Читать книгу It’s capoeira between us. Conversations with capoeiristas. Part 1 - Natalia Korelina - Страница 10

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A Filipina with an American accent who grew up in Asia, spent her youth in the UK, and who fell in love with and absorbed Brazilian culture so much that she became a source of it for her students in Hong Kong, the uncatchable Zoinho.

When I came to Hong Kong for the first time, she was celebrating her birthday in the Philippines. When I came for the second time, she was somewhere in the United States for a capoeira seminar with almost the entire capo-crowd from Hong Kong. However, my patience paid off and I met her. This was my last day in Hong Kong. She landed at 6 in the morning and went to work, and then gave a capoeira class in the evening. This’s impressive!

Zoinho suggested that I stay with her in the first 10 minutes of our WhatsApp conversation (oh capoeira, thank you for that!). I did so. I came to her in the evening before the class with my three suitcases. I tried to come by foot but gave up 5 minutes later when I realized I had to climb 300 meters of a very steep hill, got sweaty and out of breath…. I caught a taxi hoping I would have enough cash to pay for it. When I arrived, I met Zoinho and her friend, also a capoeirista, Emily, but from a different group. Later, I learned that Emily was supposed to move to London, but decided to stay to support Zoinho during a seminar that took place a week after my departure.

I left my bags at home, attended the class, met her students, and then her student gave us a ride back home.

In one evening with Zoinho, I heard and learned so much about her life, about her history in capoeira, that I couldn’t remember everything. This meeting was special. Firstly, Zoinho was the first female capoeira coach that I had talked to during my travels, who after the move to another country continued to practice capoeira and opened her own group.

Secondly, and even more importantly, she knew my master, Papa-Leguas, much longer than I did and could tell a lot about his years in England. And she did. My first message to the master was: «I met Zoinho, she is amazing. Thank you, mestre, for giving us so many topics for conversation.»

In short, we were on the same wave with her and could hardly lay ourselves to sleep, because chatting with her was much more interesting.

I flew away the next morning, having arranged an interview with her on Skype.

I was in Hong Kong in October 2019, and the interview with Zoinho took place in April 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, when everyone was at home and Zoinho was no exception.

Conversation with Instutora Zoinho

Curiosa: Tell me more about your background: where are you from? What did you do before you started capoeira?

Zoinho: I am from the Philippines; I was born in the USA but my family moved back to Manila where I lived until I finished high school. I did a lot of sports when I was younger but nothing like capoeira. I did concur jumping and represented Philippines in competitions. I was on a football team and did a lot of sports at school because I wanted to travel with a special program for athletes.

Then I went to a university in the UK where I hardly did any sports, I was going out a lot and was literally just a club kid for a few years. I went to the gym once so often.

I was in the music industry; once I finished university, I moved back to Philippines, worked in media and was partying professionally almost every single night. That lifestyle wasn’t so great and I was burned out. Then I moved back to the UK to do my master’s degree in Public Relations and to start my life all over again. I moved to Manchester only because my boyfriend at that time was there – «Complete mistake» – I was in the bottom of the barrel; nothing was going well. I knew nobody there, but it was the time when I remembered one girl from a Brazilian Musical Band who kept telling me about capoeira. I kept saying that I would try but never did.