For months, I’ve suspected that my capoeira group had become significantly better ever since we moved into our new studio last year. Initially, we all swelled with pride at how beautiful our training facility was: newly installed wooden floor, freshly painted walls the colors of the Brazilian flag and featuring a mural of Mestre Bimba, Mestre Pastinha and Mestre Rodrigo. Then, faced with unrestricted studio access, a variety of classes bloomed Monday through Saturday: fundamentals capoeira, all levels capoeira, kids gymnastics, adults gymnastics, roda, family fundamentals class, music class and the newest set of classes, primal fitness bootcamp, and Brazilian Beats dance class.
Such a variety of classes merely hinted at the diversity of our members, who absolutely shone during Saturday night’s performance. The show opened with one of our capoeiristas entertaining the crowd with her colorfully lit hula hoops. Not only did she keep her hoops in the air and twirling, but danced to a fast salsa song without missing a beat!
As the next capoeirista set up to spin fire, the feijoda had arrived in a promising big shiny metal pot. In addition to the black bean stew, the meal was rounded out with little biscuits, greens, white rice, ground sausage (separated from the stew for vegetarians) and oranges sliced into wedges.
Just as the food line had started in earnest, the fire spinning began. From my perspective, I enjoyed watching people make the choice of going through the buffet while turning around to check out the fire dancer. There was definitely something tribal about eating a traditional rice and beans meal while watching a fire dancer perform.
Several capoeiristas scrupulously cleaned the floor of kerosene before two other dancers and I did our rendition of afoxe, a secular Brazilian dance whose roots can be traced to back to Yoruba religion. With the help from one our Brazilian Beats teachers, I modified a West African choreography I’d learned in college.
Accompanying us were our very own band of capoeirista musicians who had rehearsed playing both afoxe and samba in addition to our capoeira songs, which are an integral part of training capoeira. I felt exhilarated not only from the adrenaline rush of performing, but the singers and musicians had hit the mark beautifully. Their energy fueled me to dance my best. From what I could tell, the other dancers were moved by the music as well.
As we prepared a roda to play capoeira, our emcee for the night, mentioned several things that were being offered that night, including my book, Tribe of One. I stepped forward and took a bow when my name was mentioned. Another capoeirista had agreed to sit at the table where my book was displayed and handle sales, which was a great plan. What I wish I had known prior to this night was that I could have accepted credit card payments. My capoeira teacher would have allowed me to use his machine and would’ve written me a check for the total sales, but I only found out about that arrangement at the end of the night.
Next opportunity, I’m going to have the proper phone app in place so I can accept credit card payments. One challenge to being a self-published author is learning all I can about being a small business owner. Now that I have a daily writing habit to advance my manuscript, I need weekly “entrepreneur improvements” to advance my business.
Once our roda was complete, we stood in a semi-circle about 30 capoeiristas strong, including some guest players who joined in to support us. I felt so proud seeing how much my friends had improved. There were several fast-paced games with high flying kicks. For anyone in the audience who had previously thought of capoeira as a dance, I’m sure we changed their minds! One of my friends later told me that she’d never seen such a strong (skilled) capoeira group.
Although I love training capoeira for my mental and physical health, I rarely play outside of a performance. During this particular performance, I chose not to change into my pants because we had such a large number of people; so I clapped and sang in support. Yet, when we started samba de roda, another afoxe dancer and I opened the floor by circling the roda, holding our flowing skirts. She brought a guy to the center of the floor to dance with her. We played our usual samba flirtation where a couple dances in the center. Throughout the song, another woman will take the woman’s place by playfully bumping her out of the way with her butt or some other diversion. Other guys will displace the guy by doing some macho diversion to dance with the woman. This goes on until the head musician who’s playing the gunga (bass) berimbau signals for the samba to end.
We had some of our audience up dancing with us before we ended. At that point, I finally had an appetite. I socialized, ate, danced a little more to the music the DJ played before packing up my things to go home. If I needed any more evidence that I’ve reached “middle-agehood,” then leaving a party before it’s over is surely it. Oh, I can shake it like I used to, but just not as long! My bed had never slept so well.
Sunday morning, I returned to the studio for part two of our fundraising event, which was a garage sale. Although lower key in terms of energy and razzle-dazzle, many people came out to purchase the used furniture, art and “artifacts” for sale.
Now that the weather’s beautiful, I’m going out on my balcony on the weekends to paint so I can offer my book and paintings–along with credit card option!