Latineos - Latin America, Caribbean, arts, culture

Capoeira, an art form practiced in Brazil, is a form of martial arts that incorporates dance and music.  Characterised by rapid, complex movements, Capoeira originated when the Africans who had been brought to Brazil as slaves combined elements of both cultures to form an original fighting style.  

For 22 years, the Colombian capital city has hosted the Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogota, a celebration of the dramatic arts. The festival takes place every two years and, until her death in 2008, was produced and directed by Fanny Mikey, an Argentine actress of international renown who first created the festival in 1988.

Latin American Cumbia music has its roots in folklore, as is the case with many idiosyncratic musical styles across the world.  The Caribbean islands are particularly noted for their fusion of modern rhythms with old tales and traditional instruments, and musicologists can trace patterns of historical development in entire cultures from the ways in which their musical traditions have evolved to create a palimpsest of influences down the centuries. 

The annual International Poetry Festival in Medellin, Colombia, is the largest of its kind anywhere in the world.  It has an interesting origin, in that it was born out of the misery and frustration of the early 1990s, when the country was drenched in violence and corruption from the drugs wars, and Medellin was the world’s most violent city and the centre of the global drugs trafficking business.