#break
Museum item: Đorđe Jovanović, Abandoned, 1907.
Digital item: Kashishi, instrument for Capoeira
Donor of digital item: Ivana Milojević
Note from Donor:
My boyfriend was a Capoeira instructor at a club in London. I say “was” although he may still be – I wouldn’t know as he is now part of my past. He had a beautiful slim, elastic body that could bend in all directions and was capable of anything imaginable. I went with him to a competition and watched him dance in a white costume. Among the instruments that gave rise to the rhythm they fought to, was this Kashishi – a woven rattle encasing the seeds of some plant.
He told me that Capoeira is a ritual, a dance, and a martial art that was used by Brazilian slaves. He also told me that it is a kind of symbol for freedom or something like that. I liked it as a dance, but as a martial art, it always seemed to me like a joke, being without punches, like someone was kidding around with me. They fight in a way to ensure they never hit. When he left me that morning in Belgrade when he said he wanted to be free, I realized that it was not a joke at all. That blow hurt a lot. More than I thought it would. I still shake this rattle sometimes, remembering how cool it all looked, yet how much it was not. I hope that at least he found his freedom – as I’m still looking for mine.