By Anthony Howell.

The mestre.

TALL DRUMS STACKED IN a corner below Angola banners, framed views of towns in Bahia, black heartland of Brazil, a map of Africa, and gourds and bows hanging up on the wall next to it, as well as other instruments.  The bow-like object is actually a berimbau, a stringed rod which has a gourd sound-box and which gets struck briskly by a stick.  There’s also a rasp called a reco-reco, pandeiros (tambourines), and a double gong called an agogô.  The conga-like drum is an atabaque.

I’m down in the deep basement of a derelict sports club at the foot of the favela in Leme – whose crag juts up at the end of Copacabana beach.  The basket-ball court has a rotting floor and is mainly used as a store for the collapsible chairs and parasols that are hired out each day to bathers.  I’m several flights below it.

THE CAPOEIRISTAS ARE MOSTLY dressed in white – though there’s the odd person in black and a Contemporânea-style girl made of rubber – who is dressed in blue.  People seldom mix colours.  The action of the ronda takes place within a circle of musicians and contestants waiting their turn.  Capoeira is a duelling dance; the contestants weaving into mutual scissors, circling each other in apparent friendliness and then ducking into attack.  If the last phrase sounds like a contradiction in terms, well, that’s what it’s like.  As they react to each other’s moves, the rhythmic litany surrounding them builds up.  The pair of playing bodies alter disconcertingly from upright to upside-down, from feet to hands to one foot and a hand to a hand.

Marrom, the mestre, is back from a tour which has taken him to Israel and Croatia.  He’s sitting among the musicians striking his berimbau.  The would-be assailants squat down by his knees.  They touch hands, then go out from him, but not on their feet, their bodies close to the floor.  From going here, they are now going there; foxing and out-foxing each other.  The repeating chorus swells, with the lead singer, in this case Marrom, interposing solo verses.  The fight is a dance on all levels and in all directions.  You don’t necessarily face your opponent.  You can use your bum to back into him – or her.

People are closer to animals here than they are on the Avenida of Nossa Senora de Copacabana.  They go on all fours.  They circle each other, spiral around.  The music follows the action, so when the contest gets hot the music heats up.  These fighters who dance stop short of doing injury – just about – they mark where the foot would dislodge an ankle, snap a knee, put out an eye or break a neck.  If, by chance, a rough or painful contact occurs, there is a softening up.  Hands touch again.  A ceremonious two step back and forth is performed, and then the duel goes on.  People rump into each other, cartwheel, balance on their hands, prance on their hands, then slide underneath and through each other.  Men fight men, women fight women, men fight women.  Large battles with small.  I’ve seen a toddler take on his mum in the centre of the chanting floor.  Tonight, a miniscule Japanese lady makes a big impact – scuttling underneath heavier partners so that they seem to lumber in her wake.

MARROM TAKES HER ON, knotting up his dreadlocks.  Capoeira tradition has a distinct affinity with Rastafarian culture.  Gregory Isaacs played live in Bahia, and was always very popular.  There are more Rastas in Brazil than there are in the Caribbean.  Later, over beers and caipirinhas, we will be dancing to reggae.  The movements have a struggle in common.  capoeira is a celebration of resistance to slavery.  The poetic history of capoeira is that it was a fight disguised as a dance which was used by the Quilombolas (slaves who escaped) and by Maroon communities to fight with the capitoes de mato (the slave-bounty hunters).

Until the 1940s the practice of capoeira was punishable under the penal code, and in Rio de Janeiro many people were exiled to – and died on – the island of Noronha for the crime of practicing capoeira.  It only became legal as a Brazilian response to the braggadocio of an influx of foreign martial artists willing to take on all comers in prize fights. The local Capoeira guys duly responded, and when they won they were exalted.  Their art became a source of national pride, and its integration began.

Marrom is a quick, black fox. He moves amusedly, creating physical jokes.  I can’t guess his age.  He returns to his berimbau, and other assailants take each other on.  They keep their centres low.  Like so many other dances, capoeira demands that you form a relationship with the ground.  Each moves into the opponent’s vulnerable area – a point is made, and the struggle moves on.  It’s almost difficult to watch (which is also true of fencing).  People are horizontal no sooner than they have become vertical.  The rubber girl goes up on her hands backwards and in less than a blink has turned with a flick in the air so that she comes forwards with her front – or something like that!  She is one of the girls who seem to have no bones.  The muscular boys feel that this is unfair.  Nothing remains where you thought it was.  Were it not for the constant of the floor, it would be a perfect demonstration of the theory of relativity.  And it’s all conducted with good humour, rhythmic elegance and high spirits, while the ceremonious structure keeps it harnessed to good practice.  But then, someone ups the ante!

IT’S MY SON, GEORGE, who has built himself up into a fair imitation of a rhinoceros but who is also as agile as a cat.  He’s a contramestre, and he started capoeira when he was sixteen, having heard of it in ‘Cyberpunk 2020’, a role-playing game.  At the time, he was the youngest capoeirista in the UK.  Now he lives in Brazil (that’s his video, below), holding down a respectable job with an NGO, and contributes to the capoeira scene’s bohemian mix of maths professors, artists, geologists, intellectuals of all descriptions, rastas from the backwoods and bad boys from the favelas – oh, and the lithest of women!  It’s an international scene.  Tonight, there’s a party for a sociologist who is returning to New Zealand.  There are Finns here, and there is a Dutchman.

The legs whirl, windmill, and the dance is now distinctly a fight.  You wouldn’t want to mess with one of these Quilombolas – as the kung-fu and the karate fighters have discovered to their cost.  But within the musical circle of the ronda, large fights with small, and anyone can spring their surprise.  That’s the name of the game.  As with any dance, sometimes you do better by abandoning your routine. I’ve seen a fight become heated, since one contestant objected to the unconventional tactics of his opponent – only to be admonished by Marrom, who pointed out that unconventional tactics were exactly what might lead to victory!

The rhythmic chant intensifies, quickens its pace.  The dance becomes a duel.

A former dancer with the Royal Ballet, Anthony Howell was founder of The Theatre of Mistakes and performed solo at the Hayward Gallery and at the Sydney Biennale. His articles on visual art, dance, performance, and poetry have appeared in many publications including Art Monthly, The London Magazine, Harpers & Queen, The Times Literary Supplement, and he is a frequent contributor to The Fortnightly Review. In 2001 he received a LADA bursary to study the tango in Buenos Aires and now teaches the dance at his studio/gallery The Room in Tottenham Hale. He is the author of a seminal textbook, The Analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to Its Theory and Practice.

The first part of this three-part letter from Rio is here; the second part is here.