We Feel The Pain But There Is Also Joy: The Healing Power Of Diasporic Connection

The Legacies of Enslavement programme aims to atone for the Guardians past while highlighting the lasting impact of transatlantic slavery Illustrations by Ngadi Smart Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. In an art form whose origins were carried across the Black Atlantic by enslaved people, but which developed and grew into a we sometimes wish each other ax pronounced ah-shay. In doing so, we would be bestowing on our interlocutor life force, vitality or just positive energy in the capoeira roda circle where capoeira is played or in life. The term is also used in Candombl and Umbanda, syncretic afro-Brazilian religions with African roots. For me it also symbolises the ability to harness ancestral knowledge and energy to enrich the jogo game of capoeira, embodying and paying tribute to those who kept the art form alive.