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-Elbows up! Nice!
Good, good, good.
-To understand the Brazilian art of capoeira,
you have to hear it,
see it, and feel it.
-Kind of sad pushups.
We got to work on that.
-Capoeira is a dance.
[ Rhythmic clapping and music ]
Capoeira is a fight.
[ Group sings ]
But we like to say that we fight like dancers,
and we dance like fighting.
-And for Jen Hobbs, otherwise known as
Professora Agua-Viva for her jellyfish like moves, capoeira is
also a way of life.
-That's it, Isaac! Really, really good!
-She began teaching capoeira classes in West Seattle
back in 2016 and opened her Viva Arts location
to train older and younger capoeiristas alike.
-That really became
my passion is working with families and kids,
and so having something that a family can do together
is really beautiful.
-Hobbs has studied capoeira since 2001
after seeing a live performance in San Francisco
and now travels to Brazil each year to train,
educate herself,
and discover new ways to pass along what she's learned.
-So we share this kind of
culture and history, even though it's not our own.
And I don't mean it that we, you know, take anything from it...
we we learn about it and we respect it.
[ Drum beating ]
-It's a respect
her students take to heart
as they reenact how Africans were enslaved
and taken to Brazil hundreds of years ago
and then practiced a disguised form of martial arts
to protect themselves
that became capoeira.
[ Rhythmic stick beating and feet stomping ]
-It looked like dancing
and they play songs that look like dancing.
But it was actually a form of martial arts
that’s used to defend each other with.
-Capoeira is constant motion,
beginning with a rocking step move called a Ginga
and featuring Chutes or kicks, acrobatic
cartwheels, or Aú, and Esquivas, dodging moves as well.
[ Singing and drum beats ]
Brazil banned capoeira in the late 1800s,
but a master or mestre named Metre Bimba,
brought it back in the 1930s,
preserving a complex and challenging history
that students like Salea Milard
are taking in as a modern day lesson.
-My favorite part of this class is the inclusiveness, right?
There's people of all different levels.
[ Students chant in unison ]
No matter if you're black or white,
no matter what religion you practice, we're all together.
-And that sense of togetherness
has spilled out the doors here at Viva Arts
and onto the streets of Seattle
with students and their families
reaching out to help those in need.
-I get one chip.
-The Viva Arts family has pulled together food...
-Go team! [ In cheering voice ]
-Clothing and other essentials to create care packages
for people living on the street.
-So you guys can fill your pack.
-Hobbs,
whose family housed foster kids
while she was growing up, delivers
the goods to the nonprofit Seattle Homeless Outreach.
-I feel like I have the space and I have the ability
to bring a community together
and have them realize they can be
a part of the solution, or at least to help out.
That's a really big deal for a lot of these people.
-I think it's important because it helps people.
-I hope people don't starve and they know
that people are there for them to help them.
-Okay.
Clap, clap, clap.
-Being there for his students
is what Thyago Da Cruz is all about.
-Can everybody do like this?
-Da Cruz, otherwise known as Mestre Fenix,
is Hobbs’ teacher.
-Be careful.
-He's a native of Brazil who's run
his own capoeira school in Seattle since 2010
by adhering to a saying from the revered Mestre Pastinha,
that “Capoeira is everything the mouth eats.”
-You live capoeira, you eat capoeira,
you sleep capoeira, you dream capoeira,
you, everything you do is capoeira.
-It's an ethic he's proud to see continue
in his student,
Professora Agua-Víva,
and a new generation of students as well.
-The beauty of capoeira is that it brings people together.
It's from the inside, you know, it's from the heart.
If I could tell a parent
to give a present to their kids, put them in capoeira.
[ Rythmic singing and drum beats ]
-At a special cord ceremony, called a Batizado,
celebrating their growing knowledge and achievement,
sttudents are welcomed
and closely bound to a future in capoeira.
It's a future full of learning,
cultural awareness, and community connections...
springing from the power and beauty
of this indescribable form of physical expression.
-I know people have community,
but there's something special about capoeira.
And in my classes every single day, I feel this.
I feel people being very moved just by learning
and sharing and people staying after to talk to each other.
Yes! Beautiful! That's it.
If this ripples out and you ask anyone
anywhere in the world in capoeira
about why they're obsessed and why they come back,
their number one answer is going to be community.
It's beautiful.
It's kind of magical to be able to pass that on
the best way I can.
[ Cheering and applause ]
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