(‘Capoeira é uma só’). This usually means that a capoeirista should be able to play to any toque of the
berimbau, thus contributing to maintaining a variety of rhythms in the roda. M.Acordeon already reminded
his readers and students in the 1980s: ‘Whatever style the berimbaus call, the capoeirista must play, no
matter if it is fast, slow, a fight, or only a playful game’.^167 As we have seen in Chapters 4 and 5, Angola
and São Bento Grande were two among the many toques used in the Bahian vadiação. Pastinha placed the
slower Angola toque at the heart of his style, and so did M.Bimba with his faster São Bento Grande de
Regional. But both still used a fairly wide range of other toques in their roda. Yet, in many contemporary
groups, there is a clear trend to assimilate styles (Angola and Regional) to variants of play, similar to the
role of the different toques in traditional vadiação. Thus M. Amen, for instance, asserts: ‘Angola and
Regional. The Berimbau determines what you will play’.^168
In a field where dogmatic disputes are frequent, such an ‘open’ posture can easily win support from
audiences, especially from those students who are primarily concerned with training and are not that
interested in fractional strife between styles, groups or mestres. Yet the reduction of Angola and Regional
styles to two different toques that can be played in the same roda glosses over an undeniable fact: When
mainstream practitioners play what they call Angola (a game to that rhythm or toque), this is still very
different from a game (to whatever toque) in an angoleiro roda. Thus the ‘ecumenical’ posture can also
reflect a strategy to impose a homogenized mainstream, which some of its critiques call ‘Angonal’.
Arguments over the possibility of teaching two styles are obviously also market driven and commanded by
the necessity for each group and mestre to accumulate as much symbolic capital as possible. In a capitalist
society the more you can offer the more you will sell.
Also very common among mestres and group leaders is the assertion that they teach ‘a mixture’ or ‘a
synthesis’ of Angola and Regional. Since mainstream or ‘current’ capoeira has drawn elements from both
styles, there is undoubtedly an objective basis to that claim. Thus M.Mão Branca, from the well-known
group Capoeira Gerais, for example asserts:
Since I was neither a student of M.Bimba, nor of M.Pastinha, I did and I do not need to follow that
radical line of either of them. Because I love capoeira, I decided to fuse the two styles, within a work
that caters for both sides, according to the necessity of my students. I simply recover (resgato) the two
styles.^169As a means to rescue lost tradition, Capoeira Gerais requires students to visit the city of Bahia before they
graduate. This capoeirista pilgrimage to Salvador has become a tradition in itself, and has further
contributed to the fluidity of contemporary styles. Many Regional teachers or mestres who went to the
sacred temples of capoeira in Bahia altered their style on their return and introduced those changes into their
teachings. They might, for example, re-introduce Bimba’s rhythms in their rodas or attempt to ‘angolize’
their game by introducing chamadas, making wider use of movements on the ground, or infusing more
mandinga in their ginga. The critique of contemporary developments inevitably leads to trends that try to
‘rescue’ what has been lost. M.Suassuna, for instance, developed the ‘Miudinho’ modality (from ‘miudo’ =
small), an attempt to ‘recover’ Angola and to re-introduce a closer game into mainstream capoeira.^170
Precisely because mainstream styles evolve so rapidly, Angola and Regional remain the basic categories
to define all of them. The two key references of contemporary capoeira entertain a very unequal
relationship. Angola has developed over recent decades into an increasingly positive reference for
mainstream styles: it is identified with the roots of capoeira, a ‘mother’ to which every son has to return at
least once in his lifetime. Angoleiro mestres are regularly invited to Regional events, but the opposite never
occurs, since Regional mestres are not considered to have any competence in Angola circles. They are at
200 CONTEMPORARY CAPOEIRA