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Capoeira, a clinical definition

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art that is the definition of interdisciplinary. Shaped by the necessity to survive by being non-threatening at the same time as being deft enough a fighter to engage in pitched battle, Capoeira is an art of music, dance, theatre, combat, and cultural preservation. All of these elements strike a balance within the milieu of a game of constantly shifting power relationships actuated through musical, physical, and theatrical dialogue. This then promulgates an analysis of life situations by understanding the relationships of microcosm and macrocosm in infinitely repeating iterations. Beyond this, the reality of Capoeira is a somewhat anarchistic interplay of differing and opposing opinions on history, nomenclature, style, taste, manner, and technique, all coexisting within multiple intertwined cultural lineages and subject to the shifting self definitions of the practitioner as an individual, a teacher, and a student.