A group of individuals who appeared to be break-dancing drew a small crowd outside of the USS Kidd downtown on Sunday afternoon.But the group was actually participating in a roda, where participants practice the Afro-Brazilian cultural dance martial art of capoeira.The group was composed of members of Capoeira Angola Palmares Baton Rouge and the Capoeria Club at LSU, and they performed moves of the martial art that originated in Brazil.”It was created in slavery, and it is an expression of freedom,” said Donovon Miller, who leads the Capoeira Angola Palmares Baton Rouge. “You learn to move your body, and you learn to think if your mind is open. And you have total control of yourself physically. Then mentally you are truly free.”Capoeira resembles a dance because the slaves wanted to practice the martial art without their masters knowing.The clubs hold roda often, but Sunday’s was special because it featured the participation of the Contra Mestre Pererê. The Contra Mestre, or counter or assistant master — whose real name is Eric Johnson — said Miller invited him to work to with the groups.Johnson currently lives in Oregon and has practiced capoeira since the late 1980s.”He invited me to come here and do a musical instrument work shop and to lead a weak of a workshops in movements, music, art and culture of capoeira,” Johnson said.The roda is performed with music played by drums and the berimbau, a one-stringed percussion instrument Johnson helped the groups build.”It is done with music,” Miller said. “The rhythm and the pacing is led by the berimbaus. It tells you the type of game to play either to play low to the ground, to play high or whether to play slow or fast.”Brooke Cassidy, graduate student in ceramics, said the club at LSU was hoping to expose more people to capoeira.  “I started taking the class last semester at the Rec Center, and I just really loved it,” Cassidy said.