In the video “Les gestes du professeur” (“Vidéo et phénoménologie”, 1972), Flusser talks about Brazilian capoeira as an example of practice that uses the feet for the expression of one's interiority.

Flusser talks about how some parts of the body are not used for gesturing because of the repression of the social and cultural establishment. Flusser even uses the expression “tyranny of the establishment”. And then he mentions capoeira:

[16:36] “[…] I now will draw your attention to less overt forms of tyranny. For instance, our feet. Our feet are of course capable of a great range of gestures. We know that not only theoretically, but I give you an example for it. I come from Brazil. And in Brazil there is a discipline in the town of Recife which is called capoeira. In this discipline, people learn how to use their feet, not only for dancing and fighting by standing on their hands and putting their feet up, but also by expressing through their feet their emotions and their thoughts. Whereas we Occidentals are always prisoners of shoes. Our culture imposes on our feet a sort of concentration camp, namely shoes, which impoverishes our possibility to articulate our interiority through our body.”

Capoeira is a dance-like martial art accompanied by music. It is associated with the northeast region of Brazil. Its elements were brought to the country by the enslaved black people from west and west-central Africa. Brazilian government, however, outlawed the practice until the early 20th century.