arose between Canjiquinha and Pastinha—in part out of personal rivalry, but also over the very
understanding of their art.^138 As a result of these re-alignments, Canjiquinha became one of the most
outspoken critics of the radical revivalists among the angoleiros. He ultimately questioned their claim to be
the only legitimate heirs of the traditional vadiação:
I teach the student to play low and high. Because I am not an Angolan. I was born in Brazil, in
Salvador. I did not learn capoeira in Nigeria. Therefore, this whole tbing of capoeira de Angola is an
illusion. So much so that there is no capoeira in Angola. [...] I learned with Aberrê. He also played
with his leg high. Look at the movie Vadiaçã o, the late Curió playing fast, low and high. If you don’t
know the guy, you go there and give a low meia lua. And if you know him, and there is no
wickedness, you are playing with your friend, you raise your leg.^139As a result, Canjiquinha substantially contributed to shaping the style of the mainstream capoeira that
emerged in the Southeast, in particular in São Paulo, from the 1960s onwards. Capoeira practitioners still
disagree over how to denominate this style. Some, especially the angoleiros from Bahia, labelled it as
Regional, whilst the majority just called it capoeira, understanding that it was a new development that was
not, strictly speaking, Bimba’s child alone. In that respect they were right. The new mainstream capoeira
played to an orchestra that was hardly how Bimba liked it: not just berimbaus and pandeiros, but with
atabaque and agogô. Even the toques were not Bimba’s favourites (see Chapter 5), but rather São Bento
Grande de Angola or São Bento Pequeno de Angola. Rodas also were more likely to start with ladainhas,
not the quadras preferred by Bimba. If, therefore, some aspects of capoeira Angola were retained or re-
introduced by the Bahian mestres and their students in the Southeast, others were abandoned for the same
reasons Bimba had rejected them. In particular, the chamadas virtually disappeared from rodas in Southeast
Brazil. Other innovations of the Regional style were also eagerly adopted. Capoeira instructors insisted on
the repetitive training of particular kicks or movements, eventually without music. In particular the
famous eight sequences (sequências) invented by Bimba were taught in many academies. As a result, fast
and upright games predominated in the rodas (even though they might initiate with an Angola toque and a
slower game).
Moreover, the ‘baptism’ and the graduation ceremonies invented by Bimba were universally adopted and
became a key feature of mainstream contemporary capoeira (although, in contrast to Bimba, contemporary
practitioners tend to call any graduation ceremony a ‘baptism’). The coloured belts, representing a clear
system of achievable aims, met the expectations of students living in a very different context from the one
where the Bahian vadiação had thrived, namely the industrializing and fast growing cities of the
Southeast.^140 Here, Catholic inspired festivals had lost importance, due to the more advanced process of
secularization. Capoeira rodas therefore needed to find a new context. Although a few street rodas were
eventually established according to the Bahian model (such as the roda in Caxias, a suburb of Rio de
Janeiro, and the roda on the Praça da República in São Paulo), the rodas that students in Southeast Brazil
attended were mainly those of their own academies or others they visited. And graduation became the core
event, where capoeiristas from different schools could play together, and also show off their skills.
In summary, formal developments and stylistic adjustments in capoeira related to broader changes in the
socio-economic context and upcoming new cultural trends. The mainstream style that emerged during the
1960s and 1970s grew out of the innovations introduced by M. Bimba and adopted some features directly
from the Angola style and yet was different from both. It was a hybrid about which, 40 years later, there is still
no agreement on what it should be called. Lewis, after consultation with his teacher and informant M.Nô,
proposed calling that ‘postmodern synthesis’ capoeira atual (‘current capoeira’).^141 Currently the expression
194 CONTEMPORARY CAPOEIRA