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Capoeira: Game! Dance! Martial Art!

Written and photographed by George Ancona

Hardcover: out of stock

Paperback: $13.95

Ebook

CAPOEIRA — it's a game, a dance, a martial art! It's a way of expressing oneself through movement and music. With action-packed photographs and accessible text, readers are introduced to this exciting, popular game.

At Madinga Academy in Oakland, California, a group of girls and boys practice the acrobatic moves of capoeira. Then they begin to play games to the infectious, rhythmic beat of traditional music and singing.

On to Brazil to experience capoeira in its historic birthplace, where it dates back four hundred years. Capoeira developed as a way of fighting among enslaved Africans, was outlawed the the government, and was permitted once again in 1930 as a martial art and game.

Back in Oakland, at an end-of-year ceremony, students receive their colored ropes indicating their levels of accomplishment. They also look forward to next year, and the fun of expressing themselves through the game, dance and martial art of capoeira.

Watch George Ancona's interview with Reading Rockets

About the Creators

Thumb_thumb George Ancona - Author, Illustrator

was an award-winning author and photographer known for his vivid, eye-catching images. He wrote and/over photographed more than one hundred books for young readers. In 2002 Ancona received the Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award for his work providing quality nonfiction for young readers. He passed away in 2021.