batizado and capoeira performance

wednesday saw our batizado, where the new students of capoeira are officially initiated into path of capoeira by playing and being rasteira-ed by a mestre..



i played with professor ivan.. it was rather fast game, due to the shortage of time and the large number of students, i was out in less than 2 mins.. man..



prof ivan handing me the corda by tying it for us for the first time, like a mother teaching her child to tie the shoelace for the first time..



our guest capoeiristas from philippines, very hot and enthusiatic babes they are, but sorry guys, these beautiful ones are taken.. aww..

thursday saw us at the brazilian cultural performance..
we had percussion by the mestres, followed by 'street fighting' by mestre ousado and mestre from poland, maculele performance, berimbau jamming, solo capoeira display, then the final roda..



maculele is a dance played with 2 sticks where the performers will dance and sing and strike their maculeles along with atabaque and berimbau in the background in a rhythmic fashion..



professor fantasma and ivan striking with their maculeles..


berimbau jamming, where all the mestres and professors try to outdo each other by gaining the loudest cheers from the audience.. an magnificent display of technique and innovation.. finally it was mestre limina who won..

professor joel, fantasma and ivan wowed the audience with their gravity-defying moves and flips.. especially ivan with his famous one-hand spinning, which he almost threw himself off the stage..

the performance could have reached its peak if all the students were able to paticipate in the final roda, which mestre ousado finally made only the females and selected guys to participate, much to my friends' and my disappointment..

nonetheless, samba is not an item to be missed out as a brazilian culture. so after the roda, we danced to the uplifting rhythm of samba onstage.. oh well, i finally get to get on stage and do something.. haha..

all in all, a fantastic performance was put up for all, which could not have been possible without all the help from the mestres and students alike.. a night to remember..

thanks again to my friends who took time to come watch the performance: hong wei, evette, henry, yumei, ting ting and her cousin, leonard and his friend suxann..

cheers..