Ana Paula Höfling's book, Staging Brazil: Choreographies of Capoeira, is an absolute pleasure to read. In her exquisitely-researched monograph, Höfling makes a critical intervention into studies of Brazilian capoeira—an African diasporic “street-fighting” practice as well as an art presented in folkloric shows for tourists. So often, both popular and scholarly discussions of movement practices in the African diaspora are conceptualized in contrasting terms such as traditional/modern, authentic/impure, and rescue/loss. Höfling's book historicizes how such binaries came to be between 1928 and 1974, and offers alternative readings outside of these perceived oppositions. She breaks with the overarching tradition/modernity binary by showing that capoeira is a creative cultural process rather than a static form. In other words, culture is not a noun but a verb, and moving bodies activate it. She argues that the narratives of rescue, loss, and authenticity, so often tied to past studies of capoeira, have obscured the very innovations that contribute to the vibrant, complex capoeira histories that upend these opposing constructions.
In order to write a different history of capoeira, Höfling herself had to recognize the limits and the pull of the binary narratives. Her diligent archival research moved her beyond the vague oral histories she had gathered from interviewees who were unable to answer her initial questions about the foundational principles of capoeira. Throughout the book, Höfling situates capoeira within the historical context of the African diaspora, the enslavement of African people, the criminalization of capoeira, and syncretism. She introduces readers to the innovators of two practices of capoeira: Mestre Pastinha, who developed capoeira angola, and Mestre Bimba, who developed capoeira regional.
Höfling notes that, early on, their practices were not that different from each other, according to the manuals she analyzed in her research. It was in 1936 that folklorist Édison Carneiro published an article positing that capoeira angola was the more “pure” and “Angolan” capoeira, a tradition perceived to directly embody Angolan techniques without crediting Mestre Pastinha with any innovative alterations. Carneiro thus established a capoeira discourse laden with binaries. These oppositions began to flourish as a collaboration between “intellectuals and practitioners who choreographed capoeira's ‘tradition’” (16). Höfling also foregrounds capoeira regional, derided as inauthentic within this collaboration. Consequently, she delves into capoeira regional's incorporation of acrobatic flips and kicks as it became prominent in popular culture, in tourist shows, and on global stages. Höfling argues that both Mestre Bimba and Mestre Pastinha selected specific techniques to include and exclude within their capoeira practices, and that both innovators sought to produce a more “respectable” capoeira in the face of its marginalized societal and racialized position, a position in which Black capoeira-dancing bodies and criminality were linked. Höfling thus reframes capoeira discourse as she substantiates her claim that the innovators were working through similar narratives of rescue, race, tradition, and modernity as they codified their practices. Her thorough analysis of program notes, reviews, photographs, and interviews with choreographers and dancers denaturalize notions of authenticity and demonstrate that traditions are steeped in the politics of culture, class, and race. Therefore, both Mestre Bimba and Mestre Pastinha can be considered innovators of capoeira and contributors to Black modernization.
Höfling describes the documented capoeira archive as decentralized, meaning that before she could begin analyzing the programs, photographs, and manuals discussed in the book, she had to locate them. Some of the sources were available on paper in various libraries in Brazil and fewer were in digital format. Many of the crucial primary sources were held in private collections. Although Höfling briefly states that she gained access to a few private archives with help from her network of “capoeira colleagues,” I would like to dwell on the matter of access further. For example, folkloric ensemble director Emília Biancardi gave Höfling access to her own private archive that documents capoeira's development in the folkloric shows of Viva Bahia. I try to imagine Höfling calling up Emília Biancardi and asking to come over to check out her private archive. Of course, Höfling is Brazilian, speaks Portuguese as a first language, and understands cultural codes in a way that would help her to form a relationship of trust with Biancardi. In order to deepen the relationship, Höfling probably had to convince Biancardi that she was not going to dismiss Biancardi's work as an ensemble director of capoeira for tourist shows, as have previous scholars. On the contrary, Höfling brings to light that Biancardi was the only folkloric ensemble director who was a woman, and proceeds to focus chapter 4 on the repertory of Viva Bahia. Höfling deftly weaves together the knowledges from her lived experience as well as dance scholarship from the United States and Brazil. She generously analyzes and translates the significance of her findings for those of us who do not have this kind of multidimensional, transnational expertise with capoeira.
One of my favorite aspects of this book is the way that Höfling, as both a dance scholar and capoeira practitioner, embodies the archive by putting the illustrations from capoeira manuals into motion. Several illustrations from the manuals in chapter 1exemplify the kind of material from which Höfling derives this dance-based methodology. Her trained capoeira-dancing body speculates the moves that must happen in between the illustrations of a series of moves so that she could recreate a more fluid performance of the practice. Her strategy of archival embodiment extends ways in which earlier dance scholarship has focused on the thick description and interpretation of dancing bodies within photos or drawings (see for example, Savigliano 1995, 149). By bringing movement to her analysis, she is able to make the connections between the images as her “body bridges the historical gaps” (14).
Staging Brazil consists of 167 pages divided into four main chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion, followed by several pages of detailed notes. The book contains several beautiful black-and-white photos of capoeira performance.
In chapter 1, Höfling turns to capoeira manuals, each authored by a different practitioner: Anníbal Burlamaqui, Bimba, and Pastinha. She argues that, though each manual gives insight into stylistic differences, they all attempt to legitimate capoeira as a practice in Brazil's social and political climate. In chapter 2, she traces how the divisions between capoeira angola and capoeira regional were constructed, not only by practitioners but by authors such as Jorge Amado and Carneiro. Höfling moves to analyze the tourism scene of the 1950s and 1960s in chapter 3, devoting attention to Mestre Canjiquinha, who innovated a style that could not be classified as either capoeira angola or capoeira regional. Chapter 4 brings to the foreground the work of Emília Biancardi in the folkloric shows choreographed for foreigners in which performers developed an acrobatic aesthetic.
It is a book that can be incorporated in coursework with both undergraduates and graduate students to introduce ideas of Black modernity in Latin America and to challenge superficial understandings of African authenticity in the diaspora. This book is relevant to scholars in dance and performance studies and Latin American studies because it not only provides geopolitical insight into cultural practices of Brazil, but the claims within the book significantly impact historiographic studies beyond capoeira.
