Anne Pollack (Mestra Luar do Sertão) is now a 3rd level master, the highest level master in the state of Arizona. She began training capoeira in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986 with the founder of Capoeira Mandinga, Mestre Marcelo Caveirinha. She trained with Mestre Marcelo until 1996 while completing her PhD in Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Mestra Luar has traveled all over Brazil, Europe and the US to train both Capoeira Regional and Angola, spending the most time in Salvador and in São Jose dos Campos where her capoeira padrinho Mestre Lobão (Capoeira Besouro Mangangá) is based. Mestra Luar received her capoeira nickname, Luar do Sertão (moonlight over the desert outback), from Mestre Suassuna many years before moving to the desert Southwest. She loves the beauty, sunsets, lightning storms and desert creatures (even the scary ones) of her Sonoran Desert home. Since moving to Tucson, Arizona in 1996 she founded Capoeira Mandinga Tucson. She has over 25 years of experience teaching ages three through adult capoeira and Brazilian arts at her group’s Capoeira Mandinga Tucson Academy, the University of Arizona, Tucson, Nogales, surrounding Pima and Santa Cruz county colleges, K-12 schools, libraries, senior centers, businesses, events and festivals. She also created GingaFitTM, a fitness program designed to make capoeira and Brazilian dance movements accessible to fitness enthusiasts of all levels, and Luar’s Bodyweight Fitness, a program to improve functional fitness by increasing full body strength, flexibility, and balance. Anne has taught capoeira around the US. She is also the director of the nonprofit Capoeira Institute Southwest which focuses efforts to bring capoeira to underserved populations in the Southwest. She has a heart-felt love of capoeira and dedication to broadening multicultural experiences for all ages. She understands the difficulty of balancing time between family, academics, work and passion for capoeira. She aims to inspire students to find their core strength by building skills to understand and express their individuality, communicate and have fun in both the capoeira game and in every day of life.
Monitor Pinga Fogo (Aidan Miller-Wells) started training capoeira with Capoeira Mandinga Tucson as a child. He has now trained over 16 years. He currently teaches capoeira at the Capoeira Mandinga Tucson Academy, at Ventana Vista Elementary School, and Desert Sage High School in Tucson, AZ. He has performed, locally and internationally, showing off his abilities with different styles of capoeira including capoeira Regional, Angola, and Maneira, and Afro-Brazilian dances such as Maculelê and Dança dos Malandros. In 2023, he performed at and participated in an international capoeira Formatura event in Milan, Italy. He also performs and teaches workshops for many local schools, arts and cultural events, and festivals including Tucson Festival of Books and Tucson Meet Yourself.
Monitor Cabeça Forte (Zac Carducci) started capoeira at a Capoeira Mandinga Tucson Summer CAMP as a child. Since then, he has never stopped training capoeira, and now has over 15 years of training under his capoeira cordão. He currently teaches capoeira at the Capoeira Mandinga Tucson Academy, focusing on tykes (ages 4-6) and kids (ages 6-12) capoeira. He also assists teaching workshops and performing for local nonprofits, refugee organizations, libraries, and schools. He performs and teaches workshops for many local schools, arts and cultural events, and festivals including Tucson Festival of Books and Tucson Meet Yourself. And most recently he performed Maculelê machetes at a Capoeira Mandinga Tucson Batizado, Capoeira Maneira sequences at an international capoeira event in Milan, Italy. In addition to capoeira, Zac works as a Flandrau Planetarium operator, he has completed his Bachelor’s degrees in physics and education, and is currently studying to receive his Master’s degree in Education at the University of Arizona.