This video shows an art form today known as the Ladja or Danmye (previously entitled the Ag’Ya) of Martinique. Two combatants engage each other in a game of trickery, skill and acrobatic agility. At the head of the circle musicians control the tempo of the contest singing, playing drums and other instrument of African origin. Could this far-away Caribbean lookalike be a long-lost capoeira cousin? Does this offer us clues as to Capoeira’s African origins? The similarity is nothing but striking!

The video footage in this clip has been compiled from the Katherine Dunham Collection at the Library of Congress. Katherine Dunham, who passed away in May 2006, was a dancer, choreographer and researcher – a founding mother of African dance in American popular culture. She came across the Ag’Ya during a fieldwork expedition to the Caribbean and it inspired her to create an Ag’Ya dance performance back in the USA to popular acclaim. Click here to see an interview with Katherine Dunham speaking about the Ag’Ya.

As in all cultural manifestations of African descent music, song, dance and spirituality form a unified whole. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of video recording in 1936. Therefore I super-imposed, albeit artificially, authentic Ladja (Danyme) music taken from Alan Lomax’s 1962 Caribbean Voyages onto Dunham’s footage. Alan Lomax was a pre-eminent and much loved American ethnomusicologist who traveled the world from the mills of the Scottish Isles to the Far East in his quest to record the sounds of life.

Trecho de uma das apresentações do evento realizado em Campinas/SP(dezembro/2008) em Homenagem ao Mestre Pé de Chumbo por sua resistência e luta em prol da preservação da Capoeira Angola.

This animated short tells the story of a couple playing a game of Capoeira Angola in the park. It is an ancient martial art of African origin, one of the many cultural weapons used to break the chains of enslavement in Brazil.

The technique of rotoscoping (tracing video frame by frame) is used to give the movements an extra dimension, it took about 1200 sketches to make the animation. Make sure you like drawing before you start working on a project like this.

Animation: Sir
Dancers: Totti Angola and Ilma van de Beek
Music: Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho, Mestre Moraes
More info about capoeira angola: joaogrande.org/capoeira_angola.htm

Från Mestre Luas gaturoda den 6 mars vid Terreiro de Jesus, Pelourinho, Salvador.