At first glance, Axé Capoeira (pronounced “ah-shay”) looks like many other martial arts studios, with open spaces, mats on the hardwood floor, and punching bags. However, the students here wear white shirts and draw-string pants, and practice sweeping motions, cartwheels and tumbles, while rhythmic Brazilian music plays on a stereo.
They are practicing capoeira, a unique combination of martial arts, dance and music created by the African slave populations of Brazil around the 16th century.
The leader of the school, Marcus Aurelio, explains, “The slaves brought their own dances and their own customs and their own religions with them. Capoeira literally grew out of a necessity where the martial arts aspect would be practiced but it would be hidden [from] their slave owners, because they would not be allowed to practice any martial arts. They had to hide it, so they hid it in the form of dance. They just combined acrobatics and music.”
