Vem Camarada XIII: Arts, Ancestry, and Adaptation

Vem Camarada XIII will transform the Forum into a vibrant meeting place for movement, music, and memory. This three-day international Capoeira encounter marks the 50th anniversary of Capoeira’s arrival in the United States.

The gathering grew out of a collaboration between the Columbia Climate School and the nonprofit VaeVae in southwest Madagascar. This partnership combines archaeology, paleoecology, and community knowledge to illuminate resilience, adaptation, and the entwined histories of people and environments. Vem Camarada XIII brings this work into the realm of arts integration, exploring how social memory and ecological knowledge are shaped and transmitted by embodied practices of music, movement, and storytelling.

Through lectures, panels, movement and music workshops, and oral history sessions, participants will experience Afro-Brazilian arts in dialogue with community-centered science. By placing Capoeira alongside the ancestral practices of the Vezo people of Madagascar, the event will reveal parallel histories of endurance, adaptation, and ecological stewardship across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

At a time when climate change and social upheaval threaten both ecosystems and cultural heritage, Vem Camarada XIII will serve as a living archive, celebrating embodied knowledge, intergenerational exchange, and the power of art to bridge disciplines, geographies, and histories.

Free and open to the public; registration required. Please email [email protected] with any questions.

Hosted by the Center for Science and Society at Columbia University. Co-sponsored by the Columbia Climate School.

Info: Exact schedule to come.

Info: Exact schedule to come.

Info: Exact schedule to come.

Host or Publisher The Center for Science and Society