EDMONDS The new Edmonds Center for the Arts is hosting a special cultural experience for one night only, Saturday, Jan. 27.
Ache Brazil brings a volatile combination of dance, acrobatics, live music and a hidden martial arts discipline from the tropics to the Pacific Northwest
Authentic samba dancers will sweep thunderstorms of color around gravity-defying Capoeira fighters, bringing a sample of Brazils world-renowned carnival to the gray days of a Puget Sound winter.
An ancestral art form originating in Africa, capoeira was secretly preserved for centuries by the descendants of kidnapped Africans. Banned in Brazil for most of its existence, the martial art form are now eager to share this vibrant facet of their culture with the world.
This Afro-Brazilian dance form is known as the secret dance of Brazil. Capoeira is an astonishing display of breath-taking kicks and self-defense tactics performed to special music of drums and berimbau, an ancient stringed bow-like instrument.
Originating developed in the Northeast of Brazil by slaves from the African continent, Capoeira had to be practiced in secrecy after the lethal potentials were discovered by the slave masters.
Although Capoeira was created as a way to free the slaves from their oppressors, it has evolved into one of the most hypnotic and interesting art forms to come out of Brazil.
Capoeira is practiced by two people who dance and strike at each other in a whirring circle of movement and acrobatic maneuvers.
Around them in a circle or semi-circle musicians play a variety of instruments, such as drums, pandeiros and the most important Capoeira instrument the berimbau.
Perhaps one of the most exotic and unique martial arts in existence.
The samba is the most popular dance and music of Brazil with its captivating rhythm which personifies the Brazilian carnaval or mardigras.
Its high energy rhythms give the basis for the dance which uses lots of hips and foot movements.
Dancers dress in bright, colorful, dazzling costumes with huge feathered headpeices that are very typical of mardi-gras.
Carnaval is the biggest festival of the year in Brazil. People prepare all year long to take the streets for several days and nights.
The whole country shuts down for dancing Now that dancing can be experienced in Edmonds.
Another dance on the program, the maculele was originally created in the sugarcane fields by the slaves while they were cutting the cane. This dance utilizes sticks and machetes (large sharp knives) with complexly choreographed acrobatic movements.
Hailing from the interior of Pernambuco, Bahia state, Maculele imitates the movements of cutting cane, intricately choreographed to a special rhythm especially for this dance. Although today Maculele is strictly used for entertainment, during the Paraguayan war, the discipline was actually brought in battle.
For information and tickets call 425-275-9595.