Teaching and learning capoeira in Europe: An intercultural experience

The growing presence of capoeira in Europe reveals a phenomenon of circulation of a Brazilian intangible cultural heritage outside its original space. Since the eighties, Brazilian capoeiristas have left their country in order to pass on this activity and to take advantage of the opportunities of a better life abroad. This migration process has been fostered on one hand through the creation of "international networks of capoeirda that has facilitated the insertion of Brazilian newcomers. On the other hand, however, the insertion of a growing number of European teachers of capoeira on the market has modified the traditional teaching pattern of Brazilian teachers. In this process of globalization of capoeira various objectives, sometimes contradictory, emerged from comparative field studies carried out in Brazil, Denmark, Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany and Syria. If the configuration of the roda de capoeira offers a concrete space of exchange, dialogue and adjustment among individuals of different cultural origins that can be used for the purpose of intercultural education, the space of the roda is also the place of negotiations, tensions and conflicts that depend on the context and channel political, historical or pragmatic challenges.