Sérgio, Suzanne and Julu invite you and your little one into the sensorial aspects of the world of Traditional Capoeira from Pernambuco Brasil. This participatory experience will stimulate and engage with traditional percussion instruments, music, movements and ancient dances as well as call and response chants and even original songs by Mestre Sérgio Xocolate.
For 8 children and up to 2 adult caregivers per child
Programme Notes
Traditional Capoeira is not only a martial arts but a rich and complex form of cultural resistance and cultural preservation where instruments, rhythms and music are just as important as physical movements all of which connect practitioners to their ancestors, their own bodies and to one another.
Mestre Sérgio Xocolate’s been living and breathing Traditional Capoeira for forty years and celebrates Capoeira’s relationship to other Cultural Art forms each a branch from the same tree… in fact Capoeira itself can be both a branch of as well as its own tree.
Therefore please join us in imagining a large lovely tree behind us where we reach into and pull out each instruments, regalia and traditional fabric as everything in this form originates back to the natural world and her elements- just like the ORIXÁS embody and personify.
A Notes About Participation:
- Suzanne will signal three moments in the piece where it’s important to hold your little one tightly but the rest of the time it’s more of a relaxed experiences
- This work in progress is an inspired homage to Sérgio’s culture and life long commitment to this practice and his legacy to Julu.
- The way we move with Julu might be drastically different from the way you move with your little one/s and we respect that contrast.
- We invite you and your little ones to participate only as you feel comfortable just as we hope you sit back, observe or take space as desired/required.
Song Cycle:
EXUNGÁ: we enter and begin with a traditional song in the Indigenous language of Tupí- it’s a lullaby that Sérgio’s mom sang to him
ALUJA: a humble invocation to Orixá Xango
COCO DE RODA ‘Estrela Do Mar’: Mestre Xocolate teaches that everything comes back to this mother of all traditions!
JULU’S SONG original by M Xocolate: Mestre Xocolate wrote this while Julu was still in utero and it speaks to their Indigenous legacy
CAPOEIRA ‘AEIOU’: a traditional Capoeira song that Sérgio and Julu have been singing for many months together
BERIMBAU ‘Berimbau’: the central ancestral instrument of the practice and the great grandmother of all stringed instruments
PANDEIRO ‘Couro e Madeira’: The Pandeiro made out of leather & wood is also a foundational capoeira instrument and offers a higher and happier energy almost like it’s laughing!
MACULELÊ ‘Flor’: This is a central aspect and traditional dance that lives inside of the Capoeira practice
IJEXÁ ‘Benção’ original by M. Xocolate & ‘Ola e la e la’: A rhythmic celebration of ceremony, a culmination of this journey together and an invitation to dance.
Obrigada/Thank You:
~Mãe Lúcia aka Lúcia de Besen
~Pai Dôté e Terreiro
~Mãe Jacira e Terreiro
~Sérgio’s Birth Family especially Mãe Lulua & T-Tias
~Sérgio’s Candomblé e Jurema Familia: Maracatu Cameleão
~Sérgio’s Capoeira Teachers & students and their Families
~The Federation of Traditional Capoeira of Pernambuco
~Master Sher
~Maria Vigna
~Zeca, Martina & Zaian for sharing their instruments
~April for her childcare and all around support and participation along with her family Rissa & Shiloh
~Lynda Hill for her inspiration and support of the three of us to engage and develop this Work together in this way and for this demographic
~WeeFestival 2024 Team & Artists
~To each of you for being a central part of this process
Photo credit: Dahlia Katz
Featured: Mestre Sérgio Xocolate & Suzanne Roberts Smith with Julu
About Mestre Sérgio Xocolate and Suzanne Roberts Smith
Visit the Mestre Sérgio Xocolate and Suzanne Roberts Smith website