Research Catalog
Learning capoeira : lessons in cunning from an Afro-Brazilian art
- Title
- Learning capoeira : lessons in cunning from an Afro-Brazilian art / Greg Downey.
- Author
- Downey, Greg.
- Publication
- Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Supplementary Content
- Publisher description
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | *MGV 05-3572 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Dance |
Details
- Description
- xiii, 272 p. : ill.; 22 cm
- Summary
- Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning from an Afro-Brazilian Art is a provocative look at capoeira, a demanding acrobatic art that combines dance, ritual, music, and fighting style. First created by slaves, freedmen, and gang members, capoeira is a study in contrasts that integrates African-descended rhythms and flowing dance steps with hard lessons from the street. According to veteran teachers, capoeira will transform novices, instilling in them a sense of malicia, or "cunning," and changing how they walk, hear, and interact. Learning Capoeira is an ethnographic study based on author Greg Downey's extensive research about capoeira and more than ten years of apprenticeship. It looks at lessons from traditional capoeira teachers in Salvador, Brazil, capturing the spoken and unspoken ways in which they pass on the art to future generations. Downey explores how bodily training can affect players' perceptions and social interactions, both within the circular roda, the "ring" where the game takes place, as well as outside it, in their daily lives. He brings together an experience-centered, phenomenological analysis of the art with recent discoveries in psychology and the neurosciences about the effects of physical education on perception. The text is enhanced by more than twenty photos of capoeira sessions, many taken by veteran teacher, Mestre Cobra Mansa.
- Subject
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-259) and index.
- Contents
- Prelude: playing capoeira -- Inside and outside the roda -- The significance of skills -- Following in a mestre's footsteps -- History in epic registers -- Singing the past into play -- Hearing the Berimbau -- Playing with a sinister past -- The rogue's swagger -- Closing the body -- Walking in evil -- The limits of whitening -- Tearing out the shame -- Conclusion: lessons from the roda.
- Call Number
- *MGV 05-3572
- ISBN
- 0195176987 (alk. paper)
- 9780195176988 (alk. paper)
- 0195176979 (pbk. : alk. paper)
- 9780195176971 (pbk. : alk. paper)
- LCCN
- 2004054797
- OCLC
- 55982015
- Author
- Downey, Greg.
- Title
- Learning capoeira : lessons in cunning from an Afro-Brazilian art / Greg Downey.
- Imprint
- Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-259) and index.
- Connect to:
- Research Call Number
- *MGV 05-3572