Afro Brazil Arts Inc

Afro Brazil Arts aims to inspire leadership, support achievement, and produce positive health benefits through the practice of the art of Capoeira. We aim to continue introducing children to capoeira through our numerous residencies, performances, workshops, and classes held in-house at our academy. Over time, many of the children we reach take up the art form as a consistent discipline when they see how fun it is, and when the parents acknowledge how rewarding it is for them and their child. Capoeira not only enriches and develops the numerous skills we've mentioned within each individual child who participate in the art form; it also serves as an important cultural bridge to Brazil and its populations’ roots in the African diaspora.

Our goal is to nourish the practitioner’s emotional and physical growth through capoeira, with the greater intention of elevating the art itself. Capoeira is ready for wide acceptance and celebration throughout the United States. Capoeira's impact in western nations is young compared to other traditional martial arts, and yet it offers a non-violent, community building approach within a format that stands as unique expression of Brazilian and African diasporic culture.

1. Teaching and exposure - Training high-quality teaching artists to conduct residencies, performances, workshops, and classes at schools around NYC and held in-house at our academy. Capoeira has been sustained by a 500 year old tradition of teacher to student transmission, at first locally in Brazilian communities, and now world-wide. We continue the evolution of that tradition every day through our teaching and training programs, and by exposing more and more people to the art through our thrilling stage performances.
2. Events and Retreats - Afro Brazil Arts has lead countless weekend retreats and weeklong events featuring capoeira, samba, maculele (stick fighting dance) and drumming, and has brought practitioners to Bahia, Brazil three times to meet the artform at its source. We want to improve the quality and the quantity of events to strengthen the capoeira community and build bridges to Brazil.
3. Educational Material – Afro Brazil Arts is constantly refining its curriculum to be more rich, effective and accessible. As a supplement to teaching capoeira directly, we are creating children's books to help youngsters gain familiarity with the movements, clothing, instruments, symbols, people, places and stories associated with the capoeira game.
4. Capoeira Animated Motion Picture – Capoeira was formally introduced to the United States in the 1970’s and has been gaining rapid recognition since. During this period, the art form has made a modest impact on American culture through popular media such as film and television, but most depictions of the art offer a watered down version of its power and complexity, exposing a general level of misunderstanding and lack of appreciation for the art form in the American consciousness. In stark contrast, Capoeira’s real oral tradition is bursting with fascinating narratives and rich characters – tales abound of mythical slaves-turned-heroes who can fly or turn into animals, villains who suppress the capoeiristas, powerful Orixas (spirits) who guide and strengthen the capoeiristas on their spiritual quests. Drawing upon this rich cultural wellspring, Afro Brazil Arts is aiming to produce a computer animated trailer about a young Brazilian boy who sets out on a path towards mastery of capoeira from a mysterious old teacher. We hope the trailer will catalyze a creative collaboration between Afro Brazil Arts and a major production studio to create a full length computer animated film that will be seen by children across the country and the globe.

Leadership - Our greatest asset is our team of teachers, trained under the instruction of Michael Goldstein (Mestre Ombrinho). Mr. Goldstein has dedicated over 25 years to enriching the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds through classes and performances in capoeira. He is a master teacher, the founder and executive director of Afro Brazil Arts, and the first non-Brazilian to become a master of capoeira. Mr. goldstein is widely known for his mastery of capoeira among Brazilian capoeira masters and practitioners, as well as his ability to make capoeira accessible to people who are experiencing it for the first time.

Afro Brazil Arts currently has an 8 member board of directors that meets 4 times per year and a staff of 1 full-time and 4 part-time salaried employees, as well as 15 teaching artists, support staff and volunteers. With its current level of organization, it has been facilitating Capoeira Leadership Programs to schools throughout the New York Metropolitan area.

The 8 Board members are variously committed to providing services for the proposed program. Mr. Michael Goldstein, Board Chairman, will serve as Program Director and Head Instructor. Other board members will oversee the budgeting and allocation of funds and will aid in reporting of program statistics and in the preparation of a student database.

Studio Space -
The New York Capoeira Center is nestled in the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, a hub of performance spaces, artists' studios, theaters and educational spaces located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Our space offers a welcoming environment with a Brazilian ambience, including shelf space for musical and training equipment, hardwood floors ideal for training, an office space and a shower.

We have exposed thousands of youth to capoeira and trained remarkable teaching artists who travel the world teaching and performing the art and established ourselves as the premiere capoeira training center in New York City.

We would like to see greater participation with our event retreats and increase the frequency with which we hold in-studio workshops. Most of our workshops are held out of house, and we think it's more impactful to introduce children to the ambience of our studio for a more vibrant cultural experience. Long term goals also include obtaining rural land as a permanent retreat space for capoeira practitioners.