[Mus-undergrad-info] Bayz Music Series, Tomorrow @Noon, 5/6: "A Beautiful Fight: Researching Capoeira, Playing with Money" (Esther Viola Kurtz)

[Amy Skjerseth]

*2025–2026 Florence Bayz Music Series*
*A Beautiful Fight: Researching Capoeira, Playing with Money*
Esther Viola Kurtz
May 6, 12–12:50pm, ARTS 157

[image: image.png]

Dr. Kurtz writes: "In this talk I provide an overview of my book, *A
Beautiful Fight: The Racial Politics of **Capoeira in Backland Bahia*. I
trace its arguments that capoeira group members cohere community by using
sound and movement to produce axé (life force energy) but that despite this
resonant alignment, group members still diverge in their
understandings of capoeira’s
antiracist politics and spirituality. I then focus on capoeira’s “money
game” as it is played by Mestre Cláudio and his group, the Angoleiros do
Sertão. I argue that their way of playing with money provides insight into
capoeira group economics, revealing how capoeira mestres work both against
and within enduring racialized political-economic systems in ways that are
deeply relational in nature. This case study also models how I merge
methods of critical ethnography, Africana studies, and the holistic study
of music and movement."



*BIO*
Esther Viola Kurtz is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology in the
Department of Music and a Faculty Affiliate with the Department of African
and African-American Studies and the Performing Arts Department at
Washington University in St. Louis. Her research explores African diasporic
music-dance practices as sites where practitioners contest injustice and
transform their worlds. Her book, A Beautiful Fight: The Racial Politics of
Capoeira in Backland Bahia (University of Michigan Press, 2025) is an
ethnographic
study of Black and white practitioners’ interpretations of capoeira’s
spirituality
and political antiracist potentials. Her new project explores how St. Louis
jazz musicians resist racial capitalism and define alternative value
systems.

Spread the word to your students and friends; Bayz series events are free
and open to the public. For more information about this event and the event
series, please visit
https://events.ucr.edu/event/Esther-Viola-Kurtz?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=UC+Riverside
.

See you tomorrow!
Amy (Bayz series coordinator)
*Dr. Amy Skjerseth* (*she/her*)
Assistant Professor of Popular Music
University of California, Riverside

Book out September 2026: *Preprogrammed: How Electronic Presets Changed
Music and Media <https://www.ucpress.edu/books/preprogrammed/paper>*

PI, "Defying Defaults in Technology and Culture
<https://uchri.org/awards/defying-defaults-in-technology-and-culture/>,"
UCHRI Multicampus Research Working Group

*I sometimes send emails outside of traditional working hours, but I do not
expect a response outside of your own.*
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