EducArte offers performances and workshops in Brazilian music, dance, and capoeira, and Irish dance. If you are interested in working with any of the highly qualified artists on our roster for a school assembly, community event, gala, or other special event, please contact us.
EducArte's artist roster
Amina Malik
Amina is a seasoned Brazilian samba performer and teacher with over five years of experience performing at hundreds of weddings, corporate events, Carnival events, parades, celebrations, cultural events, and centers. She is engaging and energetic both as a performer and instructor and has created and taught choreographies for all levels of samba learners. In 2025, Amina paraded at the Sapucai in Rio de Janeiro with Académicos do Niteroi (winners of the Grupo Aceso) and Em Cima Da Hora Samba schools. This year will be her second year parading with Bloco Ginga Brasil in San Francisco’s Annual Carnival in May. Constantly in pursuit of growth in samba dance and culture, she continues her studies with samba masters such as Alex Coutinho, Kellyn Rosa, Brasarte, and others.
Photo credit: Heather O'Steen Photography.
André Coelho
André Coelho is a pandeiro player and percussionist from Rio de Janeiro. He played in samba schools, blocos, samba and choro circles where he delved into his studies of the pandeiro, one of the most popular instruments in instrumental Brazilian music. He has played with greatest musicians in the Rio music scene and has accompanied singers at various performances as a freelancer in various projects. He has furthered his knowledge of percussion, and today, besides pandeiro, he also plays surdo, tantan, repique de anel, atabaque, repinique, caixa, tamborim, and various other instruments. He is a researcher in environmental studies and sustainability. In this context, he develops projects that bring together science, culture, and art, contributing to the promotion of environmental awareness and education using percussion instruments created with recyclable materials. He moved to the United States, where he currently lives with his family. In the short time he has lived in the Washington, DC region, he has already played with various musicians. He also records in his home studio and offers workshops and classes in partnership with the non-profit EducArte.
Brian Falkowski
Brian Falkowski performs with a wide variety of groups at many top venues throughout the DC metropolitan area. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Music where he studied saxophone, flute, and clarinet with Chris Vadala and Dale Underwood. Since then he has traveled the world playing all styles of music on cruise ships, and has won top prizes at the Takoma Park Jazz Festival, DC Blues Festival, Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and Mu Phi Epsilon Soloist Competition, and recently was named winner of the 2020 Emergent Seed competition in the Instrumental Category. Equally at home in the studio as on stage, Brian's playing can be heard on 33 albums by various artists, including his 2011 debut album Transitions, the Zeitgeist Media progressive music documentary Romantic Warriors, and Tosin Aribisala's 2018 album Africa Rising, which received a Grammy nomination for "Best World Music Recording." In addition to performing/recording and teaching privately, he currently leads his own group "Kaleidoscope," which features his original compositions, dynamic improvisation, multi-textured electronic experimentation, and mixed-media visual art.
Carlinhos Rangel
Carlos Rangel, originally from BrasÃlia, Brazil, is a professional musician, music instructor, and producer. He studied at Escola de Música de BrasÃlia, Universidade de BrasÃlia, and Clube do Choro Rio. Carlos holds a degree in children’s music education from the Escola de Música de BrasÃlia. As a versatile musician, Carlos works as a music producer, musical director, and teacher. He has taught music at Montgomery College in Bethesda and is an in-demand professional musician and musical director working on the East Coast. Carlos brings his extensive knowledge of Brazilian music to the Brazilian Arts Academy, guiding students through the rich landscape of Brazilian rhythms and instruments.
Christopher Payne
Multi-faceted drummer and percussionist Christopher Payne fuses ethnic hand percussion, orchestral percussion, and drum set to create music across a multitude of genres. He has performed with jazz luminaries Charlie Haden, Bob Sheppard, and Slide Hampton, as well as rock legend Mike Garson (David Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins). He has toured extensively, performing at prestigious concert halls and festivals worldwide with notable artists like the Grammy nominated band DeVotchka, the ska-punk band Streetlight Manifesto, and the Arabic orchestra MESTO, to name a few.
Christopher is a graduate from the California Institute of the Arts with an MFA in drum set/world percussion and currently teaches, performs, and records in the DMV area.
Learn more at www.drummercpayne.com.
Clarissa McKithen
Clarissa has been training capoeira Angola for over a decade, but has used movement as expression and for fitness for much of her life (e.g., as a cheerleader, stepper, dancer). For several years, she was also a performer and choreographer for a DC-based theatre group, of which she was a co-founder (Wild Women Theatre, formerly The Saartjie Project). Currently, Clarissa is a research analyst at a MD-based research firm, where much of her work centers on K-12 education and equitable opportunities for students. She has also been a mentor and tutor to middle and high school youth throughout the DMV. She currently resides in Virginia with her partner, Jonal, and 3 daughters.
Filipe Brandão
Drummer, Brazilian percussionist, and composer, Filipe Brandão holds a Bachelor's degree in popular music from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. He was a staple in the music scene in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and his musical inspirations date back to his childhood in Sete Lagoas, also located in Minas Gerais. Since the beginning of his career, Filipe has always worked on several musical projects, accompanied musicians, and created his own musical projects. In 2014, he was approved in a highly competitive selection to join the Minas Gerais Military Police Band, an institution in which he remained for seven years. Also, as part of his many musical achievements, in 2018, he was a semi-finalist in another highly selective competition, called BDMG Instrumental. BDMG is an instrumental award aimed at composers, arrangers, and instrumentalists, valuing musical capabilities and highly creative talents in his home state of Minas Gerais. Filipe created the successful Terra à Vista Instrumental Music Project, a project conceived for trio, quartet, and quintet formats. filipebrandaomusic.com
Heitor Presser
Heitor Presser's musical influences came from home, having a musician and singer as a father. He grew up in the roda de samba and learned about Brazilian popular music from an early age. Heitor had his first contact with music in the junior band of São Bernardo do Campo Cidade in São Paulo, Brazil, where he learned music theory and played the trombone. In his teens he joined a church group where he had his first contact with the guitar, and at 23 years old he moved to the United States and joined the Brazilian music community playing different styles such as pagode, samba, forró, axé, and sertanejo. Heitor loves music and does it with love—through music, he spreads his joy and happiness.
Hugo Vásquez
Hugo Vásquez is a samba percussionist from Santiago, Chile, who has studied and performed with various samba schools in Rio de Janeiro. Throughout his career, he has played percussion in Latin American folk music and flamenco groups and has had the opportunity to direct the percussion section of several samba and samba-enredo groups. He served as mestre of the bateria for GRES Alegria de Barcelona (Spain) for nearly 10 years. He serves as an assistant to EducArte's samba bateria director, André Coelho.
Ilheuma Zezeh
Ilheuma Zezeh is a Washington, DC based dancer, teacher, choreographer, and professional performer of Brazilian samba, and she is the founder of ZEZEH BRAZIL Dance Troupe. Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, Zezeh Zax is a former carnival queen of the Unidos do Peruche samba school located in São Paulo. She has taught and danced professionally for over 15 years in a number of countries including Brazil, the United States, and elsewhere. In 2009, she formed ZEZEH BRAZIL as a dance troupe dedicated to bringing the great beauty, diversity, and vibrancy of Brazilian culture to the United States. Performing a number of styles of Brazilian dance—from traditional samba de roda movements of Bahia to the Afro-influenced pulsing samba reggae rhythms of Pelourinho to the intoxicating carnival batucada styles of Rio de Janeiro.
Jean-Francis Varre
Jean-Francis is a singer multi-instrumentalist who holds BA in Sociology with a focus on postcolonial studies. Jean-Francis Varre was born to Senegalese and Cape Verdean immigrants in Washington, DC. He began singing at 13 years old, at first in English, and later in Spanish and the languages of his heritage: French, Wolof, and Portuguese. A self-taught singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Jean-Francis has performed musical genres including American soul & rock, Cuban salsa, and Senegalese mbalax in multiple local and international projects such as DC rock groups Lucy Brown and Sitali, Brazilian samba/axé celebrity Tonho Matéria, British soul icon Omar, Grammy-nominated hip hop fusion artist Christylez Bacon, and Grammy-nominated salsa/timba ensemble Gonzalo Grau y la Clave Secreta. Jean-Francis currently leads the band Sahel which performs a fusion of his influences. In 2017 and 2018, Sahel shared bills with international artists such as Les Nubians, Habib Koite & Bamada, Bombino, and the Afro-Cuban All Stars. Sahel is presently in the process of recording its first original release.
Jeremy Jonal Lartigue
Jonal is a certified personal trainer and movement specialist who has been working with both youth and adults for over 20 years. He works with individuals in a variety of settings—school- and community-based venues, as well gyms and fitness studios—both nationally and internationally. Jonal has been a student and teacher of the principles, art form, and culture of capoeira for almost 20 years, and has been training and teaching boxing for 16 years. He has also been exposed to a variety of yoga styles, jujitsu, Muay Thai, and other movement art forms that he incorporates into his teachings.
Kate Spanos
Kate Spanos, Ph.D., is a dancer and dance scholar with a passion for studying dance and music styles from around the world. She performs and teaches workshops and lectures in Irish dance and Brazilian frevo dance. She earned her doctorate from the University of Maryland's School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies in 2016, with a focus on dance ethnography and performance studies. She received a postdoctoral Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant to study frevo and popular dance in Recife and Olinda in Pernambuco, Brazil in 2018. Her doctoral work was about carnival and the masquerade tradition of the Caribbean island of Montserrat. She earned her Master's degree in Traditional Irish Dance Performance from the University of Limerick's Irish World Academy of Music & Dance in 2008. Her dance training is based in Irish dance, but she continues to explore other dance genres through a combination of practice and research, especially Brazilian and Caribbean styles. She aims to make traditional performing arts accessible to the DC metro community through teaching and promotion of cultural events. For more information, visit www.thekatespanos.com. Photo credit: Heather O'Steen Photography.
Lucas Ashby
Brazilian-American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator Lucas Ashby brings to his projects and workshops a background in rhythms and melodies from South America, West Africa, India, Eastern Europe, American Jazz, and Hip Hop. For the last 15 years, the resulting mosaic of sounds and textures has served as the bedrock of the career Ashby has built as a sideman, performing with such internationally-renowned artists as Ivan Lins, Paquito D’Rivera, Sean Jones, the New York Voices, Brazilian guitar virtuosos Rogério Souza and Diego Figueiredo, and Ghanaian highlife master Osei Korankye. As a bandleader, Lucas Ashby's Brain Trust combines global jazz with psychedelic music and regularly features legendary percussionist Cyro Baptista as special guest. Ashby was also a founding member of genre-bending 21st-century chamber-jazz ensemble Arco Belo, led by accordionist, pianist, and composer Simone Baron. In 2020 Ashby also was awarded a position as Artist-in-Residence at the renowned Washington, DC-area institution Strathmore. Ashby is currently performing and touring with several projects, including Seán Heely Celtic Band, Taisha Estrada, Project Locrea, Rose Moraes, Alex Hamburger & José Luiz Martins, among many others.Â
Learn more at www.lucasashby.com.
Luy Cortes
Luy Cortes is a dynamic Brazilian samba performer, choreographer, and instructor with more than fifteen years of professional experience. Luy has graced stages and celebrations across the world, performing at hundreds of weddings, corporate galas, cultural festivals, parades, Carnival events, and community celebrations.
Dedicated not only to performance but also to service, Luy has shared the joy of samba through nonprofit collaborations—most notably teaching cancer survivors at Nueva Vida. Her generosity, combined with her artistry, makes her an instructor who inspires both confidence and connection in her students.
As the founder and director of Samba Passion, Luy has created, staged, and taught choreographies for dancers of all levels, from beginners discovering samba’s rhythms to seasoned performers refining their stage presence. She has also taught at prestigious institutions, including the University of Maryland, College Park, and has brought her knowledge to numerous dance studios.
On the world stage, Luy has paraded at the legendary Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaà in Rio de Janeiro with the renowned samba school Em Cima Da Hora. Her commitment to excellence drives her to return to Rio annually, where she continues to deepen her training with samba masters such as Alex Coutinho, Carlinhos do Salgueiro, and others, ensuring her teaching remains rooted in authentic Brazilian tradition.
With her unmatched energy, cultural expertise, and passion for sharing samba’s spirit, Luy Cortes transforms every class into both a dance lesson and a celebration of life.
Mariana Triginelli
Mariana Triginelli was born and raised in Minas Gerais, Brazil, and has been immersed in samba since the age of six. Her love for samba and Brazilian Carnival runs deep, fueling her lifelong passion for dance. Over the years, she has refined her skills through workshops with renowned samba instructors, including Natalia Moreno and Preta Nascimento. Mariana brings her vibrant energy and cultural pride to every class, making samba not just a dance, but an exciting and transformative experience for her students. Find her on Instagram at @maribythesea. Photo credit: Heather O'Steen Photography.
Pablo Regis
Pablo Regis is a cavaco player and percussionist performing Brazilian music in the DC metro area. He grew up in Los Angeles and BrasÃlia, surrounded by Brazilian music and culture. Over the years, he has worked with numerous Brazilian musicians and organized events and concerts to bring Brazilian music to the United States. He is a recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council 2018 Individual Artist Award. He has also trained in a variety of Brazilian movement styles, including the martial art of capoeira, and frevo and cavalo marinho from the state of Pernambuco. Pablo also brings professional experience in communications and marketing. He contributes a combination of his business and artistic expertise as the executive director of EducArte. For more information, visit www.pabloregis.com. Photo credit: Violetta Markelou.
Tom Rohde
Tom Rohde is a classical guitarist who earned a Ph.D. in musicology with a minor in Latin American music from Catholic University. Dr. Rohde specializes in the music and culture of Brazil and also holds a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory and a Bachelor of Music degree from Ithaca College. His knowledge of Brazilian music has been enhanced through performing with Brazilian music groups in Boston and Washington D.C. over the past twenty years. While living in Boston he was a member of the New World Guitar Trio with whom he recorded the CD Exiled and toured throughout Brazil, Taiwan, and the United States. Dr. Rohde is a contributing author to the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music and he teaches courses in music history at Catholic University and Stevenson University.
