GAME OF FREEDOM Mestre Bimba and the Art of Capoeira

André Santana artfully re-creates Brazil in the 1920s as he introduces capoeira, a blend of martial arts, dance, acrobatics, music, and spirituality. Listeners meet Salvador Bimba, who advocated for capoeira. Santana enthusiastically delivers lyrical descriptions accompanied by spirited background music, with Indigenous and Portuguese words adding atmosphere. Heartbreaking histories recall the lives--and deaths--of enslaved people who brought capoeira from Africa. Most moving is the revelation that Bimba performed for the president of Brazil in 1952. In 2014 UNESCO honored capoeira for promoting social integration and for representing the people's struggles against oppression. Audio is crucial for the outstanding glossary, which includes wonderful demonstrations of pronunciations and accounts of each word's history. S.G.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2024]