(no subject)
Nem todo que reluz é ouro
Nem todo que balança cai
Nem todo que reluz é ouro
Nem todo que balança cai
Cai, cai, cai, cai
Capoeira balança mas não cai
Cai, cai, cai, cai
ccapoeira balança mas não cai
Those are the lyrics of a very simple capoeira song that's a favourite of mine. Translation: "Not all that glitters is gold/ Not everything that balances falls/ Not all that glitters is gold/ Not everything that balances falls/ Falls, falls, falls, falls/ Capoeira balances but doesn't fall/ Falls, falls, falls, falls/ Capoeira balances but doesn't fall."
I just got back from a three-day event held to celebrate 10 years of capoeira Angola in Indiana. We learned and practiced many things, and among those were daily capoeira rodas held outdoors in a huge pagoda in the middle of a huge park on the south side of Indianapolis. The roda on Saturday was. . . well. I have to start at the beginning.
The event was headed by my teacher, Contra-Mestre Iuri Santos, and Contra-Mestre Espantalho, a friend and colleague of his from Brazil. Espantalho (pronounce it "'spantahlio") is, in addition to an Angoleiro, a teacher of Maculelê and an Orixa dancer. He has actually been teaching maculelê to my capoeira group for the past several weeks so that we could perform at this event, which we did, and we bombed, totally (we blame this on never having been able to practice in the performance space, and on not having been able to practice at all for 6 days before the show). Still, it's insane amounts of fun. Why, you ask? Two words:
Sticks.
And hit.
I'm like a twelve-year-old with those things. Knock 'em together and they go BANG! Yay!
Anyway, I'm digressing. On Saturday just before lunch, we had a workshop to learn some hopped-up Orixa dancing. If you clicked on the link above -- picture that, kind of, except three times faster, with more variations, for two hours without stopping, taught by a guy who speaks only a few words of English.
Yeah.
And they were Orixa dances, so we were effectively calling to the Orixas to bring us many things -- health, happiness, a good harvest, and rain. Definitely rain. Many times we called for rain without even knowing what we were doing until he told us later.
Time for the roda came later. The roda is the reason we train capoeira -- you practice and practice so that you can improve your skills in the roda, which is the actual capoeira event. We all went outside into that big pagoda, set up our circle with the bateria (musicians) on one side. I don't know how long we'd been playing when the rain came, but it wasn't long. The thunder and lightning started almost immediately. The rain came down with such force that even though the edges of our circle were a good 2-3 meters in from the edge of the shelter, we had to squeeze closer to stay dry. We kept playing. My turn in the centre came, and I played with a girl named Jessie who is (fortunately) just about my level in a game that as entertaining and theatrical for the others to watch as it was fun for us to play; we got cheered at every hit we made (and we each landed one or two) and hammed it up for every hit we received, everyone singing Joga bonito que eu quero aprender and huddling in from the storm. The roda continued until the park officials told us we had to stop, because it was too dangerous to be in the pagoda when there was fork lightning around.
I guess those Orixa dances are more powerful than any of us had guessed.
The next day we had another roda. I played with a guy named Cody who could have cleaned the floor with me one-handed, but was kind enough not to. The roda sang "Joga de dentro, Joga de fora" so I did my best to help keep the game in a close space, in the spirit of the song. It was his last roda before moving away and I felt a bit guilty that he had to play it with me instead of with someone who could have given him more of a run for his money, but he was a good sport, the energy of the roda was amazing, and I was sad when the berimbau ended our turn.
The awesome thing about playing in the roda is that it's the beginning and end of the world while you're in it. All you're worried about for the few minutes of your game is not getting your feet taken out from under you, or your head kicked out from over you, by the person you're playing with. It's a game of call and response, of reading the other person and responding in such a way that it's difficult for him or her to read you. For those two or three minutes, nothing else in the universe matters.
In training, I managed to conquer my fear of an exercise I'd never managed to do before. Basically, one person gets down on all fours on the ground. You go up to that person, pop a handstand on the ground beside them, and let yourself roll over their back to the other side. The variation is to do it backwards: you rest the base of your tailbone against their side, then bend back into a bridge until your hands are resting firmly on the ground, and curl your legs over. It requires more balance than you'd think and I've always been too afraid to fall to do it. But this weekend I did it, in both directions. Go me.
I've spent the past two weeks running around humming a Candomblé song used in our Maculelê performance. It's a beautiful song.
Best weekend ever. And now I really need to sleep, because tomorrow is Monday and back to the grind, though I don't really feel like I've had a day off (ow my feet).
Ay, ay, Oxum.
Nem todo que balança cai
Nem todo que reluz é ouro
Nem todo que balança cai
Cai, cai, cai, cai
Capoeira balança mas não cai
Cai, cai, cai, cai
ccapoeira balança mas não cai
Those are the lyrics of a very simple capoeira song that's a favourite of mine. Translation: "Not all that glitters is gold/ Not everything that balances falls/ Not all that glitters is gold/ Not everything that balances falls/ Falls, falls, falls, falls/ Capoeira balances but doesn't fall/ Falls, falls, falls, falls/ Capoeira balances but doesn't fall."
I just got back from a three-day event held to celebrate 10 years of capoeira Angola in Indiana. We learned and practiced many things, and among those were daily capoeira rodas held outdoors in a huge pagoda in the middle of a huge park on the south side of Indianapolis. The roda on Saturday was. . . well. I have to start at the beginning.
The event was headed by my teacher, Contra-Mestre Iuri Santos, and Contra-Mestre Espantalho, a friend and colleague of his from Brazil. Espantalho (pronounce it "'spantahlio") is, in addition to an Angoleiro, a teacher of Maculelê and an Orixa dancer. He has actually been teaching maculelê to my capoeira group for the past several weeks so that we could perform at this event, which we did, and we bombed, totally (we blame this on never having been able to practice in the performance space, and on not having been able to practice at all for 6 days before the show). Still, it's insane amounts of fun. Why, you ask? Two words:
Sticks.
And hit.
I'm like a twelve-year-old with those things. Knock 'em together and they go BANG! Yay!
Anyway, I'm digressing. On Saturday just before lunch, we had a workshop to learn some hopped-up Orixa dancing. If you clicked on the link above -- picture that, kind of, except three times faster, with more variations, for two hours without stopping, taught by a guy who speaks only a few words of English.
Yeah.
And they were Orixa dances, so we were effectively calling to the Orixas to bring us many things -- health, happiness, a good harvest, and rain. Definitely rain. Many times we called for rain without even knowing what we were doing until he told us later.
Time for the roda came later. The roda is the reason we train capoeira -- you practice and practice so that you can improve your skills in the roda, which is the actual capoeira event. We all went outside into that big pagoda, set up our circle with the bateria (musicians) on one side. I don't know how long we'd been playing when the rain came, but it wasn't long. The thunder and lightning started almost immediately. The rain came down with such force that even though the edges of our circle were a good 2-3 meters in from the edge of the shelter, we had to squeeze closer to stay dry. We kept playing. My turn in the centre came, and I played with a girl named Jessie who is (fortunately) just about my level in a game that as entertaining and theatrical for the others to watch as it was fun for us to play; we got cheered at every hit we made (and we each landed one or two) and hammed it up for every hit we received, everyone singing Joga bonito que eu quero aprender and huddling in from the storm. The roda continued until the park officials told us we had to stop, because it was too dangerous to be in the pagoda when there was fork lightning around.
I guess those Orixa dances are more powerful than any of us had guessed.
The next day we had another roda. I played with a guy named Cody who could have cleaned the floor with me one-handed, but was kind enough not to. The roda sang "Joga de dentro, Joga de fora" so I did my best to help keep the game in a close space, in the spirit of the song. It was his last roda before moving away and I felt a bit guilty that he had to play it with me instead of with someone who could have given him more of a run for his money, but he was a good sport, the energy of the roda was amazing, and I was sad when the berimbau ended our turn.
The awesome thing about playing in the roda is that it's the beginning and end of the world while you're in it. All you're worried about for the few minutes of your game is not getting your feet taken out from under you, or your head kicked out from over you, by the person you're playing with. It's a game of call and response, of reading the other person and responding in such a way that it's difficult for him or her to read you. For those two or three minutes, nothing else in the universe matters.
In training, I managed to conquer my fear of an exercise I'd never managed to do before. Basically, one person gets down on all fours on the ground. You go up to that person, pop a handstand on the ground beside them, and let yourself roll over their back to the other side. The variation is to do it backwards: you rest the base of your tailbone against their side, then bend back into a bridge until your hands are resting firmly on the ground, and curl your legs over. It requires more balance than you'd think and I've always been too afraid to fall to do it. But this weekend I did it, in both directions. Go me.
I've spent the past two weeks running around humming a Candomblé song used in our Maculelê performance. It's a beautiful song.
Best weekend ever. And now I really need to sleep, because tomorrow is Monday and back to the grind, though I don't really feel like I've had a day off (ow my feet).
Ay, ay, Oxum.