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This chapter presents a historical introduction to the berimbau and capoeira. Topics discussed include the history of capoeira in Brazil; the berimbau’s survival and formal association with capoeira; the strong connection between African-derived religious beliefs, capoeira, and the berimbau; and capoeira and gender.

This chapter focuses on the early 1960s, when bossa nova composer Baden Powell adapted the berimbau’s melodic rhythms to the guitar, resulting in the internationally successful composition, “Berimbau.” It analyzes Powell’s composition within the context of capoeira-related musical performance practices, and views how the musical trope that emerged from this composition continues to be used in Brazilian popular music today. The chapter demonstrates how this motif has changed from the 1960s to the 1990s.

This chapter continues the chronological study of the berimbau’s transformation in Brazilian popular music. It focuses on the fusion of musical genres, and how the berimbau as a metaphor has transformed from a symbol of capoeira to one of blackness, resistance, and change.

Chapter one provides a brief discussion of the cultural history of Salvador da Bahia; the social landscape and demographic profile of contemporary Salvador, and reviews key Afro-Bahian cultural formations (Candomblé, Capoeira) and other identity platforms, and the rise of cultural and formal politics in Brazil and Salvador. This section highlights Salvador—one of the oldest cities in the Americas and the third-largest city in Brazil—as a vibrant city, home to one of the largest, most politically active and diverse Black populations in the Americas.

Chapter 3 describes Salvador's major public festivals and emphasizes the cultural contribution of the city's largely African-Bahian working class and its Candomblé community. This group used the festivals to shape the wider acceptance of African-Bahian practices (practices such as Candomblé, samba, and capoeira) and created pressure that was central to the ideological reevaluation of those practices after 1930. This chapter also contributes to knowledge about the festivals, on which there is very little scholarship for the period 1930 to 1980.

This chapter examines ferocious or combat dance in Circum-Caribbean history. It documents martial art forms and stick-fighting dances on the African continent and Diaspora combat dances that are similar to Brazilian capoeira and maculelê. It also proposes the inclusion of armed and unarmed combat rituals within Caribbean dance categories. The chapter begins with a discussion of the African legacies of ferocious dance, focusing on the importance of martial arts to the societies of colonial Angola and its connection to Caribbean combat dances, as well as the ways in which martial techniques were transported within enslaved bodies to parts of the African Diaspora. It then describes examples of Circum-Caribbean combat dance games, including ladja and danmyé in Martinique, juego de maní in Cuba, kalinda in Trinidad and Tobago, and tambú and kokomakaku in Curaçao. The chapter concludes with an assessment of lessons imparted by combat dance.

This chapter highlights the continuities between and among African rituals and Africa-derived and -influenced rituals and practices in the Diaspora. Religions such as Haitian Vodou are explored; Vodou’s components are considered with respect to their African roots as well as their Diasporic parameters. Music-and-dance constructs, such as rumba, are examined in detail; instrumental components, associated body movements, and historical and contemporary contexts are highlighted. These rituals and constructs frequently employ dancing in a counterclockwise circle, and the author focuses on the interrelationship of this practice with what is known about the “ring shout,” a practice that has been described in historical documents and whose enactment has been absorbed into a variety of traditions throughout the Diaspora.

Chapter 6 discusses the Nzinga Berimbau Orchestra, a berimbau ensemble formed by members of a capoeira angola group headquartered in Bahia. Led by Mestra Janja and Mestre Poloca, this orchestra explores new repertoires beyond capoeira, and utilizes the berimbau in new contexts—dissociated from capoeira’s physical expression, in the concert hall. The chapter begins by discussing the role and perceptions of the berimbau in capoeira and Brazilian popular music and moves on to explain the various strands grounding the Bantu-centric rhetoric of the Nzinga orchestra. Remaining close to capoeira aesthetics, drawing on rhythms and songs from the Angola Candomblé tradition, treating the berimbau as a purely percussive instrument, and emphasizing the tropes of African spontaneity and collectivism, the Nzinga orchestra articulates the strongest Afrocentric discourse studied in the book.

Chapter 7 discusses a second berimbau orchestra: the Dainho Xequerê Orchestra of Tuned Berimbaus (OBADX), led by the capoeira Contramestre Dainho Xequerê. With a more eclectic and inclusive approach than the Nzinga orchestra, OBADX keeps a greater distance from capoeira aesthetics, fuses various genres, including pieces of the so-called common practice period (e.g., Ravel’s Bolero), and, crucially, tunes its berimbaus to create melodies in hocket, much in the same way as British and US American handbell choirs, the Central African Republic’s banda linda horn ensembles, or Indonesian angklung groups function. In doing so, OBADX challenges the themes of African rhythmicity and percussiveness, asserting the importance of African melody and harmony in diasporic creation.