‘Wow Canguru, that was even better than the last one, you’ve really raised the bar, how are you going to top that?’ This was the comment from one of the happy, exhausted, buzzing capoeiristas as they left Jingafest Inverno 2011 on Sunday.

Thanks to students from Pao de Milho’s group (Angoleiros do Mar Devon), from Claudio’s group in bristol, the massive contingent from Aloprado’s ACER CapoeiraMundo group in London and to my students from Cornwall (who helped to organise and run the festival), plus guest teachers Bom Jesus, Ligado, Vermelho & Ninjinho, this event just got better!

JingaFest Inverno 2011 was the 4th Jingafest in Cornwall. Our 4 guest instructors have been Paulinha (Amazonas London), M Fantasma (East London Capoeira), Laurie (Filhos de Angola London) and now Claudio Campos (Nucleo de Capoeiragem, Bristol).

These guests keep getting better and better, raising the bar  each time, with each one bringing even more energia boa & alegria to our growing festival.

As soon as Claudio started talking to the 30-plus capoeiristas at the first workshop, asking them all about their history and experience before he started the class, I knew that this was going to be an amazing event. His positive energy, openness and massive smiles set the tone for the weekend. You’ll see in the video below at 1min15secs, as Claudio runs out of the roda and the studio, returning with a massive, micheivous, teethy smile and a hug for Ninjinho. This sums up the whole weekend for me. Claudio was happy to be in our roda and we were most thankful that he chose to come to Cornwall and spread his open philosphy to the Jingafesters!

His teaching style was refreshing, giving us all some great ideas to work with, myself included, but it was the attitude with which he delivered the sessions and the way he conducted himself that was so refreshing in our capoeira world, which is filled with so much ego and insecurities.

The next JingaFest will be a camping festival event in June 2012 in an eco-community field in Cornwall -- capoeira, yoga, samba, campfires, food and lots of energia boa! Sign up to your RSS feeds and watch this space for more info about JingaCamp 2012.

Muito obrigado, Canguru

Here’s some more games form the weekend:

UPDATED 16/11/11

Mark yourself ‘free’ for the 4th Jingafest in Penryn, Cornwall - November 18-20, 2011

Special guests: Claudio Campos (Bristol), Pao de Milho (Devon), Aloprado, Ninjinho (London), Bom Jesus, Ligado, Maezinha (Cornwall).

Venue: St Gluvias Hall, off of West St, Penryn (directions below)

Timetable:

Friday night (6-10pm): capoeira music and movement workshop (Canguru)/welcome roda

Saturday (11am-9pm):

11-1pm – capoeira workshop with Claudio Campos

1-2:30pm – lunch break for capoeiristas while we host the showcase finale of our Brincadeira samba project with 50 local primary school children.

2:30-7pm - capoeira workshop & rodas with Claudio Campos

7-9pm – Brazilian meal

9-12pm – there’s no real plan here, but half of the Jingafest party are staying at Jacob’s Ladder, Falmouth, where there is a live ska/reggae band, entry is free!

Sunday 11am-4pm): capoeira workshop & rodas with Claudio Campos

 Prices:

£30 (paid in advance) for whole weekend (4 capoeira workshops, t-shirt, meal and lots of good vibes…), or £35 paid on the day.

If you can’t attend the whole weekend, don’t worry, you can pay for workshops, meal and t-shirt individually or watch the rodas for free, please contact Canguru for details or just trun up.

Directions to St Gluvias hall

Our venue is the same hall which we used for JingaFest in June (Saturday) this year. The hall is set back from the main road (West St) so you won’t see it from car/bus. If traveling by car you’ll need to park in one of the free car parks which are located to the left and right of the clock tower. This google map will take you to West St/Shute Lane. From here walk with the traffic about 50yrds until you see a small gate on your left opposite no. 49 West St, go through the gate and you can’t miss it. There should be signs for ‘Brincadeira’ & ‘Jingafest’. If you find Stuart Stephen Memorial Hall on West St, you’re very close, just go back up the street until you see the small gate on your right.

 It’s not very often you see a capoeira teacher dressed as smart as this.

Jinga Communities director Craig Blackburn attended the CRCC Awards ceremony in Newquay last week as a guest speaker to talk about his experiences as a beneficiary of Convergence Funding and his work with CRCC (Cornwall Rural Community Council).

Following the presentation to over 50 social entrpreneurs, he was awarded with the top prize in the awards cerememony in the category of ’Making the most difference’.

Jinga Communities has received almost £14,000 over the past 18 months as part of the Community Grants and Skills for Work programs.

‘Of course I am overjoyed,’ said Craig. ‘I was invited here to talk about my work and hopefully inspire other similar organisations. I didn’t expect to win an award…and certainly not the top prize!’

The money will go towards training and development of the company and its growing number of volunteers.

Craig is pictured with Peter Jefferson, chief executive of CRCC. For more info on CRCC, click here

The rhythm of the Brazil Carnival comes to Cornwall this week as primary school children take part in the first sessions of a free samba dance and percussion project.

The Brincadeira Project will deliver the samba clubs in 12 primary schools in disadvantaged areas between now and March 2012.

Half of the schools will run a club in the carnival dance Samba Reggae; the other half will make a 15-piece samba band. The dancers and drummers will then join together to create a finale showcase event.

Brincadeira is funded by the National Lottery’s Awards for All program and run by Falmouth-based Jinga Communities, training provider the Brazilian art form capoeira. The company received the £10,000 funding for the project in July 2011.

Director Craig Blackburn said: ‘We’re really happy to be working with Lottery funder once again and even luckier to have the chance to work Sarah Hyams and Robin Tynedale, our teachers for this project. Their knowledge of Brazilian percussion and dance is truly phenomenal.

‘I’m also really happy to deliver a project using samba as it compliments our core offering of capoeira training. Just like capoeira, these art forms are fully-inclusive; they offer so many benefits for the children such as improvements in confidence and communication skills, increased cultural awareness and wellbeing. And it’s loads of fun!’

The children in the project will also make masks, costumes and instruments from recycled materials to show off at the Carnival show. Other children will be able to get involved in the project through a Brazil Carnival Art competition and a volunteer program for 11-16year-olds.

The first half of the project is now under way, delivering samba band clubs at Trannack, Mylor Bridge and St Martin-in-Meneage primary schools and samba dance sessions at Falmouth Primary, St Francis CofE and Penryn Juniors. The sessions started this week (September 19-22^nd)  The showcase event will be on Saturday, November 19.

In January 2012, Project Brincadeira will repeat the whole process in another six schools, with a finale event on March 17, 2012. The primary schools in the next phase of the project will be: King Charles, Boskenwyn, St Keverne, Cury CofE, Halwin and St Mary’s Catholic primary schools.

Proudly sponsored by Awards for All

Jinga Communities has put Cornwall on the map for the delivery of Afro-Brazilian art forms, thanks to a local charity which supports Cornish communities.

Jinga received £1,600 this month (July) thanks to 16 of its stakeholders and support from the Cornwall Rural Community Council (CRCC).

Most of the money will pay for sales training and business consultancy to take it to the next level, allowing the 3-year-old Cornish company deliver more free training in the Afro-Brazilian art forms of capoeira and samba to young people throughout the county.

The rest of the money has been used to ‘put Cornwall on the global map’ following a visit to Sweden, where founding director Craig Blackburn gave a seminar 100 people from 6 countries on how capoeira and samba was being used to improve the lives of young people in Cornwall.

‘Who’d have thought that Cornwall would be a leader in social change through Afro-Brazilian music and dance,’ said Mr Blackburn. ‘It seems that this is a very new area of work globally and there is not much research out there. People are calling me a pioneer, yet I live in one of the least culturally diverse parts of the UK.

‘Since my seminar and the publication of an article and video online I have been inundated with responses from people in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Jamaica, Latvia, Norway and Finland who are searching for help in this same field.

‘Thanks to CRCC and the 16 students, parents and teachers who supported us, this funding has allowed us to take Jinga to the next level and put Cornwall on the global map in this field,’ he said.

CRCC, a local charitable company working for communities and the voluntary sector in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, helped Jinga to access the training grant by supporting 16 learners to achieve an adult qualification in literacy or numeracy, in conjunction with AWC Training.

To see the article and video please click here

Read this story on the CRCC website

Note to Editors

• CRCC is a local charitable company working for communities and the voluntary sector in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.  A long-established local charity providing friendly, personal advice and on-going support to groups and individuals, both from their offices and through face-to-face visits. In this way, assisting communities and volunteers to realise their potential and improve local conditions. CRCC’s mission is to enable Cornish communities to be vibrant, sustainable and inclusive.
• Craig Blackburn was invited to talk about social enterprise and capoeira in Sweden by Eurico Vianna Neto, a Brazilian Phd Social Science student living in Australia, and a capoeira master. Craig’s article and video (made by Eurico as part of his studies) was published on Eurico’s blog.