Capoeira Event
Women’s Capoeira Encounter 2013
Jan 31st
The Women’s Capoeira Encounter 2013 is being organised by our very own Formanda Mariana Potiguara and UTS Capoeira Club. This event celebrates International Women’s Day (the 8th of March).
This yearly event promotes Capoeira for Women, introducing Capoeira as a sport and form of art to the Sydney community. Capoeiristas from different ages, backgrounds, groups and levels of Capoeira have the same intention for this event : to make new friends, share knowledge and experience, and to be inspired by each other.
Visit our Facebook page for more information about the event.
2nd Capoeira Encounter and Batizado “Vem Jogar Mais Eu”
Sep 20th
Group Capoeira Brasil in association with the UTS Capoeira Club and the OZ Capoeira association is proud to invite you to join us for our 2nd Capoeira Encounter and Batizado “Vem Jogar Mais Eu”.
After the successful and enjoyable event last year, we’d love for you to join us and share the excitement of this amazing week of Capoeira for our group. The event will run over the course of 5 days, from the 4th – 8th October at different locations around Sydney.
EVENT DETAILS
WORKSHOPS AND RODAS
Dates: Tuesday 4th – Friday 7th Oct
Tues, 4th @ UTS Multi Purpose Hall , 733 Harris St, Ultimo
6pm – Batucada/ Brazilian Drums – Claudio ( places are limited, booking is essential! )
7:30pm – Capoeira all levels + Roda – Instructor Mercúrio
Wed, 5th @ Alexandria Town Hall , 73 Garden Street
6pm – raw, raw & yellow and yellow cords (First and second level of Capoeira ) – Mestre Boneco
7:15pm – row/orange, orange cords and above ( third level and above) – Mestre Boneco
8:30pm – Roda ( for the workshop participants only)
Thus , 6th – St. Stephen Church Hall , 168, church St. Newtown
6pm – raw, raw & yellow and yellow cords (Beginners, first and second level of Capoeira ) – Mestre Boneco
7:15pm – row/orange cords and above ( third level and above) – Mestre Boneco
8:30pm – Roda ( for the workshop participants only )
Friday, 7th – St. Stephen Church hall, 168, Church St. Newtown
6pm – Samba Class
7pm – all levels – Mestre Boneco
8pm – Open Roda
Cost:
$200 including all workshops, rodas, t shirt, grading day and cord* (* for Capoeira Brasil Grading students only ).
1 Day Workshop: $50
2 Days Workshop:$90
3 Days Workshop:$140
Event T shirt: $25 if participate on 2 or more workshops
If you are coming from another state please contact Mariana if you would like us to organize acomodation for you.
Open for all of the Capoeira Community to participate!
BATIZADO DAY!
Date: Saturday 8th October
Details: Batizado and Troca de Corda @ 1pm
Location: UTS Multi purpose Hall (733, Harris St., Ultimo)
FREE event featuring performances of Capoeira, Samba, African Dance& Drums and raggaeton.
You wouldn’t want to miss out on this fantastic Culture Event !
There will be an open roda for all the students and guests – students must wear their abada and white t-shirt to sit or play in the roda. The event t-shirt will also be available to buy on the day.
What we expect of you: it would be fantastic if you bring along your brightest smile and positive energy to share with us and everyone else!
SPECIAL GUEST: Our mestre – Mestre Boneco!
Guests:
Mestre Peixe – Capoeira Brasil, SYD
Mestre Nei – Grupo Energia da Bahia , SYD
Mestre Forminguinha – Grupo Topázio, SYD
Contra Mestre Rodriguinho – Centro Cultural Senzala de Capoeira , Canberra, ACT
Professor Caracol – Grupo Xangô, Brisbane,QLD
Professor Chula – Grupo Aberrê Capoeira, SYD
Professor Vira Lata – Grupo Ginga Mundo, Melbourne, VIC
Instrutor Mercúrio – Capoeira Brasil, NZ
THE AFTER PARTY!
Sponsored by Real Transfer
Dinner @ Favela Churrascaria – all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ from 6pm. If you’d like to join us for the dinner, please let us know beforehand as we need to book tables and seats. If you’d like to know more about costs please contact me. Favela is located at 1 Kellet Way, Potts Point.
After this authentic Brazilian dinner the real party will begin!
We’re heading to Tatlers in Kings Cross (169 Darlinghurst Rd – a 5 min walk from Favela) where we will dance through the night to the sound of the best Forro band in Sydney – Banda Faiscada (Forro is a typical rhythm from Brazil; “It’s quite delightful!” as quoted from the band). As well as the Forro band, we’re also having a DJ play some classic Brazilian samba for us!
QUESTIONS?
If you’d like to ask any questions about this information, or want to know more about the event please leave your coment on the event page or contact Professora Mariana “Potiguara” marianacapoeira@gmail.com / 0411 206 802
SPECIAL NOTE
Your presence is very important for the success of our event and also for us to be able to create and share a great moment of exchange and pay a tribute to the Art of Capoeira!
We look forward to seeing you all there!
Muito Obrigada!
Professora Mariana ‘Potiguara’ Braga and her Team
Grupo Capoeira Brasil – Mestre Boneco
Petersham Portuguese Festival
Mar 21st
On Sunday, Petersham was taken over by the Portuguese Festival which is an annual celebration of the culture of Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies. This consisted of Portuguese, Brazilian and Mediterranean cuisine and colourful and contemporary entertainment.
To contribute towards this celebration, our capoeira group had a stand for the second year in a row. The combination of the music and capoeira demonstrated by a group of us attracted a large and enthusiastic crowd. The performance at the second stage consisted of maculele and capoeira and under the heat of the intense sun, this proved challenging however we all gave it our best shot.
Later in the afternoon Professor Potiguara gave a fun kids class where they sampled a taste of capoeira and had the chance to play the
instruments, sing some capoeira songs and learn some basic movements. The looks on the kids face when Professor Potiguara did a banaeria was priceless! After numerous cans of Guarana and hours of capoeira in the glorious weather was a great day well spent!
Workshop with Formando Curuman
Mar 5th
“Thanks to Formando Curaman for giving a great capoeira class on Saturday which consisted of second phase kicks and take-downs which are always fun to practice. This followed by the first roda of the month where a few people from other groups came to contribute to the good axe and great roda. After that a few of us spent the rest of the afternoon down at Coogee enjoying the gorgeous weather. Thanks Formando Curaman and Professora Portiguara!!Pocahontas x”
Batizado
Nov 18th
Firstly, thanks.
Thanks to Mestre Boneco for coming out to Australia for our batizado. It really meant a lot to us. Not only did we get a chance to meet and get to know you better, learn from your extensive experiences, we also got your blessing in the form of a recognition of our skills and commitment and validation of the group. This is no doubt, the first of many great batizados you will supervise from our quality group.
Thanks to Professora Potiguara, for taking the step and organising the batizado for us. Thanks for believing in us, and for giving us the confidence to learn more, to play more. I know that Capoeira isn’t about the colour chord you wear, but our batizado is about the recognition of all the hard work we have done, plus it really does feel good to get a new chord. I’m pretty sure I speak for all here.
I have heard many a master say (Mestre Boneco included) that as you learn more in Capoeira, you realise how much you still have to learn. The first step of course, is realising that this is true in life as well, not just in the roda. I now understand more about what this means, from listening to Mestre Boneco in the workshops, from training with my new chord and from reflecting on the batizado.
I once saw a Capoeira game between Mestre Boneco and Mestre Curumim. The anticipation, as a relative beginner, of watching these two great Capoeiristas go at it with amazing kicks, flips, twists, strength, agility etc was met with a game that even more impressive than all of that. In the entire game, not one kick was kicked, not one flip was flipped, in fact the most complicated move I saw was a ginga switch, and it was not a short game. This has impressed me for a number of years now, but I have finally understood why.
It takes decades to get to the stage where you can go into a roda and just ginga.
There is no way a beginner could enter a roda and not do anything, but Mestre Boneco can! We start with nothing, and we slowly build up our skills, adding kicks, acrobatics, movements, takedowns, etc. The next stage is using all the movements we know in appropriate places sand circumstances until we have mastered the movements and the art of Capoeira. Finally, the minimalist emerges. This is pure art, once you have mastered your particular art, you can start exploring just what you can accomplish with less and less, but only once you know all the fundamentals and complexities. The minimalist movement in art includes some of the most talented and technically gifted artists. The real skill is seeing what you can do without all of that. Minimalist painters know this when they paint a black square canvas. Authors know this when their book is finished, not when no more can be added, but when no more can be taken out. Poets know this when they write a haiku. Musicians know this when they write a song with one note (or even no music).
Less is more
Those who know nothing try to do everything, and those who know everything try to do nothing. A beginner in a roda will try doing all their moves that they know all at once, a Master will do the opposite, they will try and complete as many things as possible with the fewest movements.
I am nowhere near this stage, I am still developing my game, I still have many movements to learn, my technique is not perfect, and I have along way to go before it is. The point of this realisation, is that I now know what I am aiming for. I have a long term Capoeira goal. I know what kind of Capoeirsta I want to be, and will be. Not only has this cemented a long term goal, it has changed my short term goal. I will now try as hard as I can to know when to apply the right movement. The technique of the perfect rasteira is the first step in know exactly when not to apply the perfect rasteira!
So watch out in the roda, I will be trying to do less and less!
Capoeira Movie Night !
Jul 4th
Yesterday, Saturday 3rd of July, we held our first fundraising event to raise some money towards our batizado ! Everything was here to have an awesome night !
Great food, great people, great drinks and awesome atmosphere! Everyone pitched in to bring good food and drinks ! Our cooks of the night – Pena and Tatu – tamed the barbecue to cook great meat for us.
The best part of the night was yet to come. Jenny offered her house for us to organize this evening (thanks so much Jenny!) and we all watched with a projector on the living room wall a beautiful documentary about capoeira. We learned about the place of capoeira in the world, especially in Europe and in the United States.
After this great documentary, we watched some videos that were taken during the workshop with Mestre Paulinho Sabia last December. We watched ourselves play in the roda, and we were able to analyse our game in more details, see what we needed to improve and our behaviours in the roda. It was quite interesting to have this reflexion upon our game.
At the end of the night, a raffle took place, with some great prizes like capoeira t-shirts and accessories, as well as chocolate baskets … Yummy ! Some of us were lucky, some others weren’t, and got comforted by candies and chocolates !
In other words, this night gave us the opportunity to get together to share some capoeira moments, and, as Fogueira put it quite beautifully, it was a small ginga towards our batizado !
Many thanks to Potiguara, Jenny and Suado for the organization, and many many thanks to everyone who came last night !
Great times!
May 30th
Great times!
Last weekend, Mariana, and by association, us her students, were invited to attend Grupo Sinha da Bahia’s Batizado. It was a great experience. The part I liked the most was all the different groups there, I think it is an important thing to mix in different capoeira circles and experience different ways of playing. So thanks to Mestre Cicatriz for the opportunity to play with him and his students, and all the other groups who attended. It was really enjoyable! (The event t-shirts were also really cool).
On news of our group, Thursdays and Saturdays (in Newtown and UTS, Sydney) are jammed packed full (though there is still room if anyone wants to join the club). We not only have a large group of new white cords, but also a cohort of new beginners. It’s awesomely packed, and in my opinion (though I’m biased) Capoeira in Sydney is going strong, and I feel like we’re one of the best capoeira groups in Sydney. Thanks to all the beginners for coming and adding a great new dimension to our classes.
Now in the spirit of continual improvement in capoeira, I will try and write in Portuguese, and sorry if it is terrible.
Agora na espírito de contínuo melhoria em capoeira, vou tentar escrivar em portugês, e desculpe se isso é terrivel.
Na fin de semana passado, Mariana e nós, as alunas dela, eram convidado participar o Batizado de Grupo Sinha da Bahia. Era uma experiência legál. O parte gosto de mais era tudo os grupos diferente lá, acho tá uma goisa importante misturar em rodas diferente de capoeira, and para experiente modos de jogando diferente. Então, muito obrigada para Mestre Cicatriz para a opportunidade jogar com ele, e seus alunos, e todos os outros grupos que participaram. Foi massa! (O t-shirts do evento eram mutio legál tembém).
Em notícia de nossa grupo, quintas e sabados (em Newtown e UTS, Sydney) são bem apinhado (embora ainda tem espaço se alguém quer para juntar o clube). Não só temos um grande grupo de novos cordos brancos, mas tembém muito novos principiantes. É bem legál ser apinhado, e na minha opinião (embora estou tendenciosa) capoeira em sydney vai mutio forte, e sinto o que somos um dos o melhor grupos de capoeira em sydney. Muito obrigada para todo os principiantes para vindo e adicionando uma dimensão novo muito legál para nossa aulas.
Suado Visits Capoeira Brasil San Francisco
May 2nd
I recently went to San Francisco, California to visit friends for a couple of weeks and managed to attend some classes with Professor Aranha and his team from Grupo Capoeira Brasil, SF. I had a great time training and learning with them all. They were all very kind and welcoming to me and went the extra mile to help make me feel at home.
Professor Aranha’s training style is very hard and fast. I almost died during the warm-up which was probably twice as bad considering the jet-lag I was suffering at the time. I really enjoyed the intensity of their training which I am sure is a reflection on the style that Professor Aranha plays with. Techniques and application was explained then no time was wasted before getting down to business, drilling the moves then working them through with a partner almost non-stop. The students were amazingly enthusiastic and excellent to train with. They push hard and are very eager to learn and grow as capoeiristas which was inspiring to see.
I learned a lot of new techniques and gained some new insight into the game of Capoeira by training with the crew from San Francisco. I feel my time spent with them was invaluable and I would like to thank Professor Aranha and his students for welcoming me into his school. I would also like to thank Minhoca and Koala for hosting me and taking such good care of me while I was there. It was an amazing trip and one that I will never forget.
Until my next Capoeira adventure. Thanks for reading.
Suado
For more photos please see Flickr gallery here.
Oregano gives us some Capoeira insight from her South American adventure
Mar 15th
Orègano wrote to us while she was travelling through Brazil to share her thoughts on Capoeira, food and life in Brazil. Thanks Orègano!!
“Hi everyone,
Here are some of my reflections of Capoeira and Brazil:
- You make instant friends with whoever you train with, its great
- Capoeria is much more fast
- Capoeira is much more male dominated (or we just have a fair number of women)
- Watching a really long roda of Angola in Salvador, wi…th games played by experts, has made me really like the style, and the humour (very important) of it.
- It is true that Brazilians (in general of course) are very friendly, every place I visited I had people helping me out, after only knowing them for a few minutes.
- It is true that Brazilians (in general of course) know how to dance, it is very pleasing 
- Not all Brazilians play capoeira (this is obvious, but still disconcerting when talking to some Brazilians and I know more about the sport than them)
- Everybody in the world needs to try Açai na tigela, and tapioca and macaxeira, my three favourites (tapioca is made from macaxeira flour)
- Salvador is the best city in the world with the best people (that one is for Mariana)
- Go Nordeste!
- Brazil is very big
- More when I get back
Miss you all,
Hope training is going good,
Orègano
xxoo”
