Capoeira is certainly one of the most fascinating components of Brazilian culture. It combines and synthesizes the elements of dance, fight, acrobatics and play, thus exploring and covering a wide range of cultural areas. The performers are athletes, dancers, musicians, poets, and through practising Capoeira, they perpetuate Brazilian culture and re-enforce it's roots.

As the Portuguese started colonising Brazil, they consequently imposed slavery upon the Indians. After most Indians had perished with the extremely hard labour and appalling conditions of life, the Portuguese found themselves in need of fresh manpower. They were forced to bring African negroes from their colonies like Angola, Mozambique, Guinea, etc. However, these African slaves also brought with them their culture, religion and customs, and one part of all this was Capoeira. In this strange dance the dancers imitated movements and attitudes of certain animals by performing specific movements with their bodies, especially with feet and legs. Under the inhuman, cruel reign of the Portuguese oppressors, the urge for liberation grew steadily stronger, and the black slaves finally started struggling for a life of freedom and dignity. The ones, who managed to flee from the senzala, the special building, wherein they were kept, gathered in the forests, and organised themselves in so-called quilombos. Such a quilombo functioned on an entirely self-governing and self-supporting basis. The most famous one used to be the Quilombo dos Palmares at the Serra da Barriga, located in the north-eastern state of Brazil, called Algoas.

Thus having become a Symbol for freedom, the once strange dance gradually changed into a lethal fighting-technique, prompted by a lack of arms, and the necessity to resist and survive this dark period of enslavement.

After the abolition of slavery in 1888 many former slaves migrated into the big cities, hoping to find their financial and economical freedom, too. Due to their poor education and lack of professional qualifications, both so indispensable in urban life, society did not give them a chance. Living in extreme poverty and without means to improve their conditions of life, black people found themselves - though freed from slavery – still confined to the lowest social class, and still repressed. Capoeira, constituting their only weapon, and representing strong and authentic elements of black culture, soon became a welcome target for the repressive forces in Brazil and consequently, it's practice was prohibited. Even though ill-famed, Capoeira was still secretly practiced sporadically, till in 1937 President Getulio Vargas finally put an end to prohibition. Shortly after, the teaching and training of Capoeira began in special academies and schools. The first one was the Centro de cultura física e capoeira regional of Master Bimba de Bahia.

Nowadays the high educational, cultural, creative and artistic value of Capoeira is generally recognized and firmly established. It is taught in schools, universities and sporting-clubs. Capoeira's probably least known characteristic is the excellent training in social behavior and collective work, which it provides. Apart from only paying attention to the purely technical and physical development of the students, the master cares just as much for the development of the positive elements in them, which are to be learned from social behavior. Capoeira is a great tool for achieving suppleness, alertness, self-confidence and courage, in order to face everyday-life.

Through fighting-techniques camouflaged as dance, accompanied by the sound of the berimbau (a musical arc), of percussion instruments like the pandeiro, atabaque and agogô, and songs repeated by the choir, Capoeira releases every participants' artistic creativity and sensibility. The various rhythms of the berimbau, combined with the songs, produce the essential energy and experience of this game.

Capoeira is played following a certain ritual. The game is played inside a circle formed by musicians and players, who arrange themselves in a certain order, which is not always obvious to the spectator. The two players squat under the berimbau, exchange greetings and move to the center of the circle. Then they start the game with it's harmonized, flowing movements, acrobatics, feints and kicks. To the spectator it appears, as if an improvised choreography exists, prompting the players to follow, attack and escape each other.