Mestre Valter Pepe

Walter Hugo Pepe, known as Mestre Valter Pepe, was among the first students of Mestre Leopoldina in Rio de Janeiro. He was the brother of Mestre Celso Pepe, and together with their childhood friend Luiz Garcia Filho (nicknamed Pelé), these three boys formed the nucleus of Leopoldina's earliest students.

The Pepe brothers grew up in a housing estate called IAPC (Instituto de Aposentadoria e Pensões dos Comerciários) in the Olaria district of Rio de Janeiro. Their father, Hugo Pepe, had served as a soldier in the Brazilian Armed Forces during World War II, participating in the Battle of Monte Castelo in Italy.

In 1957, Celso Pepe discovered capoeira by observing classes taught by Djalma Bandeira at the IAPC Community Centre. When young Celso asked to participate, Djalma refused, saying he was too young. Undeterred, Celso joined forces with his brother Walter Hugo and their friend Pelé. The three boys practiced capoeira movements on their own behind a building at the IAPC for several months, trying to imitate all the movements they saw in Djalma's classes.

At the same time, the brothers enrolled at the Academia Guanabara, where they practiced judo, jiu-jitsu, and freestyle fighting. One day, a thin black man arrived at the academy, and the teacher Vinagre announced: "This guy is a capoeirista". It was Leopoldina, then only 23 years old and recently trained by Artur Emídio. Celso insisted so persistently that he wanted capoeira classes that Leopoldina eventually agreed to give the boys training on a Sunday, under an almond tree in the pátio of the Guanabara Academy. According to Celso, those three boys - Hugo, Pelé, and himself - were the first students of Leopoldina.

A 1962 photograph documents Mestres Celso and Valter Pepe at the Almir Ribeiro Academy in Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro. In this image, Valter Pepe is shown performing a "Queda de Rins" (a fundamental capoeira movement where the practitioner balances on the arms with knees resting on elbows), while Celso is visible as the second berimbau player, with the instrument supported vertically on the ground.

The relationship between the Pepe brothers and their teacher Leopoldina endured for decades. In the early 2000s, Leopoldina received Valter and Celso Pepe at his home in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, demonstrating the lasting bonds forged through capoeira.

Valter Pepe achieved the title of mestre, carrying forward the lineage of Leopoldina that traces back through Quinzinho, Campanhão, and Prata Preta to the nineteenth-century street capoeira of Rio de Janeiro.