Capoeiristas Mestre Acordeon (left) and Instrutor Zumbi (Munair Simpson)
The Cordo de Ouro Capoeira Group in Seoul (“CDO Seoul”) will hold its annual Suingue Mandingado event from Sept. 7-9, but this time with one of the martial art’s leading figures.
Capoeira master Ubirajara Almeida (Mestre Acordeon) of Berkeley, California, will join them, alongside other teachers including Mauro Pinto (Mestre Chicote) from Paris, and Nathanael Moraes (Professor Tico) from Moscow,
“I’m super nervous, man,” said Munair Simpson (Instrutor Zumbi). “I spent the whole day today trying to tell my students what it meant.”
“There’s probably only one guy in capoeira in the world who is more significant. He’s 90 years old, and he still practices capoeira in New York.”
Mestre Acordeon, Zumbi explains, is a student of Mestre Bimba, the first to codify the Afro-Brazilian martial art for ordinary people.
“So the link to the original group of what we call academic capoeira is Mestre Acordeon and because of that lineage he is a very significant fellow,” he said.
The event itself is a batizado ― a way of welcoming new students, Zumbi explains.
“It means baptism, but it’s more like an initiation, a welcome to the family type thing,” he said, explaining that the name refers to the way the group hopes their capoeiristas will play.
“Suinge Mandingado means enchanting dance, enchanting movement ― you move your body, you swing a bit and enchant people’s hearts.
“It also means that when you play you’ve got a bit of trickery to you, meaning that when you do the movements in capoeira … you make the person do what you want them to do.”
This event will see about 20 initiated, including three from Japan, which is sending about 20 capoeiristas to the event.
The group has had a good year, featured in a YouTube advert, “What is Tricking?,” and seeing its numbers grow.
“We’ve had a little bit of success,” said Zumbi. “Last year I had 20 students but now we have about 55, and these guys are really excited about the event because they love capoeira.”
CDO Seoul’s Instrutor Zumbi vies against a capoeira challenger. (Munair Simpson)
“All of them have a passion for capoeira and the fact that the great teachers like Mestre Acordeon, who is a really, really famous character in capoeira, is coming to Seoul is really exciting a lot of people.”
The event has also attracted practitioners from places as far flung as St. Petersburg, Moscow, Singapore and San Francisco, something Zumbi refers to as capoeira tourism.
“They all practice capoeira and they are interested in Korea. They are interested in learning about Korea, learning about Korean people and doing capoeira at the same time. They want to know how Korean people do capoeira, how Koreans behave in a capoeira way.
“We all practice capoeira but some places do capoeira with a slightly different feel. So a lot of people when they come to an event like this are very curious about how Koreans do capoeira.”
The event itself will feature performances and workshops by capoeira masters,
“Some of the workshops are for complete beginners. We’ve invited some amazing teachers to come over and some of them will be leading workshops.
“People who’ve never done capoeira before are welcome to come and do the workshops, absolutely.
“We also have advanced workshops for people who have been doing it for five, six, seven years.”
The highlight of the weekend will be a performance on Sept. 9 that is both the initiation of new students into the art and practice of capoeira.
The full schedule of activities is listed at cdoseoul.com. For inquiries about attending or for more information, call 010-9090-9183.
By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)
