13 June 2012

BEIRUT: The class sits patiently in a circle watching two men perform sweeping kicks, acrobatic handstands and delicate footwork, all the while engaging in minimal physical contact.

Capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts discipline, is more a dance than an actual fight. Indeed, rhythmic drum music emanates from a stereo in a corner of the room.

The two contestants move constantly, their arms and legs seemingly incapable of rest. But they calculate the bending of their legs so that their bodies keep a level center of gravity, and they keep their swaying arms close to the ground so as to catapult themselves away from attack.

One is a slender, light-skinned black man with a charming grin and caramel-colored dreadlocks in a cobra-wrap topped by a large cap. His opponent is a dark-haired young man of medium build with an unruly mass of curly hair held up by a headband.

“Capoeira is a cultural activity and a martial art with elements of dance,” explains the group’s monitor, Papagajo, whose birth name is Arbi Sarkissian.

When Curls lunges forward in an attempt to dislodge Dreadlocks, the latter dodges him with ease. They repeat the exchange until Curls seemingly tires and pulls back.

Dreadlocks, who uses the time to showboat, interspersing his rhythmic bouncing with one-handed handstands, soon breaks into a broad grin, clearly enjoying himself.

Curls looks less joyful. Marshaling all his mental faculties and physical abilities for the arduous task of tripping up his opponent, he risks clouding his objectivity and limiting his options with such a single-minded focus. Tentatively, he approaches Dreadlocks.

Now confrontation is inevitable. The two men circle each other warily with handstands, spins and lateral jumps. When Curls feels he is close enough to take down Dreadlocks, he swiftly slides his foot under him – but too late. Dreadlocks casually side steps the intended trip-up, spins and thrusts his leg toward his opponent’s chest, simultaneously letting out a fearsome, bloodcurdling war-cry: WAH!

The speed of Dreadlocks’ attack dooms Curls. Rooted to the ground in fear with no time left to evade the kick, he closes his eyes resignedly, bracing himself for the impact.

But the impact never comes. Curls opens his eyes to Dreadlocks’ foot, frozen mid-air mere centimeters from his chest.

“AHAHAHAHA,” Dreadlocks guffaws, mocking his opponent good-naturedly as he pulls his leg back and performs a triumphant one-handed handstand for the impressed onlookers.

It’s all fun and games today, but beneath the playful guise of Capoeira’s dance there lies a darker history. Capoeira was created over 500 years ago by African slaves in Brazil, then a Portuguese colony. One theory holds that Capoeira served as a way for slaves to communicate with one another nonverbally. Another theory maintains that slaves resorted to Capoeira to settle disagreements among themselves and train for self-defense and rebellion against slave masters.

The mixing of slaves from various regions of Africa resulted in Capoeira being a mingling of different cultures, which in turn led participants to adopt Portuguese as their lingua franca – despite it being the language of the hated slave masters. Capoeira was outlawed in Brazil in the 1890s, but Capoeira masters, called mestres, passed the tradition on to future generations. It was decriminalized in 1930 and has since traveled the world, becoming widely practiced in North America, Europe and Brazil.

“It hasn’t really caught on yet in Lebanon,” says Papagajo, who earned his nickname thanks to his prominent “beak.” Papagajo is in his early 30s, his dark hair adorned with flecks of gray. Dressed in a blue button-up shirt and khaki pants, the athletically built Papagajo sits in a chair watching the group. Papagajo has rolled up one pant leg to apply ice to a knee injury he picked up over the weekend playing beach football.

While pressing the ice to his knee, he adds: “There’s a saying: You don’t find Capoeira, Capoeira finds you.”

The seventh floor of the Montreal Cinema building in Hamra, Beirut, serves as one of the few places in Lebanon hosting Capoeira sessions. Before the session starts, men and women in sleeveless shirts of varying colors and ankle-length white pants jovially greet each other in English, Arabic and Portuguese.

Dreadlocks arrives last. While not the most physically imposing of the lot, Dreadlocks’ charisma and easily triggered, infectious laughter quickly disrupt the têtê-a-têtês until everyone voluntarily turns to him. His instructions also demand his students’ undivided attention – as they are issued in his native Portuguese.

“The instructor is from Brazil. He doesn’t speak English,” a short woman, her jet-black hair pulled back into a ponytail, explains of Dreadlocks. “We have to learn Portuguese,” she adds determinedly.

After quickly changing from his street clothes, Dreadlocks takes the floor. Without speaking, he taps a small, hand-held drum to instruct the class to form a “roda” (pronounced “hoda”), or circle, with him at the center. His fingertips begin to dance off the canvas of the drum, the center of which he occasionally slaps with an open palm. Slowly, the men and women surrounding him try to match their movements to the rhythmic beat, starting out rigid, but growing more fluid as they adapt to the groove.

As the beat progresses, so do the participants’ movements. Arms and shoulders now match the meter of feet, legs and hips. The maneuvers evolve to incorporate sweeping kicks called “raxteira” (pronounced “hashteira”). The instructor begins to sing in Portuguese, his euphonious voice, the drum music, and the students’ swaying movements falling into synchronicity. The heretofore disparate men and women coalesce into a group, escaping the chaos and cacophony of a city plagued by traffic jams and car horns for the haven and harmony which Capoeira brings.

Copyright The Daily Star 2012.