5.15 - Ana Paula Hofling

Please join us for our next Chew on This

Ana Paula Höfling

Tuesday, May 15 at 12pm
Kaufman Conference room, 160 

Choreographing Afro-Brazilian modernity through capoeira

In the mid 1930s, capoeira was codified and divided into two opposing styles.  The style known as capoeira regional embodied order, progress and modernity during a time when Brazil was reinventing itself as a modern nation.  Capoeira angola, initially called capoeira de Angola (from Angola), was conceptualized as the “original” capoeira, where African traditions “survived” in spite of progress. Capoeira regional has been interpreted as a loss of “character,” i.e., loss of capoeira’s African “roots.”  I argue that this perceived loss actually fueled the invention of traditions that gave rise to capoeira de Angola—a capoeira from Angola that was just as Brazilian and as modern as capoeira regional.  My analysis focuses on how capoeira’s modernity and tradition were invented at the movement level—what movements were reimagined, recycled, or discarded.