Folk

Capoeira Conditioning: How to Build Strength, Agility, and Cardiovascular Fitness Using Capoeira Movements

The popularity of capoeira continues to rise as more people discover how useful—and fun—it can be for increasing agility and flexibility, as well as strength and endurance. Capoeira Conditioning is an illustrated guide to whole-body training based on this increasingly popular Brazilian martial art. Designed for all ages and all levels of experience, the book is a step-by-step training manual with photographs that guide users through every movement and sequence. Accompanying text gives special pointers and describes the fitness benefits of each individual technique. Capoeira Conditioning offers no-frills advice about nutrition, regularity of training, capoeira in relation to other sports, and capoeira conditioning for children, along with a simple Q&A section.

The Meaning of Tango: The Story of the Argentinian Dance

From the backstreets of Buenos Aires to Parisian high society, this is the riveting story of the dance that captivated the world—a tale of politics and passion, immigration, and romance. The Meaning of Tango traces the development of the dance, from its birth in poverty-stricken Buenos Aires, through the craze of the early 20th century, right up to its recent revival today thanks to Broadway shows such as Tango Argentino. It also explains the techniques behind the dance and shows why mastering the tango is more like learning a language than a routine. For beginners or experts, dancers or armchair fans, this wonderful book is the perfect partner for enjoying the world's favorite dance.

The Little Capoeira Book

The book starts off by giving an in-depth history of the Brazilian art of Capoeira. The last half of the book deals with the movements and techniques of Capoeira, including: offensive and defensive movements, basic kicks, takedowns, advanced kicks and movements, head butts, hand strikes, and knee and elbow strikes. Each of the techniques and maneuvers are vividly depicted by drawings that are very easy to understand and learn from. There is also an explanation of both Angolan and Regional versions of most of the techniques. This book gives a very good description of the history, game, and philosophy of Capoeira. The book contains diagrams showing various positions and movements and discusses attacking and defending strategies and the critical aspects of feinting. Over 100 photographs and illustrations are included.

Mel Bay Presents - Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1050 Reels and Jigs (Hornpipes, Clogs, Walk-arounds, Essences, Strathspeys, Highland Flings and Contra Dances, with Figures)

This comprehensive book is a facsimile edition of the original collection published in 1883. It has survived over the years because it is one of the richest and most interesting of the 19th century instrumental collections as well as a resource for students of American vernacular music. Examining the cultural exchange between minstrel show, ethnic music and even classical music influenced some of the genres of what we now call American music. "Ryan's Mammoth Collection" contains a significant number of reels, jigs, hornpipes, clogs, walk-arounds, essences, strathspeys, highland flings, and contradances that are still played by both traditional and professional fiddlers. A special section containing historical notes and comments is included.

Pow Wow Dancer's and Craftworker's Handbook

This book is filled with photographs showing pow-wows and dance regalia over the past 100 years, accompanied by written histories and first-hand accounts. Numerous pen and ink drawings illustrate many of the items worn with pow-wow outfits, including information on how they are made. Of interest to dancers, craftworkers, historians and anyone fascinated with the powwow circuit.

Texas Dance Halls: A Two-Step Circuit (Voice in the American West) (Voice in the American West)

Wherever they've found fiddlers and dance floors, Texans have been tickled into motion. And for a century and a half they've been kicking up dust in dance halls across the state. Writing about the eighteen she knows best, Gail Folkins celebrates how these halls still bring people together and foster joy.
Folkins etches portraits of proprietors who give space for music and dancing, of musicians who furnish the soundtrack for dramas and comedies that play out across hardwood or concrete floors, and of people who come to dance, listen, or simply share the experience with friends and neighbors. Paired with Marcus Weekley's photographs, some whirling and some dreamy, they capture beat and motion, even the scent of sawdust on the floor. Drawn in, we witness daytime preparations for evenings to come, and the quiet that returns after the dancers go home and the musicians have packed up for the night.
Moving from Twin Sisters near New Braunfels to legendary Luckenbach, we meet the third generation in a family of makers of music and keepers of dance halls. And then there are the descendants of Czech Catholic settlers coming to dance under the giant letters KJT (Katolika Jednota Texaska). At Coupland Dance Hall, we sense ghostly apparitions of pioneer women in long skirts. Very much in the twenty-first century, we share a dance floor with tourists and university types among the kitschy accoutrements at Austin s Broken Spoke.

8 x 11. 132 duotone photos.

Essential Capoeira: The Guide to Mastering the Art (Martial Arts)

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 exercises, ground movements; and more advanced acrobatic movements are all described and illustrated in step-by-step photographs. The author discusses the self-defense aspects, the importance of music in capoeira, the significance of the bateria, the hierarchy within the tradition, the grading system, and much more. Unlike other martial arts disciplines, capoeira lets practitioners give play to their artistry as well as their physicality, in the process sharpening the mind and spirit while energizing and strengthening the body.

Dancing from Past to Present: Nation, Culture, Identities (Studies in Dance History)

This groundbreaking collection combines ethnographic and historic strategies to reveal how dance plays crucial cultural roles in various regions of the world, including Tonga, Java, Bosnia-Herzegovina, New Mexico, India, Korea, Macedonia, and England. The essays find a balance between past and present and examine how dance and bodily practices are core identity and cultural creators. Reaching beyond the typically Eurocentric view of dance, Dancing from Past to Present opens a world of debate over the role dance plays in forming and expressing cultural identities around the world.

Capoeira: A Brazilian Art Form: History, Philosophy, and Practice

Capoeira weaves fighting, music, dance, prayer, and ritual into an urgent strategy by which people live, struggle, celebrate, and survive together. In this book Bira Almeida--or Mestre Acordeon as he is respectfully called in capoeira circles--documents his own tradition with both the panoramic eye of the historian and the passionate heart of the capoeirista. He transports the reader from the damn of New World history in Brazil to the streets of twentieth-century Bahia (the spiritual home of capoeira) to the giant urban centers of North America (wher capoeira is now spreading in new lineages from the old masters). This book is valuable for anyone interested in ethnocultural traditions, martial arts, and music, as well as for those who want to listen to the words of an actual mestre dedicated to preserving his Afro-Brazilian legacy.

Serpent of the Nile: Women and Dance in the Arab World

"I think it is the most eloquent of female dances, with its haunting lyricism, its fire, its endlessly shifting kaleidoscope of sensual movement."

With these words, Wendy Buonaventura explains her own fascination with Arabic dance. Her book is a unique celebration of the female dancers of the Arab world, and their impact on the West. She explains the origins of this ancient art, which has survived in the face of commercialism, religious disapproval and changing times.

Focusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, she shows how Arabic dance came to be influenced by Western ideas about art and entertainment. But the influence was two-way. In the heyday of "Orientalism," Arabic dance exerted a powerful influence on the Western imagination-on such writers as Flaubert, such artists as David Roberts and Jean-Leon Gerome, and such imitators as Colette and Mata Hari. Their fascination was often based on common fantasies about the women of the Middle East. Yet, as the book's sumptuous illustrations show, this obsession also produced wonderfully evocative images. At the turn of the century, the genre also had an impact on fashion, theater and popular entertainment.