Contemporary Capoeira Is Neither Carioca nor Bahian

WHY THIS ARTICLE

The debate pits a 'carioca' capoeira against a 'Bahian' one as if one had to be the true ancestor. The thesis dissolves the opposition: the living contemporary form is a hybridisation of both.

The invisible carioca inheritance

Bahian capoeira carried within it the inheritance of the carioca capoeiragem of the first half of the century. The nationalist, hygienist and defensive aims formulated by the intellectuals and masters of Rio were legible, in filigree, in the Bahian capoeira of the 1960s. The continuity between the two periods is hard to contest.

A syncretism

Capoeira of the second half of the twentieth century must therefore be redefined as the product of a process of hybridisation between the culture of Bahia and that of Rio. This syncretism between Nordeste and Sudeste gave birth to contemporary capoeira — neither carioca nor Bahian stricto sensu.

Four conceptions beneath the surface

Studying the pedagogical proposals of the 1960s — Lacé Lopes's Operação-Capoeira, Bimba (1963), Pastinha (1964), Lamartine Pereira da Costa (1961–62) — the thesis distinguishes four conceptions of capoeiragem, transcending times and places: developmentalist, sporting, culturalist and political. Knowing them reveals continuities behind the ruptures of the façade.

Why it matters

The 'carioca vs Bahian' quarrel asks the wrong question. The contemporary game is a composite; naming its ancestor is less useful than naming its mixture.

SOURCES

La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles (1905–1984), thèse de doctorat, Université des Antilles, 2020 (Part III, B: contemporary capoeira as hybridisation; the four conceptions and the pedagogical proposals of the 1960s).

IN THE CORPUS

→ How Bahia and Capoeira Became the Same Word

→ The State That Forced Capoeira to Become a Sport

→ Capoeira Was Reinvented Again and Again to Serve the Nation

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

MALO, Olivier. Contemporary Capoeira Is Neither Carioca nor Bahian. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 54. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/contemporary-capoeira-is-neither-carioca-nor-bahian. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.