Grupo Corpo

Yesterday, Nayla, Flavia and I went to see Grupo Corpo, a Brazilian modern dance company. It was a great performance! The lighting it was superb in the first half, the dancers were brilliant , I personally loved the mixture of the traditional and contemporary music.

Voador Trailer

It's finally happening! About five years, i spoke with Nayla and Adam Bardach (film director) about the idea of filming all this amazing talent that surounds us and doing a different kind of capoeira dvd with all sorts of cool moves in great locations. The styling in this DVD is Urban meets Future with sets a really nice mood. The footage we got back then was amazing, we felt like there was something missing and shot some more things this past Zumbi event with some of the guests and it's coming together. We are giving you 50 mins of great moves, falls and games to enjoy. It's a fun DVD with great energy. Everyone on this DVD is very talented and works hard to at this art-form. I want to give a personal thank you to each and everyone of them for trusting in me and my vision and giving their all on the days of the shoot. Everyone was pretty beat up after the shoots but i hope they all like the final product. The DVD will be released in March 2010. This DVD will put your DVD players to work with the endless opportunities to stop, rewind and slow motion those crazy moves. We can't think of a better title than VOADOR since everyone was flying high on these shoots...Enjoy!

Grant Granted!

ACTA Welcomes 21 Mestre Artist-Apprentice Teams to its Apprenticeship Program. www.actaonline.org (Alliance for California Traditional Arts) Master artist Joselito "Amen" Santo (Culver City) will conduct an apprenticeship with Beto Gonzalez (Los Angeles) in Brazilian Candomblé atabaquedrumming. Mestre Amen was initiated into the Candomblé religion as a young boy in his native Brazil. In addition to his training in Candomblé percussion, Amen, a former member of Brazil’s historic Viva Bahia dance ensemble, is also extensively trained in capoeira and Afro-Brazilian folkloric dance. Beto has been studying Afro-Brazilian music for nearly two decades. The apprenticeship will focus on improving Beto’s technique, as well as building his knowledge of the vast repertoire of rhythms within the Candomblé tradition.

20 years of Capoeira Batuque

check out this video which is a recap of my 20 years of Capoeira Batuque in Los Angeles. You'll enjoy watching some old faces and get a kick out of seeing what we looked like. Through the years, there has been so many great moments, this clip shows a few of those moments I shared with great friends, students, family, and awesome community. Thanks Miguel Coleman for putting this great video together, it was a great gift!

http://www.youtube.com/user/BateBatuque?feature=mhum#p/a/f/0/1NKSyfmAbTM

Mestre's conections

Check out Mestre Val Boa Morte's page http://www.capoeirafdb.com/ for a nice recap on our trip to Argentina and history on the connection with all these Mestres. Salve!

ladies roughing it up

Here is a video of some ladies from Mestre Gytauna's Oriaxé group roughing it up during the 2010 Batizado.

DVD shoot

pictures taken during and after a video shoot for an upcoming DVD by Sound Of Bahia. I am so excited about this project, I can't wait to share it with everyone. It's going to have such amazing capoeira featuring such a talented range of capoeiristas. Coming Soon!!!