Capoeira
Capoeira is a blend of dance and martial arts developed by enslaved West Africans in Brazil during the 16th century. These enslaved peoples wanted to teach each other self-defense techniques to protect themselves from their captors. In order to keep their training secret, they used music and moves like the “ginga” to trick their oppressors into believing they were learning to dance. As a result, Capoeira is a unique art form that combines kicks, take-downs, acrobatics, and dance. The art has its own traditional songs, instruments, and culture.
Today, Capoeira is widely known and practiced in more than 60 nations around the world.
Capoeira Luanda
Capoeira Luanda is an organization that practices, teaches, and preserves the Afro-Brazilian martial art of Capoeira. Capoeira Luanda practices a style of Capoeira known as Capoeira Regional Contemporanea. This style is derived from movements and sequences developed by Mestre Bimba, as well as influences and evolutions of Capoeira from our founding Mestres.
Capoeira Luanda was founded on April 6th, 2007, after a long process of research and study under the direction and guidance of Mestre Jelon Vieira. Today, Capoeira Luanda has spread internationally with centers and academies in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Peru, Colombia, Italy, and Turkey.
The root of the name Luanda is a homage to Mestre Eziquiel Martins, who founded the Grupo Luanda de Capoeira in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in 1963. Another inspiration behind the name Luanda was the meaning of the word in the Yoruba language, “the junction of the moon and the earth”, and “Peace and imaginary land” in the dialect Bantu. Luanda is the capital of Angola and was one of the most important ports during the slave trade when Africans were taken to the Americas as chattel.
Luanda is one of the cities in West Africa where Africans said the last good bye for those who never returned. It was the Africans from the slave trade that contributed to the richness of the African Culture in Brazil.
Mestre Jelon
In September 2008, Jelon Vieira was awarded one of eleven National Heritage Fellowships, the country’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. As founder and artistic director of The Capoeira Foundation and DanceBrazil, he and the late Loremil Machado were the first artists to bring traditional Afro-Brazilian dance and Capoeira to the United States over forty years ago. He has devoted his life to sharing Afro-Brazilian culture with American audiences since 1977 when, together with Machado, he formed The Capoeiras of Bahia. That same year the late Alvin Ailey suggested he change the name of the company to DanceBrazil. It now makes over forty years that Vieira has guided the company through breathtaking performances of Capoeira and Afro-Brazilian dance before audiences in Europe, Asia, and Brazil, as well as the United States.
Mr. Vieira teaches capoeira to people of all ages and from all walks of life in both Brazil and the United States. He has taught the soccer great Pele and American movie stars Wesley Snipes and Eddie Murphy. Although he resides in New York, Mr. Vieira spends several months a year in Brazil. One of his long term goals is to open a center for underprivileged children, using capoeira to build self esteem and self-discipline and to begin moving these children off the streets and into the educational system and mainstream society.
In the United States, Mr. Vieira has taught in many residency workshops and has been a guest instructor at Yale University’s African- American Studies Department and has also taught at many other universities and colleges including Oberlin College, Columbia University, Stanford University and Duke University. He has worked with several American dance companies including Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey. He has also worked closely with other cultural institutes in the United States such as the Caribbean Cultural Center in New York and the Carver Community Cultural Center in San Antonio, Texas.
When at home in Brazil, he teaches children and young adults in his home community of Boca do Rio, using Capoeira to build self-esteem, instill self-discipline and to raise social consciousness while helping his students become a vital part of their own community.