CApoeira angola
WHAT IS CAPOEIRA?
“Capoeira è tudo o que a boca come”
(Capoeira is everything the mouth can eat)
– Mestre Pastinha
This is the famous response of Mestre Pastinha, born Vicente Ferreira Pastinha (Salvador, 5 April 1889 – Salvador, 13 November 1981), to the questions posed to him 'about what Capoeira was'.
Capoeira is an art that has its roots in the colonial era.
Capoeira is dance, it is music, it is a struggle of resistance against the oppressor, whoever he may be.
It originates from the desire for freedom of African slaves, evolving as one of the most cunning forms of rebellion: 'in music, I preserve my culture, in dance, I hide the struggle'.
In the songs, they tell stories of pain, of the whip, of sugar canes whose taste is bitter.
But it is in those same songs, in that music, in the dance that moves the body, in the fight... that one becomes free again.
In the Capoeira 'roda' (circle) we compare ourselves with each other. The companion is the one with whom we can joke, he is an astute playmate who does not hesitate to put our experience to the test.
He invites us to never forget that we must fight.
The energy circulates among the participants to the sound of the drums accompanied by songs in Portuguese. In the circle of the 'roda' each of us projects both ourselves and the world we live outside.
The clothes are Sunday clothes. The white of those who honour the holidays.
It's a white that must remain white... as long as the other doesn't make fun of us and end up on the ground.
Mestre Gato Preto (José Gabriel Góes)
José Gabriel Góes was born in Santo Amaro da Purificação (Bahia), on March 19, 1930. He started Capoeira at the age of eight, and never graduated in Capoeira, out of conviction. “Capoeira never stops”, he says.
In 1938, really young, Gabriel started to learn capoeira with his father Eutiquio Goes and with his uncle Joao Catarino. With both of them, he practised capoeira up to 1942.
In 1947 he moved to Sao Bras where he continued to practice Capoeira with Mestre Leo', one of the most important Capoeristas of the Reconcavo Region of Bahia, a student of Mestre Messias. During his period in Sao Bras, Gabriel starts to work as a fisherman with his brother Carlos Goes. Eventually, in the same year, he moved to Salvador where he started to train with Mestre Cobrinha Verde.
In this period in Salvador, he was noticed for his beautiful movements of capoeira and for his ability to play Berimbau by a few intellectuals among which Jorge Amado. This motivated him to start teaching Capoeira when he was only 17 years old. In this period in Salvador, the only Mestres of Capoeira with their own Academy were Bimba, Pastinha and Cobrinha Verde
Between 1950 and 1952 Gato Preto became Contra Mestre of Bateria in Mestre Pastinha's Academy of Capoeira and between 1952 and 1954 Contra Mestre of Bateria in Mestre Cobrinha Verde's Academy of Capoeira. Finally, in 1955, he officially funded his first academy of Capoeira "Academia de Capoeira Baiana - Mestre Gato Preto".
In 1962 Mestre Traira and Mestre Cobrinha Verde recorded their famous LP with music of Capoeira. In the LP, Mestre Gato Preto, Mestre Joao Grande and Mestre Decabeludo, among the others, play in this LP.
In 1966, he was part of the Brasilian delegation at the Premier Festival International des Arts Nègres, in Dakar (Senegal) with big names of the Capoeira world like Gildo Alfinete, Roberto Satanais, Camafeo de Oxossi, Joao Grande and Mestre Pastinha.
Back in Brasil, Gato Preto developed his activity as Mestre of Capoeira between Salvador, Brasilia and then San Paolo. In the 80's he was awarded the title of "Berimbau de Ouro da Bahia" (best Berimbau player of Bahia) singing the famous song "Igreja do Bomfin". This song is present both in Mestre Suassuna and in Mestre Paulo dos Anjos' CD. In 1999 Gato Preto recorded his first CD and in 2001, one year before to died on the 16th of August 2002.
