SUMMARY: RED BULL PARANAUÊ 2018

OUR CHAMPIONS!!

photo credit: Red Bull

At last, after many months of waiting the finals have arrived for Red Bull Paranauê 2018.

RULES OF THE EVENT

Here are the rules of the event. Competitors will play through a typical tournament structure where two people will face off, one man against one man and one woman against one woman. The winners of each round will advance through the quarter finals, to the semi finals, and then to the finals, where they will compete for the title of “The Most Complete Capoeirista” in the world. No doubt, this title has a ton of controversy behind it, but that’s for another time.

Each pair of Capoeiristas will play two different toques(rhythms) for about one minute each. The toques that can be played are Banguela, representing the style of Regional, Jogo de Dentro, representing the style of Angola, and São Bento Grande de Angola, representing Capoeira Contemporánea. The two toques will be chosen randomly, meaning that one rhythm will not be played. I really like this structure because it means that whoever is playing needs to be prepared to play any style. You can’t simply specialize on a single style and win.

The judges for this event will be Mestre Jogo de Dentro(Angola), Mestre Nenel(Regional), Mestre Paulinho Sabiá/Mestre Suassuna (contemporánea). The judges vote for the capoeirista they believe played best and according to the toque that was played. There is A LOT of subjectivity here, but I’ll say that I agreed with the vast majority of decisions that were made.

WHAT ABOUT UNIFORMS?

Whenever you go to an event, the first thing you see is everyone dressed up in their Abadas, their “uniform”. Red Bull had none of these and I wonder why this was. My guess is that the organizers of the event didn’t want to create a division between groups and instead wanted everyone to come together around the idea of everyone being Capoeiristas and not just students of this or that group. We had dudes in JEANS and all sorts of other things. I think it’s worth doing a blog just on the clothing of Capoeira, because as we know, capoeiristas care about style to one degree or another. A capoeirista’s style comes out in the way their play as well as the way they dress.

RESULTS

Before I spoil who won the event, feel free to go on youtube and watch the recorded live feed of the event. The feed is completely in PORTUGUESE so if you don’t speak portuguese, I hope this article helps you understand a bit about how the tournament was run.

The finalists for Women’s category were Guerreira Lana and Bibinha, both from Salvador Bahia. The games they played were Banguela and São Bento Grande. Unfortunately, all we got was two minute of games, but in the end Bibinha won 2-1. For the men’s category, the two finalists were Guaxini and Gugu. Our male competitors played Banguela and Angola for the finals. The games were really fun to watch. For the women, I would say that Bibinha won pretty convincingly. For the men, the games were a little more difficult to judge and although I agree with the judges decision, it was a tough match to judge. Again, I just wish the games were longer!!! 2 minutes is NOT ENOUGH. I would love if they increased the time played for Banguela and Angola.

THE FUTURE OF RED BULL PARANAUÊ

The of this event I think needs to focus on enabling people from other parts of the world to enter. There are many Capoeiristas all over the world and I would really like if there was a way that allowed people who may not have the ability to go to Brazil for the preliminary rounds. This could also apply to people in Brazil. There are no doubt Capoeiristas in remote areas of Brazil who might to be able to travel to one of the major cities to compete. Despite this, the quality of the competitors was really great. Now it’s time to follow Gugu and Bibinha on Instagram!!!!

LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT RED BULL PARANAUÊ! I’LL INVESTIGATE AND WRITE ABOUT IT IN THIS BLOG. Great tournament, I’m looking forward to 2019!

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