Capoeira
Added 2021-09-25 19:36:56 +0000 UTCCapoeira is a Brazilian art form, mixing dance with martial arts. It owes its existence to sugar.
In the Indian subcontinent, sugar has been in use for over two millennia, but for Europeans, it was an expensive novelty when the Crusaders first discovered it in the middle-east around 1100s. Honey was the sweetener Europeans were familiar with.
When the Portuguese sailed out into the Atlantic and started colonizing the eastern coast of South America (a vast area that later became Brazil), growing sugarcane and selling bags of sugar to the wealthy elite of Europe became a surefire way to make obscenely huge fortunes.
Sugarcane plantations required a lot of back breaking labor, more than the sparse native populations could provide. The Portuguese decided to fulfill their labor shortages by abducting Africans.
Small groups of white colonists, armed with muskets and swords, lorded it over large groups of African slaves. The slaves were not allowed any weapons, but they created a secret form of martial arts. To hide these fighting techniques from their slave masters, the Brazilians disguised it as a dance form, and Capoeira was born.
PHOTO: Jahnavi is very skilled at Capoeira. She discovered it as a teen and has been practicing it ever since. It was fun capturing her movements with my camera.
I was intrigued by Jahnavi’s name. She is a pale redhead, while “Jahnavi” is an old Indian name for the river Ganges. Turns out, Jahnavi’s caucasian parents were part of a Hare Krishna commune. So interestingly, just like sugar, she has a connection to both India and Capoeira.
