To add the course, please email the instructor, or show up the
first day and obtain the CRN from the instructor.
Capoeira is a Brazilian art combining instrumental music, song,
dance, martial arts, ritual, theater, and more. This ensemble
focuses on Capoeira Angola, a traditional style from the
Brazilian Northeast associated with Brazil’s African heritage. In
this ensemble students will learn how to play the instruments of
the capoeira ensemble, sing capoeira songs in Portuguese, basic
techniques of the physical game, and the fundamentals of the
performance.
Course Information
MUS 153
Meets Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:00–11:50 am
in the Della Davidson Dance Studio
featuring Mestre Cabelo and Jorge
Alabê
with the UC Davis Brazilian Capoeira Ensemble
directed by Juan Diego Díaz, with guests
Mestre Cabello is an experienced master of
Capoeira Angola and disciple of the great Mestre João Grande,
ethnomusicologist Emilia Biancardi and master drummer Jorge
Alabé. Originally from Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil, Mestre
Cabello has dedicated the last 20 of his 40 years in the art to
cultivating Capoeira Angola in Serra Grande, Brazil and around
the world. He casts an attentive and respectful look at the codes
and the rich repository of musicality, tuning, ritual and
movement left by the old masters from the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s
via audio recordings, texts, photos and drawings. Seen through
these lenses, the study of Afro-Brazilian culture is of vital
importance to the recognition, understanding and appreciation of
a complete capoeirista. Mestre Cabello approaches Capoeira Angola
as a sustainable and nourishing practice for our whole selves:
body, mind and spirit.
Ph.D. Ethnomusicology, University of British Columbia (2014)
Juan Diego Díaz is an ethnomusicologist with a geographic
research interest in Africa and its diaspora, particularly Brazil
and West Africa. He explores how African diasporic musics
circulate and transform across the Atlantic and how they serve
individuals and communities in identity formation.
