Ag'ya Danmye Ladja Compilation

http://www.capoeirascience.com to download and keep this clip for free.

This video shows an art form today known as the Ladja or Danmye (previously entitled the Ag'Ya) of Martinique. Two combatants engage each other in a game of trickery, skill and acrobatic agility. At the head of the circle musicians control the tempo of the contest singing, playing drums and other instrument of African origin. Could this far-away Caribbean lookalike be a long-lost capoeira cousin? Does this offer us clues as to Capoeira's African origins? The similarity is nothing but striking!

The video footage in this clip has been compiled from the Katherine Dunham Collection at the Library of Congress. Katherine Dunham, who passed away in May 2006, was a dancer, choreographer and researcher - a founding mother of African dance in American popular culture. She came across the Ag'Ya during a fieldwork expedition to the Caribbean and it inspired her to create an Ag'Ya dance performance back in the USA to popular acclaim. Click here to see an interview with Katherine Dunham speaking about the Ag'Ya.

As in all cultural manifestations of African descent music, song, dance and spirituality form a unified whole. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of video recording in 1936. Therefore I super-imposed, albeit artificially, authentic Ladja (Danyme) music taken from Alan Lomax's 1962 Caribbean Voyages onto Dunham's footage. Alan Lomax was a pre-eminent and much loved American ethnomusicologist who traveled the world from the mills of the Scottish Isles to the Far East in his quest to record the sounds of life.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• ag'ya
• danmye
• ladja

[ProfessorLeiteiro]

Para mim passou por lá um professor de Artes Marcias, eles aprenderam um pouquinho, misturaram com muita cana, (cachaça) e deu nisso!

A Ladja também é das Guianas além das Antilhas.

[capoeirascience]

vc e um professor!!? professor de que?

[Illyriyah]

it's "damyé" from Martinique in the west indes. Yes it's all filmes in martinique I can see it on the drumers " tambouyé" et the fighters "combatant damyé" or "damyétè". And we still practice but without shoes and that unik style they have.

[ProfessorLeiteiro]

@israel1681 Valeu Israel, é preciso saber respeitar a opinião alheia mesmo que seja contra, pois se o autor e o postador do video não colocaram a estória/história cabe a nós tentar desvenda-la!

ProfessorLeiteiro

[israel1681]

nesta epoca muitos capoeirista , tinha sido deportado.

e preso, entre outras coisasa que n cabe no momento..

creio que, como hoje muitos capoeiristas vão para diversos pais e ensinam deacordo com seu livre arbitrio.

existe grande possibilidade de ter passado um capoeirista por la e

de alguma forma ou alguem ter visto ele fazendo ou ele ter ensinado.

como não ouve continuidade deu no queacabamos de ver.

iisrael.

[colinwired]

@karateinfo1

@KarateInfo: Thanks for your last statement. There are indeed dances in Nigeria that look very similar to capoeira. i've seen them in person. More interestingly, the singing and music rhythm is very Nigerian sounding, typically Bini and Yoruba (Ijexa). no doubt about that. amazing that the culture has been preserved, albeit in unhappy circumstances: i.e. no one wants to be a slave...

[latenitefla]

I love the African movement vocabulary!

[adeart7]

this all seems to be filmed in martinique. i don't see any jamaican culture at all.