Pierre Verger

...French photographer who ended up living in Bahia for the last fifty years of his life, travelling intensively to Africa, exploring the relationship between candomblé in Bahia and voodoo in Bénin (basically it's the same thing).
He took some of the best capoeira photos in the forties showing how it was before it became organized by the different academies (Pastinha, Bimba etc)
Check out the Fundaçao Pierre Verger's webiste, it's full of hidden gems.

here is some of his photographic work put in video


Here is a great little film that he seemingly produced about carnival in the forties based on a series of photos that he took in Rio in 1941, Pernambuco 1947 and Bahia in 1948



it's in French, hit me up if you want more info ...:)

Elmina

In the light of Obama's historical speech in Accra and his visit to Elmina, I'm posting old S8 stuff. This is even more obscure... Some footage of a trip we did, first stop Elmina Fort first slave fortress ever, built by the Portuguese in 1482, then a village in Togo, next Ouidah, Bénin another stop on the slave trade route, from where many boats departed. The mural images represent some of the Yoruba kings, who also took part in the slave trade.

In Madagascar..

Hi guys,

still waiting for some updates...
Sniffing about on the world wide web found this link to capoeira in madagascar?
very impressive, there's even a mention of some kind of fight...

Welcome Blog!

This is the new blog for students from Pedreiro's capoeira group, to talk about anything related to the class, their lives and experiences.

Here is a picture I took on a trip to Namibia in Dec 2007, of a musician we met in the market, who played an instrument from the family of the berimbau .