intensively at Mestre Camisa's Academy. He now teaches in New York City at Martin Luther King, Jr. High School, Hunter College and Manhattan Center High School of Science and Mathematics. Recently, he won the title of Best Foreign Player at the Second World Games in Rio de Janeiro in 1999. Ken Swift a.k.a. Kenny Gabbert is a veteran breaker and international performer who some say reintroduced footwork into the '90s breaking scene. He has judged international breaking competitions and now teaches at Multicultural Dance Ensemble in Spanish Harlem. What I found in these conversations, despite the technical differences and separation in the time-space continuum, is that both grew from a need in oppressed peoples to use creativity to react to life as they knew it. Both forms were created among people with their minds in the same place in their respective worlds: locked down, hemmed up and assed out.

"Capoeira e defesa ataque, e ginga de corpo e malandragem." Loosely translated, this song warns us that capoeira is a game of defense and attack; rocking of the body and trickery. It seems only right that this would be a mantra for a game that originated in slavery. When Brazil was founded in the 1500s, capoeira as we know it began to take shape. There are many theories as to how capoeira came to be and was able to survive in the face of slavery, although no one knows for sure due to the secrecy imposed on its practice. Many accounts propose that slaves disguised their fighting games as a dance so slave masters would not see that in actuality, they were cleverly training themselves in an art that could disarm, confuse and defeat an opponent of any size-without weapons. Others suggest that this was impossible because not all slaves were free to practice their arts, coupled with the fact that slave traders separated Africans from the same region to minimize the chances of a rebellion. In spite of this, it established for slaves a symbol of and weapon for their freedom. Capoeira, like many cultures of subversion, owes its existence and increasing popularity to its ability to morph throughout the years while keeping the integrity of its philosophy intact. As Furacao recounts, "There is a saying in capoeira, 'Capoeira is like a chameleon -- you change only to preserve your essence.'"

Over the course of time, instruments were added to the game to complete the camouflage of this lethal martial art: the berimbau (a stringed instrument made of a gourd, a piece of wire, string and a bow), the atabaque (drum), the pandeiro (tambourine) and sometimes, the reco-reco, the caxixi and the agogo (a two tone bell.)