A good capoeirista in the roda has to demonstrate his ability to play well. A skilful capoeirista chama atencao (calls attention) while he is playing because of something special that he does, Mestre Russo cuts a striking figure with his smart dress, always wearing pressed trousers, leather shoes and a panama hat. Russo is famous for pushing other players out of the roda with powerful kicks, and he invariably demonstrates his capacity to do so. Often during the game he will corner the other player and put his hand in his pocket and pull it out rapidly, pretending that he has a knife, and then proceed to mock gut or slit the throat of the other player, evoking the violence of the capoeira gangs of old Rio de Janeiro. The moment after he has done this a smile by him will restore the inherent playfulness of the capoeirista. At other times he will distract the other player by removing his hat and then, using the advantage that he has created and will attack with a head butt.
Jonas Rabelo comes from the Baixada Fluminese, an hours bus ride from the centre of Rio, the other side of the airport and of Caxias the region's urban centre. A long way from the cities postcard beaches and coconut water. The Baixada is the hot, humid and infamously violent place of origin of many of Rio's working poor who commute to the city daily. Jonas Rabelo has been one of this mass of working poor for most of his life, commuting to the city to work as a badly paid nightwatchman in downtown office blocks, in order to support his wife and two children.
Apart from this life of daily drudgery, Jonas Rabelo is Mestre Russo, "O Zelador", an internationally renowned maestro and teacher of capoeira. The commander of the roda livre of Caxias, the weekly manifestation of capoeira that takes place in Caxias' centre.
From an early age Russo decidied to dedicate himself to capoeira. "Capoeira gave me a lot of things, I had nine brothers, lost my father at the age of nine and was therefore raised by my mother. We had lots of difficulties and no educational opportunities such as school."
He has been teaching capoeira from the age of 15. Although he spent five years learning capoeira with Mestre Barbosa as pat of a capoeira academy, Russo preffered playing capoeira with his friends in the street. At the time playing capoeira in the street was frowned upon, as it had connotations with vagrancy and petty criminality. Russo left the academy to dedicate himself to street capoeira. Giving the culture of the people back to the people by manifesting it in their midst.
From an anthroplogical perspective it seems that capoeira offers an alternative sphere for the accumulation of capital that offers an amount of liberation from the dominance of the prevalent ideology which privileges economic capital. Russo passes on his cultural capital to local youths in his neighbourhood for free, expecting dedication in return.
GROUP COSMOS
Russo teaches capoeira for free in the yard outside his house in Parque Sao Jose. In 1997 he formed a small, cohesive group of young capoeiristas in a project that he has called
‘Cosmos Capoeira’.
The group has a design which is emblazoned on t-shirts that members of the project wear to show membership to the group. Russo explained the symbolism of the logo to me:
The superior star represents birth, the tail of the comet represents life, thus there is birth, growing up, death and reincarnation. Within the circle is a black part, which represents life’s difficulties, in the middle there is a star, which represents the point in our life, man lives by following his objectives. In reality people are prepared for adversity. Members of thje group have to be prepared to overcome difficulties and confront adversity.
There exists a group motto: “The worst fall of man is to run from his difficulties, when he proceeds in this manner he is defeating himself.”
The symbolism of the logo and the motto of the group are examples of the pedagogy of Mestre Russo. He passes on to his students a philosophy that will benefit them in their lives. Russo’s capoeira teaching gives his students a moral education.
One of his students, twenty year old Africano told me one Sunday after the roda livre: “If it wasn’t for capoeira I don’t know if I’d still be alive today.”
