Samba no mar: Bodies, movement and idiom in capoeira

In this chapter Neil Stephens and Sara Delamont examine bodies in capoeira, a Brazilian dance and martial art. Drawing from Arthur Frank’s typology, Stephens and Delamont magnify how, in capoeira, bodies are fashioned of discipline and control. Yet this discipline and control is a dramaturgical effect of a scene that comes off; teachers and students necessarily express and impress themselves upon others by means of sign vehicles, some of which are specifi c to capoeira but most are broadly conventionalized and refl ective of the ways in which we all dance and kick our way through everyday life.