‘African sport’ returns to Angola

LUANDA: Black teenagers in white robes spin in circles, throwing their feet in the air and then pounding against each other, following the rhythms of a drum in a distinctively Brazilian beat.

They are training in capoeira, a blend of martial arts and dance, in the country where some experts believe it originated – Angola.

Father Stefano, an Italian priest who came to Angola five years ago, said he’d always believed capoeira was created in Brazil by descendents of African slaves who developed it to secretly practise martial arts in the guise of dance, so they could fight their way out of slavery.

But when he arrived here, he says he found evidence of its earliest roots in Angola, from where up to two million people were taken to the Americas as slaves from the 16th to 19th centuries. Half of them are believed to have gone to Brazil.

“My research showed that capoeira was born in Angola, in the central-south part of the country,” he told AFP.

Father Stefano was surprised to discover that the sport is almost unknown in Angola, where young people are captivated by modern games like football, basketball and handball.

“But those sports aren’t Angolan, while capoeira is,” he said.

“We want to take capoeira back to where it belongs,” Father Stefano said, so in 2004 he started offering lessons at the Dom Bosco Centre, a Catholic school located in the crime-ridden Luanda slum of Sambizanga.

At first, he had to bring trainers from Brazil to coach his first students, and parents didn’t want to allow their children to learn capoeira.

“They said they wouldn’t let their kids to learn how to fight. They have enough violence in the neighbourhood,” he said.

Slowly he convinced parents that by practising capoeira, the children would keep away from crime while learning about health and discipline.

The sport is now getting so popular that Father Stefano has started new courses in other parts of Luanda and in smaller provincial towns.

“We want to show that capoeira is very Angolan, very African,” he said.—AFP