Capoeira Luanda is an organization that practices, teaches, and preserves the Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira. We practice a style known as Capoeira Regional Contemporânea (Regional Contemporary Capoeira). This style is derived from movements and sequences developed by Mestre (Master) Bimba, as well as the influences and advancements of capoeira adopted by the founding master of Capoeira Luanda, Mestre Jelon Vieira.
Mestre Jelon Vieira is a renowned citizen and pioneer of capoeira in the USA with over 50 years of capoeira experience - 40 of those working and developing Capoeira in the USA as well as in other countries. He founded of Capoeira Launda on April 6th, 2007, after a long process of research and study. Mestre has been personally instructed by the most defining of capoeiristas of the last century - the same who helped to establish or reinvent the fundamentals of the art, paving the path to the capoeira we play today: Mestre Bimba, Pastinha, Ezequiel, and Waldemar, among many others. A special compliment and enriching factor for our group, Mestre Jelon is a very sucessuful and international choreographer, inspired by Afro-Brazilian flavors, while mixing capoeira, contemporary Brazilian rhythms and other dances.
Those Africans, with origins back on the slave trade, are the responsibles for seeding a lot of the richness of the Brazilian Culture in general: music, dance, food, cuture, atitudes of resistance and resiliance to be happy overcoming, many strugles and sufferings with their atitudes and rituals involving lots of happinnes and joy!
Great ethics; respect and consideration to the others; a beautiful, efficient and connected with the traditions and the ancestors Capoeira; and a huge desire of creating a better future for: each one of us - for our group - for Capoeira itself and for the World around us are some of the characteristics that I feel an appreciate the most in Capoeira Luanda and we offer that to you at our San Diego branch!
Today, Capoeira Luanda has spread internationally with centers and academies in the United States, Holland, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Peru, Colombia and Italy. The name "Luanda" is homage to Mestre Eziquiel Martins, who founded the Grupo Luanda de Capoeira in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in 1963. Another inspiration behind the name Luanda was the meaning of the word luanda in the Yoruba language - the junction of the moon and the earth – as well as a peaceful and imaginary land in the Bantu dialect. Last but not least, Luanda is the capital of Angola and one of the cities in West Africa where Africans used to say their last good bye for those who never returned. This capital's ports were in fact the most used during the monstrous slave trade period, when vast numbers of Africans were brutally taken to the Americas as slaves.
Those Africans, with slave trade origins, are responsible for seeding much of the richness of Brazilian culture in general: music, dance, food, resistance and resilience, happiness, and overcoming struggles and suffering through ritual.
Great ethics; respect and consideration to the others; beauty, efficiency and connection with the traditions and ancestors of capoeira; a great desire to create a better future for each one of us, for our group, for capoeira itself, and for the world around us. These are some of the characteristics felt and appreciated most at Capoeira Luanda. We offer them to you at our San Diego branch!
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