International Capoeira Angola Foundation

Amazing! Sent our kids here for Quilombo summer camp for the past three years and they would come home alive and inspired. Beto and Huu are everything and all positive

The Quilombo Cultural Center is a unique gem in Chicago. It is home to the city’s only capoeira angola group and hosts events with renowned masters of the art on a regular basis, in addition to weekly classes for adults and children of various age groups. This is a great place to check out if you are curious about capoeira or Afro-​Brazilian culture in general. The people are friendly and it is managed by a couple that is extremely dedicated and knowledgeable about capoeira angola and other Brazilian art forms. I’ve learned a lot through classes here and have come to believe that capoeira angola can truly empower and benefit anybody with an open mind, regardless of their background or physical abilities!

This place is amazing! I can’t possible say enough great things about it. My daughter started taking capoeira lessons here a few months back and just loves it. Beto (instructer) is awesome and great with kids as well as adults. Everyone is always welcome no matter your skill or fitness level. Truely a chicago gem! Definitely check it out.

My son and I truly love this place and the instructors!!! the music, the exercises, the games, the special attention given to each child is unique and wonderful. The first week that I started taking my son there he was able to perform bananeras at home. I would definitely recommend this class for children of all ages, it is well worth it!

I can’t say enough good things about Quilombo Cultural Center. The love for what they do shines through everything. My four year old son loves to go to class and has learned so much in a short amount of time. The kindness and discipline that they approach teaching with has captured his attention. Both Huu and Beto are great at meeting every child right where they are at and bringing out the best in them. I would highly recommend Quilombo for capoeira classes!

I’m a big fan of Quilombo Cultural Center. Friendly people there who ALWAYS have great programming. This is the place for traditional capoeira angola in chicago — period

We took our four year old to the first class of the new session last weekend, and this may be the best find I’ve made in Chicago since my teens.
Dance, music and martial arts combined, taught by two extremely talented, outgoing and friendly folks. I think we’ve a perfect match for our daughter, and I can see my wife and I getting involved ourselves as well.

I’ve been training with this group a long time for exactly the reasons mentioned so far– a great community, comprehensive training in capoeira movement, music & history, an awesome facility & a constantly evolving program that is always trying new ways to make being a student there better. I get great fulfillment out of walking into a studio that is professional, takes its training seriously but still has fun and is open to change & growth.

The charm of this old warehouse building on Kimball Avenue may lie only in its silent and dilapidated reflection of a bygone industrial age. But inside the doors of the Quilombo center, the vast room’s spirit is firmly alive in the present– the recently polished hardwood floor shines in the scant winter light; plants and wall-​mounted berimbaus decorate the walls; a wall-​length window reveals an abandoned and graffiti-​stained freight train forgotten on the Bloomingdale Rail.
I can’t speak personally to the quality of most of the Brazilian-​themed classes offered here– capoeira, brazilian jiu-​jitsu, belly-​dancing, hapkido. But even after a midwinter blizzard day when it’s hard just to get down the street, Felipe Fraga’s energy propagates across a group of mostly beginners until a surprisingly lively batucada takes form– each student of his beginner’s Brazilian percussion class locking in their individual roles on the surdo, agogo, tamborim, and chocalho.
«I want to play faster,» he pines, even as we witness a reawakening in a country largely lacking the rhythmic roots of its tropical neighbors to the south. The beginner’s class makes way for the advanced class, a saxophone arrives, and Felipe’s wish comes true.