JennyOwen

By JennyOwen

Capoeira

Last year I took some photos for a small local Capoeira group.  It was a lovely thing to do, watching the Capoeira 'play' - an athletic, graceful and witty form - and listening to the percussion and singing that accompany  it.
 I was never sure whether or not the images had turned out well for the group - I liked them, but then, their preferences might have been different from mine. Anyway, I heard no more until a few weeks ago, when their organiser got in touch to ask if I could photograph another of their events, this time for a fee, as they now have some grant funding. Clearly the first lot of images had worked out well enough.
So I spent a very enjoyable afternoon with them today, watching and trying to capture something of the movement, the communication and the atmosphere. I've now got hundreds of images to go through... with players moving within a circle of musicians, getting a clear view was often hard, and there were many false starts and duplicates. But I've scanned through enough of them to see that there will be a viable set of images to send them.
For now, here's Thiago - the Brazilian tutor who was working with the group today - with one of the group in the background, playing the berimbau. What I like, here, is the quiet absorption on both their faces.   The extra is a group shot of some of the action.
There's a good overview here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/reel/video/p0fccnq3/capoeira-brazil-s-oldest-martial-art

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