Mestra Elma

Elma Silva Weba, known as Mestra Elma, was born in Queimada, in the Baixada Maranhense region of Maranhão, and grew up in São Luís as her family began migrating south toward central Brazil. In 1986, aged approximately 19, she was effectively on her own in São Luís when she found community at the Escola de Capoeira Angola do Laborarte, directed by Antônio José da Conceição Ramos (Mestre Patinho). She had prior experience in theatre and dance — a background she describes as forming her political and bodily sensibility — which helped her understand capoeira angola as philosophy rather than mere technique.

Her formation with Mestre Patinho spanned ten years in São Luís; during this period she also absorbed other Maranhão popular-culture traditions — cacuriá, tambor de crioula — and drew from the example of women masters in other practices: Dona Teté (Candomblé de São Luís), Dona Elza (caroço), and Dona Teresinha Jansen (bumba meu boi). In 1994 Patinho formally recognised her as professora, and she began teaching and coordinating rodas at Laborarte in his absence.

In 1995 she was invited to lead capoeira angola workshops for a somatherapy group in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, and decided to relocate to the gaucho capital. In 1996 she founded Grupo de Capoeira Angola Solta a Mandinga — among the first capoeira angola groups led by a woman in Brazil. In 1997, at a group event in Porto Alegre, Mestre Patinho witnessed his student's work and unexpectedly announced her as his first contra-mestra of capoeira angola. In 1999 the group was renamed Grupo nZambi de Capoeira Angola, a Bantu word meaning God. Seven years of work in the gaucho capital followed.

In 2003 Mestra Elma moved to Brasília, also drawn by spiritual commitments to the Terreiro do Vô Congo (Umbanda), in P.Norte–Ceilândia, where her sacred family worked under Mãe Zenit de Oxum. She formalised the nZambi-DF nucleus there (5 April 2003), taught at the Universidade de Brasília through an extension project, and did community outreach at the terreiro for women and children. In 2004 Mestre Patinho formally conferred the title of Mestra de Capoeira Angola upon her.

In 2007 she moved to Florianópolis, settling in the Costa de Dentro community on the island's southern tip. From 2011 she has worked at the Conselho Comunitário da Costa de Dentro (CODEN), transmitting capoeira angola to adults and children without age or gender segregation. She also coordinates the Awá — Escola nZambi de Capoeira Angola in the Campeche district and maintains nZambi nuclei in Porto Alegre and Brasília. In 2014 she received the IPHAN Prize for Safeguarding Intangible Heritage for the project 'Sob o Olhar dos Ancestrais' (Under the Eyes of the Ancestors), developed over 16 years in the Federal District.