Capoeira classes

Students at our adult centre (Bardwell Road campus) were able to experience an incredible display of Capoeira, the national sport of Brazil, by The Abolicao Trust. The trust is an Oxford based charity which was founded in 2005 by Capoeira mestre Luis Negao and his students. Its aim is to help disadvantaged children and young people in Salvador, Brazil and Hamburg, South Africa by learning and playing Capoeira.

Capoeira is a national sport of Brazil and originates from the days of the transatlantic slave trade when more than 3,000,000 Africans were transported to Brazil by force. These slaves lived and worked on plantations and it was in these conditions that ‘capoeira' developed as a form of resistance to slavery. It is an exciting combination of art, music, dance and martial art and around the camp fires at night the slaves would disguise their martial art practice as a dance to mislead their slave masters.

Capoeira was outlawed in Brazil until the 1930's where it finally received recognition due to the work of the great teacher ‘Mestre Bimba'.

The Abolicao Trust is committed to trying to help young people develop through participating in capoeira. Every year, students from Oxford fund raise to be able to support the projects in Brazil and South Africa and it has also led several international exchange programmes. Students accompany Mestre Luis Negao on working holidays to his home town, Salvador where they work and interact with the children at the project.

The evening of Capoeira at Bardwell Road enabled a connection to be made between St. Clare's and its adult students; the money raised will be donated to the Abolicao Trust Easter trip to South Africa.

  

For more information about the trust can be found on the Trust's website: www.abolicao-trust.org

February