Crimson & Gold & Lime

Crimson is the ginga — the deep vivid warm-red of the ginga (the fundamental movement of Capoeira — the constant shifting, swaying, stepping pattern that constitutes the 'ground state' of the Capoeira practitioner's body in play). In the Capoeira Angola tradition, the deep crimson-to-red is associated with the most passionately engaged and most technically accomplished practitioners — the 'fire' of the axé (spiritual energy) that animates the most powerful ginga. Mestre Pastinha (Vicente Ferreira Pastinha, 1889-1981), the most celebrated Capoeira Angola master, wore a simple deep red canga as his teaching uniform — the specific deep vivid red of his canga became the primary color identity of the CECA school. Gold is the berimbau string — the vivid warm gold of the steel wire (arame) of the berimbau (the single-string musical bow that is the central musical instrument of the Capoeira jogo, governing the rhythm, speed, and style of play). The berimbau's steel wire, polished by the constant abana (vibrating) movement of the dobrão (coin or stone placed against the wire), achieves a vivid gold-to-silver metallic sheen in use — the specific warm gold of a well-played berimbau wire is one of the most immediately recognizable visual elements of the Capoeira musical tradition. Lime is the CECA — the electric vivid lime-green of the interior walls and decorative scheme of the Centro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola (CECA), the original academy of Mestre Pastinha on the Largo do Pelourinho (Pelourinho Square) in Salvador, Bahia. The Pelourinho CECA location (operational from 1941 until Pastinha's eviction in 1971, when the city government — which had promised to restore the academy — instead evicted Pastinha at age 82, an event that contributed to his decline into poverty and blindness) used an electric lime-green paint scheme that became one of the most photographed and most culturally significant interior environments in Afro-Brazilian cultural heritage.