Dr. Glacendy Espinosa

Dr. Glacendy Espinosa joined the Board of Directors for the Capoeira Center of New York in 2019. She is a practicing dentist with offices in Queens and Manhattan and also teaches at NYU Dental School. She has trained in the art of Capoeira for several years, and she joined the Board with the hopes of bringing Capoeira to survivors of domestic violence and foster children.

Dr. Giliane Joseph

Dr. Giliane Joseph is a general internist with a focus in addiction medicine and HIV who cares for people who use drugs. She is the medical director at the Montefiore Wellness Center at Melrose, an opioid treatment program which is part of the Montefiore Health System in the Bronx. Inspired by her brother’s capoeira practice, Giliane started training capoeira in 2008. She joins the Capoeira Center of NY board with the hopes of promoting healthy living through physical activity and building community connections.

Taun Toay

Secretary

Taun Toay is Vice President for Enrollment and Strategic Initiatives of Bard College, an innovative liberal arts school in New York State. At Bard, Toay oversees strategic planning and satellite operations throughout the nation and in Germany. An economist by training, Toay also serves as Managing Director of the Levy Economics Institute, where he is a Research Analyst working on macroeconomic modeling and gender-aware analysis. He was a Fulbright research grantee to Greece for 2005–06 and an affiliate of the University of Piraeus, where his work examined the socioeconomic impacts of inflation patterns surrounding the adoption of the euro. Toay has also served as a visiting lecturer in the economics department at Bard College and co-edited/authored a number of papers and books, including The Burden of Our Times: The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis. Toay holds an M.Phil. in economics from the New School for Social Research.

Michelle Vieira

Co-Founder & Executive Director

Michelle studied dance at New York City’s LaGuardia High School of the Arts and Ballet Hispanico, graduating with a BFA degree in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She performed nationwide with different dance companies, and she has taught dance and coordinated youth afterschool and summer programs in East Harlem, Flushing, Queens, and Honolulu, Hawaii. In Hawaii, she fundraised over $300,000 for teen employment training programs. She began training Capoeira in Honolulu, Hawaii and later joined Capoeira Luanda in 2003. Under the supervision of Contramestre Sabiá, she reached the level of Instrutora and has taught Capoeira to all levels and ages, including at the university level.

Jeannie Williams

Treasurer

Jeannie Williams, also known as “Instrutora Minnie” in the Capoeira world, has been training capoeira since 2006.  She currently teaches high school students in Queens, New York.

Tiba

Co-Founder & Advisor

Tiba has over three decades of experience in the art of Capoeira and is the co-founder of the Capoeira Center of New York. His journey began in Brazil with Mestre Jelon Vieira, the pioneer who first introduced Capoeira to the United States. Although Tiba was exposed to the art at a young age, his formal training began when Mestre Jelon launched a Capoeira program for children in Boca do Rio, a vibrant neighborhood in Salvador, Bahia.

In 1997, Tiba moved to the United States to continue his training under Mestre Jelon’s guidance while pursuing his studies. Since then, he has spent nearly two decades teaching and performing Capoeira, sharing its rhythm, energy, and spirit with people from all walks of life.

Tiba has taught at prestigious institutions such as the Ailey School, Tisch School of the Arts, Broadway Dance Center, and the Educational Alliance, as well as in numerous community centers and after-school programs throughout New York City. His teaching and performances have taken him far beyond NYC—to Dance Connecticut, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Oberlin College, and internationally across Indonesia, Turkey, Japan, Bermuda, Australia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, France, Spain, Taiwan, Canada, and South Korea, among others.