Capoeira Angola – Dance, music and Afro-Brazilian martial arts with Mestre Braga

Capoeira is both a dance and a martial art, with deep roots embedded in its African heritage. Its beginnings date back to the arrival of the first Bantu slaves in Brazil. In its traditional form, Capoeira developed a technique of movements that combined ancestral rhythms and the necessity of a camouflaged physical struggle in response to Portuguese slavery. In order to protect themselves and organise their resistance, certain groups of black rebels would meet in clearings within thick forests, where a grass called capoeira grew.

Capoiera is a game of movements that retell this part of Brazilian history through physical expression and song, which is accompanied by the famous musical arc known as the berimbau.