Here are 100 books that Samba fans have personally recommended if you like
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I've been studying capoeira in the UK since 2002. I've been welcomed into classes by teachers all over the UK. I have watched over 1,000. I have never practiced it myself but have worked with Neil Stephens, who learnt it seriously for seven years, and Mestre Claudio Campos who has taught capoeira here since 2003. I worked at Cardiff University from 1976 until I retired. I have also done a much smaller study of French kickboxing (Savate) for contrast. I was the first woman President of the British Educational Research Association in 1984, given the John Nisbet (Lifetime) Award of BERA in 2015 and the equivalent from the BSA (British Sociological Association) in 2013.
Lewis was the first English speaking anthropologist to go to Salvador de Bahia, Brazil – the heartland of capoeira – and learn to play it while doing an anthropological study of its history and culture.
He is the founder of modern scholarship on the dance-fight-game, studied before it globalised and became ‘cool’ all around the world. Lewis explains the role of deception and trickery in capoeira, relating to its roots in slavery and racial oppression. He captures its beauty, and is particularly good on the lyrics of songs. Issues of race, gender, and the teacher-student relationship are explained.
It led me to find a capoeira group to study and I have been entranced since I read it.
Based on eighteen months of intensive participant-observation, Ring of Liberation offers both an in-depth description of capoeira-a complex Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines feats of great strength and athleticism with music and poetry-and a pioneering synthetic approach to the analysis of complex cultural performance.
Capoeira originated in early slave culture and is practiced widely today by urban Brazilians and others. At once game, sport, mock combat, and ritualized performance, it involves two players who dance and "battle" within a ring of musicians and singers. Stunning physical performances combine with music and poetry in a form as expressive in movement as…
I've been studying capoeira in the UK since 2002. I've been welcomed into classes by teachers all over the UK. I have watched over 1,000. I have never practiced it myself but have worked with Neil Stephens, who learnt it seriously for seven years, and Mestre Claudio Campos who has taught capoeira here since 2003. I worked at Cardiff University from 1976 until I retired. I have also done a much smaller study of French kickboxing (Savate) for contrast. I was the first woman President of the British Educational Research Association in 1984, given the John Nisbet (Lifetime) Award of BERA in 2015 and the equivalent from the BSA (British Sociological Association) in 2013.
This is the go-to history book on capoeira used by scholars, and, by capoeira teachers and students.
The author is a professor of Latin American history and an expert on slavery in Brazil. He has learnt to play capoeira himself and is friends with many of the famous mestres. Assunçâo’s love of capoeira shows through the book. He had done research in Angola seeking for the origins of capoeira there and made that trip into a prize winning documentary film.
Because he is fluent in Portuguese he has been able to publish with Brazilian scholars, such as Mestre Luis Renato, whose research is not available in English. The book is a myth buster, and a celebration of the dance-fight-game.
Originally the preserve of Afro-Brazilian slaves, the marginalized and the underclasses in Brazilian society, capoeira is now a mainstream sport, taught in Brazilian schools and practised by a range of social classes around the world. Some advocates now seek Olympic recognition for Capoeira. This apparent change in the meaning and purpose of Capeoira has led to conflicts between traditionalists, who view capoeira as their heritage descended from the maroons, a weapon to be used against the injustice and repression; and reformers, who wish to see Capoeira develop as an international sport. Capoeira: The History of Afro-Brazilian Martial Art explores Capoeira…
I've been studying capoeira in the UK since 2002. I've been welcomed into classes by teachers all over the UK. I have watched over 1,000. I have never practiced it myself but have worked with Neil Stephens, who learnt it seriously for seven years, and Mestre Claudio Campos who has taught capoeira here since 2003. I worked at Cardiff University from 1976 until I retired. I have also done a much smaller study of French kickboxing (Savate) for contrast. I was the first woman President of the British Educational Research Association in 1984, given the John Nisbet (Lifetime) Award of BERA in 2015 and the equivalent from the BSA (British Sociological Association) in 2013.
Mestre Poncianinho (B. Almeida) is the most famous capoeira mestre in the UK because he appeared in a BBC Ident between 2003-2006 playing on a rooftop in London with the dome of St Paul’s behind him, and was one of the Bulgarian wizards in the film of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
This book is instructional, designed to help novices learn the moves, basic sequences, and see the instruments. It is essentially a picture book, in full colour. Mestre Poncianinho has always welcomed me to his classes and festivals. He is famous as an acrobatic and stylish player, and also a good dancer.
I have an autographed copy which is one of my most treasured possessions and I would save it first in a fire.
Fun, different, and above all effective, capoeira is a unique dance-fight-fitness program enhancing strength, stamina, and flexibility training for the entire body. While there are many books on the subject, this one differs in being a succinct yet thorough discussion of the basics to engage even the nervous novice. In clear, accessible language, author Mestre Ponchianinho explains the aims and benefits of the discipline, along with its history, origins, and philosophy. He continues by introducing the two main styles along with the techniques of the most famous mestres. Easy-to-follow warm-ups, basic moves, defense and escape moves, kicks, training combinations, strengthening…
I've been studying capoeira in the UK since 2002. I've been welcomed into classes by teachers all over the UK. I have watched over 1,000. I have never practiced it myself but have worked with Neil Stephens, who learnt it seriously for seven years, and Mestre Claudio Campos who has taught capoeira here since 2003. I worked at Cardiff University from 1976 until I retired. I have also done a much smaller study of French kickboxing (Savate) for contrast. I was the first woman President of the British Educational Research Association in 1984, given the John Nisbet (Lifetime) Award of BERA in 2015 and the equivalent from the BSA (British Sociological Association) in 2013.
Griffith’s book is a study of capoeira teachers and students in the USA, how American capoeira students experience trips to Brazil to take classes in its homeland, and how their ‘pilgrimages’ are experienced.
Understanding capoeira outside Brazil is important for making sense of capoeira in Brazil and all over the world today. Griffith’s book, focused not in the global cities of San Francisco or New York where it was first established, but in an all-American city with few cosmopolitan characteristics, and few Brazilian residents, captures the world of the ‘typical’ capoeira teacher in exile and his or her students.
Every year, countless young adults from affluent, Western nations travel to Brazil to train in capoeira, the dance/martial art form that is one of the most visible strands of the Afro-Brazilian cultural tradition. In Search of Legitimacy explores why "first world" men and women leave behind their jobs, families, and friends to pursue a strenuous training regimen in a historically disparaged and marginalized practice. Using the concept of apprenticeship pilgrimage-studying with a local master at a historical point of origin-the author examines how non-Brazilian capoeiristas learn their art and claim legitimacy while navigating the complexities of wealth disparity, racial discrimination,…
As a Latina living in the US, I encounter stereotypes about me and my culture. I am sure I have my own blind spots around other cultures and people. So, I like stories that break traditional tropes. Initially, fairytales were dark and used as moral teaching tools full of warnings and fear. I prefer retellings that spread joy and challenge assumptions. Lastly, I love to discover new—real or imaginary—places through the illustrations and the artist’s point of view, especially if it influences the twist.
This book shares my Andean setting and love of dance, so I am already rooting for it. I am immediately connected with the main character as she twirls down the path. I can relate to the wolf as well; I know how language barriers can cause misunderstandings. A clever twist to a beloved classic. The art is full of energy and captures the joy in the dance moves.
A 2024 Anna Dewdney Read-Together Award Honor Book
An irresistible rhythm tugs at Moni's heart as she dances down the path to la casa de Abuela. But Moni's corazón skips a beat when she spies a strange set of ears - setting her own orejas on alert. Lobo must be near!
In this modern interpretation of a classic fairytale, readers tango along with Moni as she sways to the music that follows her through the woods. In a clearing, Moni stumbles upon Lobo . . . playing a bandoneón? Moni can't help from tap-tap-tapping to the tune, but when the…
I’m an information junkie who loves to dance. I fell in love with folk dancing at age 6, European archaeology at 11, linguistics and cognition at 21—and could never drop any of them. My scientist-father always said, “Follow the problem, not the discipline,” and I began to see how these fields could help answer each other’s questions. Words can survive for millennia—with information about what archaeologists don’t find, like oh-so-perishable cloth. Determining how to reconstruct prehistoric textiles (Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years) then led me to trace the origins of various European folk costumes, and finally even to reconstruct something about the origins of the dances themselves.
I selected this book because it finally offered me some answers to questions I’d asked myself all my life: Why am I so driven to dance? Why does dancing make me feel so euphoric? McNeill found himself asking this last question when forced to go through endless military close-order drill (a sort of dance!) as a young draftee. Whence these surprisingly positive effects of “keeping together in time”? Over the course of his later life as a historian, he tracked down a fascinating array of anecdotal and cognitive answers. The relation of this phenomenon to unique details of how the human brain is put together was then further addressed by Oliver Sacks toward the end of his book Musicophilia, where I first learned of McNeill.
Could something as simple and seemingly natural as falling into step have marked us for evolutionary success? In Keeping Together in Time one of the most widely read and respected historians in America pursues the possibility that coordinated rhythmic movement--and the shared feelings it evokes--has been a powerful force in holding human groups together.As he has done for historical phenomena as diverse as warfare, plague, and the pursuit of power, William H. McNeill brings a dazzling breadth and depth of knowledge to his study of dance and drill in human history. From the records of distant and ancient peoples to…
I have been a passionate devourer of fairytale retellings ever since I happened upon Robin McKinley’s Beauty at the library when I was eleven years old. Fairytales have such a timelessness to them that allow them to be retold over and over, reinterpreted, and reimagined in seemingly countless ways, and I’m honored to have now written a few of my own. Fairytales have shaped my own writing from the beginning.
This is my favorite The Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling! Heather Dixon includes all twelve princesses, named after various plants, and gives them distinct enough personalities that not only can you keep them straight, you care about each one. This story follows Azalea, the eldest of the twelve sisters, and the mysterious Keeper, who invites the princesses to dance every night in his silver forest. But the Keeper likes to keep things, and can Azalea bear to pay the cost? Eerie and gorgeous, romantic and masterful!
Come and mend your broken hearts here. In this retelling of the classic tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," the eldest princess must fight to save her family—and her heart—from an ancient dark magic within the palace walls. "Full of mystery, lush settings, and fully orbed characters, Dixon's debut is both suspenseful and rewarding."—ALA Booklist
Just when Azalea should feel that everything is before her—beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing—it's taken away. All of it. And Azalea is trapped. The Keeper understands. He's trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. So he extends an invitation.…
I’ve been drawing and writing ever since I could hold a pencil, and a big inspiration for me to start my lifelong creative journey were graphic novels. So even as an adult, I love to read work from a wide range of genres and age ranges to see what my fellow authors and artists are up to. Especially making my own middle grade graphic novel series, I look up to so many of the authors and artists on this list and chances are you and your kids will too if you pick one of these up!
Gale Galligan is another artist I’ve followed for a while now and it seems like everything they make just overflows with creativity and charm.
I love how Freestyle combines both dance and yo-yoing, two things I’d never think to put together, and makes it work so seamlessly. The book is just pure, vibrant, fun, and even as an adult I found myself going back and admiring the artwork and movement Gale portrays on every page. This is the kind of book that will have readers coming back again and again just to get wrapped up in its beautiful, vivid world.
From bestselling author, Gale Galligan, comes a fun, high-energy Graphic Novel about friendship, family, and school!
Cory's dance crew is getting ready for a major competition before they leave year nine. The crew captain gets increasingly intense about nailing the routine. And Cory's parents ground him for not taking his marks seriously.
He ends up with a new tutor, Sunna, who he dismisses as a boring nerd. until he catches her secretly practicing cool yo-yo tricks. As his friendship with Sunna grows, he ends up missing practice and bailing on his crew.
I am a philologist with a passion for Atlantic cultural history. What started with a research project on the African-American Pinkster tradition and the African community in seventeenth-century Dutch Manhattan led me to New Orleans’ Congo Square and has meanwhile expanded to the African Atlantic islands, the Caribbean, and Latin America. With fluency in several foreign languages, I have tried to demonstrate in my publications that we can achieve a better understanding of Black cultural and religious identity formation in the Americas by adopting a multilingual and Atlantic perspective.
In this fascinating study, Chasteen examines the historical experiences that molded Latin American popular dance from an Atlantic perspective. It delves into the “deep” history of Latin American culture and analyzes the development of dancing culture in its socio-historical context. This is not only a well-researched, but also a well written and oftentimes funny book that is broadly accessible. It is a must-read for any new scholar interested in the field of Black performance culture. Although the focus is on Latin America, Chasteen’s study reveals connections that are also of great importance to understanding the historical development of Black dance culture in North America.
When John Charles Chasteen learned that Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, danced on a banquet table to celebrate Latin American independence in 1824, he tried to visualise the scene. How, he wondered, did the Liberator dance? Did he bounce stiffly in his dress uniform? Or did he move his hips? In other words, how high had African dance influences reached in Latin American societies? A vast social gap separated Bolivar from people of African descent; however, Chasteen's research shows that popular culture could bridge the gap. Fast-paced and often funny, this book explores the history of Latin American popular dance before…
I write to spread joy and truth. As a proud Black mother living in a country with school districts that see Black stories as threats worth banning, amplifying these stories is crucial to the fight to help humanize us and retain the privilege of celebration and joy. When I wrote The Juneteenth Story, it was rooted in a conscious effort to balance my own joyous summertime memories of celebrating the holiday with the hard truths that established and evolved this holiday. This list includes a small sample of books about some of the many ways Black folks celebrate - enjoy.
I don’t know if this book necessarily takes place in summer, but it’s centered around one of my favorite ‘African-American Joy Rituals’ - the Electric Slide! Kai agonizes over his failure to get a dance nickname from his very cool grandfather because of his two left feet. When his aunt gets married, he’s determined to conquer the Electric Slide at her reception.
Who doesn’t love a good, all-inclusive line dance? I still remember learning the Electric Slide when I was 6– to this day if I’m at a party and it’s playing, you’ll know where to find me (the dance floor!). Fun book.
Kai is the only member of his family who can't get the dance steps to the Electric Slide right. But Kai is determined to bust a move in this fun and sweet celebration of Black families.
Kai's aunt is getting married, and everyone in the Donovan family is excited about the wedding ... except Kai. The highlight of every Donovan occasion is dancing the electric slide--a groovy line dance with footwork that Kai can't quite figure out. More than anything, he wants to prove that he can boogie with the rest of his family and earn…
