Mestre Poloca

Paulo Barreto, known as Mestre Poloca, is a geographer and art-educator who has spent over four decades in Capoeira Angola and in education work with children in Salvador, Bahia.

In 1983 Poloca began training with the Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho (GCAP) in Salvador under Mestre Moraes, also training with Mestre João Grande and Mestre Cobra Mansa. He rose to the rank of contramestre during his time there and co-led the "Ginga Moleque" children's project (sponsored by União e Consciência Negra) with fellow GCAP member Mestre Valmir.

In 1995, while living in São Paulo, Poloca co-founded Grupo Nzinga de Capoeira Angola together with Mestra Janja (Rosângela Costa Araújo) and Mestra Paulinha (Paula Barreto) — all three coming out of roughly a decade or more inside GCAP Salvador. The group, later formalized as the Instituto Nzinga de Estudos da Capoeira Angola e Tradições Educativas Banto no Brasil (INCAB, 2001), has an explicitly anti-racist, anti-sexist mission. Some sources (the Wikipedia biography of Tião Carvalho) also place him among the founders; the group's own institutional histories most consistently name only Janja, Paulinha and Poloca, so Tião Carvalho's status is treated here as a disputed/collaborator claim rather than a confirmed co-founder credit.

Between 2001 and 2002 Poloca and Paulinha returned to Salvador and reopened a nucleus, initially in the Stiep neighborhood. When Janja also returned to Salvador in 2005, the Bahian headquarters moved to Alto da Sereia, a quilombola community of roughly 200 families in Rio Vermelho, where it remained until 2024; per Instituto Nzinga's own current website, the Salvador nucleus has since relocated again, to the Canjira community near Vasco da Gama. Poloca and Paulinha jointly lead this Salvador nucleus, which holds training on Mondays and Wednesdays and a public roda on Fridays; Treinel Jon Lewis is named as one of its longest-standing students. In May 2013 the three founders recognized Mestre Piter as the first mestre formed entirely within Nzinga's own methodology.

Poloca works as staff at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and is known for his work with children, including five years of activities rescuing African legends and folktales in Salvador's public schools. He has taught workshops in Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo) in 2014, 2016 and 2018, and in September 2004 interviewed Mestre João Grande at Ponta de Areia, Itaparica, for Campo de Mandinga. In 2020, on Nzinga's 25th anniversary, the group operated in five Brazilian cities and twelve cities abroad; it marked its 30th anniversary in 2025.