Aba A Luke

Capoeira is a unique form of African-Brazil­ian mar­tial arts. On Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, Au­gust 1, the Grupo Ax&ea­cute; Capoeira in T&T, will host its third Bat&ia­cute;za­do &ea­cute; Tro­ca de Cor­da and Cul­tur­al Ex­trav­a­gan­za at Queen's Hall from 6 pm.Won­der­ing what the event re­al­ly is about? Well, ac­cord­ing to Capoeira teacher, Sekhet Neb Amunwah, the Bat&ia­cute;za­do is a grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny while the Tro­ca de Cor­da sym­bol­is­es the pass­ing of the chord or belt.Hav­ing been prac­tis­ing the mar­tial arts tech­nique for the past 17 years, Amunwah, who is na­tive Trin­bag­on­ian, un­der­stands the in­tri­cate for­mal­i­ties of the de­fence tech­nique and has been at the fore of its lo­cal growth for a num­ber of years.

Ac­quir­ing a Capoeira name

Known with­in Capoeira cir­cles as Azulão Man­gan­ga, the 33-year-old teacher told the T&T Guardian that his nick­name was giv­en to him dur­ing his Bat&ia­cute;za­do."They give you a nick­name based on your per­son­al­i­ty and al­so based on how you look. Mine was giv­en to me be­cause of my size-I'm big, so they called me Azulão, which means, big blue," he ex­plained.In the 16th cen­tu­ry, Capoeira was cre­at­ed in Brazil by African slaves who had Brazil­ian na­tive in­flu­ences. The art form com­bines mar­tial arts with sports and mu­sic, and is known for its quick, com­plex moves, which con­sist of a vari­a­tion of pow­er kicks, quick leg sweeps, ground and aer­i­al ac­ro­bat­ics, knee strikes, take-downs, el­bow strikes, punch­es and head­butts. The tech­nique made its way to T&T well be­fore Amunwah's in­volve­ment, he ex­plained, adding that two in­di­vid­u­als, known as Dr Ot­t­ley and Bri­an Jara, were ini­tial­ly in­volved in its lo­cal in­clu­sion."They had small work­shops and they prac­tised the An­golan tra­di­tion, which is a very rit­u­al­is­tic form of Capoeira," he said.

Vis­i­tors set to ar­rive

For Amunwah, a ca­reer in the art form came as quite a sur­prise. He had stud­ied to be a chef over­seas and used Capoeira as a hob­by for re­lax­ation while there. When he re­turned to T&T in 1998, he con­tin­ued prac­tis­ing the tech­nique and was soon bom­bard­ed by lo­cals en­cour­ag­ing him to open a school. Fol­low­ing a per­for­mance at Queen's Hall, an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the art form be­came over­whelm­ing, and soon enough the school in T&T was es­tab­lished.Grupo Ax&ea­cute; Capoeira is in its eighth year of ex­is­tence and will show­case, for a third con­sec­u­tive year, the strides they've made in the pro­gres­sion of the tech­nique in T&T. Head in­struc­tor of the world­wide group, Mestre Barrão, will be among those present to wit­ness and over­see the event on Au­gust 1.Amunwah con­firmed that a four-day work­shop would be con­duct­ed by the head mas­ter from Ju­ly 26, with a cul­mi­na­tion of things at Queen's Hall on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day. Ac­cord­ing to Amunwah, a num­ber of re­gion­al na­tion­als are ex­pect­ed to vis­it the is­land for the cer­e­mo­ny. He said na­tion­als from Bar­ba­dos, St Croix, Venezuela and oth­er coun­tries will be a part of the event."Our school has over 20,000 stu­dents world­wide," he high­light­ed, point­ing out that in Trinidad, the branch of Grupo Ax&ea­cute; Capoeira, while rel­a­tive­ly young, was the most pop­u­lar Capoeira school on the is­land.

What to ex­pect

Amunwah said on Au­gust 1 any­one at­tend­ing the show­case of Capoeira at Queen's Hall would ex­pe­ri­ence first­hand, ac­ro­bat­ic moves with­in the tech­nique, along with var­i­ous Capoeira dances and oth­er na­tive dances."The African So­ci­ety from UWI will be open­ing the show, but stu­dents here will be grad­u­at­ing over four days and it will all cli­max at the event on Au­gust 1, where stu­dents will be giv­en their rank," said Amunwah.With the theme, Hon­or­ing Our An­ces­tors, the group will cel­e­brate Eman­ci­pa­tion Day in quite a unique way. El­la An­dall and her son, Efuwape An­dall, have been in­vit­ed, along with oth­er el­ders in the African spir­i­tu­al com­mit­tee. The lo­cal Capoeira teacher al­so high­light­ed that spon­sors of the event, in­clu­sive of Pri­or­i­ty Safe­ty, Kabri­ta and Ali­cia's House, have con­tin­ued to sup­port the group."The event will be high­ly en­ter­tain­ing. The peo­ple will en­joy it. Capoeira is very cul­tur­al and it ties in with the com­mem­o­ra­tion of African peo­ple on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day. It is spir­i­tu­al and it is about African his­to­ry. It is dance and it is phi­los­o­phy that came out of Brazil and is now avail­able across the world," said Amunwah.