Eusébio Lobo da Silva, known in capoeira as Mestre Pavão, is one of the great names trained in Mestre Bimba's Capoeira Regional, combining capoeira, dance, academic research and university teaching in a unique way. Born in Salvador, Bahia, and based for decades in Campinas (SP), he has become a reference both in Brazil and abroad.

He started capoeira as a boy in the 1950s, in the Garcia neighborhood of Salvador, learning his first fundamentals from Mestre Lupa do Garcia - an experience he describes as the gateway to "starting to read the world". In 1972, he graduated from Mestre Bimba's Academy in a ceremony held in Mataripe, Bahia.

Driven by artistic curiosity and a quest to expand his body, Pavão left for the United States, where he studied modern dance and taught capoeira and Brazilian dances. His talent led him to join the Dunham Gallery of Dancers, becoming one of only five people in the world to receive a Master Teacher degree in the Dunham Technique, one of the most influential Afro-Diasporic dance methodologies.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (1979), a Master's degree from the Katherine Dunham School of Arts and Research (1980), where he presented a pioneering study on capoeira, and a PhD in Arts from UNICAMP (1993), defending his thesis on the Integral Method of Dance. In 2004, he became a Full Professor at the same university, with the work The Body in Capoeira.

As an adjunct professor at UNICAMP's Arts Institute, Mestre Pavão has built a career marked by intense scientific, artistic and pedagogical production. He published dozens of articles related to capoeira, dance, technique and teaching, supervised monographs, dissertations and theses, and influenced generations of researchers who study capoeira as knowledge, art and cultural expression.

Although many associate him above all with dance, he has always reaffirmed his essential identity:
"I'm a capoeirista who plays, fights and dances - as is the very nature of capoeira, which ginga in life."

Artist, choreographer, educator, master trained by Bimba and an in-depth researcher of Brazilian corporeality, Pavão has become one of the most important links between Capoeira Regional, modern dance and the university.