Contemporary Capoeira in Rio de Janeiro, 1948-1982

卡波埃拉是一种非洲裔巴西武术，将歌唱和打击乐与舞蹈、格斗和街头戏剧相结合。两个练习者在由音乐家和其他参与者组成的“圈”内玩一个“游戏”。被奴役的非洲人和克里奥尔人在殖民晚期和帝国时期的巴西港口城市发展了这种做法。它在最初的残酷镇压中幸存下来，直到20世纪被承认为一项民族运动和传统。在20世纪30-50年代，两种相互竞争的风格导致了它的现代化。在接下来的几十年里，他们融合成了现在主流的“当代”风格，现在全世界都在教授和演奏。卡波埃拉圈和卡波埃拉教师(大师)的知识在2008年被巴西政府认定为国家非物质文化遗产的组成部分，并于2014年被联合国教科文组织认可。该项目旨在通过从不同来源收集材料来更好地了解当代卡波埃拉的出现。它将对40位幸存的第一代和第二代卡波埃拉大师进行采访，他们负责在20世纪50年代至70年代在大里约热内卢发展和扩张新的现代化风格的卡波埃拉-不仅包括市中心，还包括其较贫穷的郊区和边缘地区。该项目还将系统地从当地声音、图像和报纸档案中收集更多材料，以补充和证实这些证词。在一些知名和受人尊敬的卡波埃拉大师的帮助下，他们将担任项目顾问，并将进一步鼓励当地卡波埃拉社区捐赠旧采访或照片等材料。收集的材料将与我们的项目合作伙伴联邦弗卢米嫩塞大学口述历史和图像实验室密切合作，以数字格式组织并存储在埃塞克斯和里约热内卢的服务器上。即将接受采访的大师年事已高，在里约当前的政治和金融危机中，缺乏一个连贯的计划来挽救卡波埃拉历史上的这些关键证词，这使得这个项目变得更加紧迫。根据我以前的经验，我将提供所需的智力领导，将卡波埃拉大师和从业者、不同学科的学者和数字专家聚集在一起，提供一系列可访问的输出，其中最重要的是创建一个关于卡波埃拉的持久和可持续的数据库。这些原始材料将通过网站向注册用户提供，并将极大地促进其他学者和非专业卡波埃拉历史学家的进一步研究。经过编辑的采访精选和带有解释的补充材料将在网站和虚拟展览上提供。大约40个短片将概述这些非常不同的角色和职业的社会和文化背景以及生活故事。他们将召唤历史上卡波埃拉圈子的氛围，并描绘一座文化丰富但社会和种族分裂的城市。非洲数字博物馆主办的数字展览将向更广泛的受众提供吸引人的结果摘要，并将帮助学校教师遵守巴西最近的立法，该立法规定所有中学都必须教授非裔巴西人历史。还将根据里约热内卢市中心及其历史郊区的卡波埃拉记忆遗址制定行程，以促进教学。这一导游将被整合到手机应用程序中，以便更轻松地访问。来自大英图书馆、埃塞克斯大学和巴西合作伙伴的工作人员之间就数据管理、制作数字历史和实现数字传播进行知识交流，这将有助于优化该项目的研究及其在线可获得性，并有助于发展涉及一系列领域的工作人员的技能。

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines singing and percussion with dance, combat and street theatre. Two practitioners play a 'game' within a 'circle' formed by the musicians and other participants. Enslaved Africans and Creoles developed the practice in the port cities of late colonial and imperial Brazil. It survived initial harsh repression until being recognised as a national sport and tradition in the twentieth century. Two competing styles were responsible for its modernisation in the 1930s-50s. They merged during the following decades into the current mainstream 'Contemporary' style, now taught and played around the world. The capoeira circle and the knowledge of capoeira teachers ('masters') were recognised by the Brazilian government as integral to the nation's intangible cultural heritage in 2008, and by UNESCO in 2014.The project aims to better understand the emergence of this Contemporary Capoeira by gathering material from different sources. It will conduct interviews with 40 surviving capoeira masters from the first and second generations, responsible for the development and expansion of the new, modernised style of capoeira during the 1950s-70s in 'Greater Rio de Janeiro' - which includes not only the city centre, but also its poorer suburbs and its marginalised periphery. The project will also systematically collect further material from local sound, image and newspaper archives to complement and corroborate these testimonies. With the help of some well-known and respected capoeira masters, who will act as project consultants, it will furthermore encourage the local capoeira community to donate materials such as old interviews or photographs. The collected material will be organised and stored in digital format on servers in Essex and Rio de Janeiro, in close collaboration with our project partner, the Laboratory of Oral History and Image at the Federal Fluminense University. The advanced age of the masters to be interviewed, and the absence of a coherent plan to rescue these crucial testimonies for capoeira history in the current political and financial crisis in Rio make this project all the more urgent.Drawing on my previous experience, I will provide the intellectual leadership needed to bring together capoeira masters and practitioners, academics from various disciplines and digital specialists to deliver a range of accessible outputs, the most important being the creation of a long-lasting and sustainable database on capoeira. This raw material will be made available for registered users via the website, and will significantly facilitate further research by other academics and non-professional capoeira historians. An edited selection of the interviews, and complementary material with explanations will be made available on the website and in a virtual exhibition. Around 40 short clips will present an overview of the social and cultural backgrounds and life stories of these very diverse characters and careers. They will conjure the ambience of historic capoeira circles, and portray a culturally rich but also socially and racially divided city. A digital exhibition hosted by the Afro-Digital Museum will provide an appealing summary of the results for broader audiences, and will help schoolteachers to comply with recent Brazilian legislation that makes the teaching of Afro-Brazilian history compulsory in all secondary schools. Teaching will also be facilitated by an itinerary following the memory sites of capoeira in central Rio and its historical suburbs. This guided tour will be incorporated into a mobile phone app for easier access. A knowledge exchange between staff from the British Library, Essex University and Brazilian partners on data management, making digital history and achieving digital dissemination will help to optimise the project's research and its online accessibility, as well as contributing to the development of skills for the staff involved in a range of areas.