Pamela McGrath, otherwise known as Professora Sonho, has been a student of Mestre Beck (Capoeira Volta ao Mundo) since September 2002. Through her many years of training and traveling to events and workshops to enhance her skills and knowledge, she became the first female teacher of Mestre Beck in the United States, as well as the first official female capoeira teacher in the state of Maine. Having taught children’s classes for many years, including the original foundation of the Capoeira Volta ao Mundo kid’s program with Mestre Beck in 2007, she continues to educate through capoeira in regular adult and teen classes in Portland. She also teaches workshops and seminars, including work with schools and universities, and community outreach/enrichment and adult education. 

Pamela holds a Bachelors degree in Graphic Design which has allowed her a career with her own design firm called Flora Bonita Design Studio; she also holds a Master’s degree in Health Arts and Science, where her career has branched out into Expressive Arts Therapies in movement practices, helping groups of children move through trauma from loss, teaching them tools of self renewal and recovery, as well as resilience and self confidence. She also hopes to work with refugee children throughout Maine and teach them skills to work through their own collective traumas that have been faced in their native countries, giving them skills and hope to thrive within their new country, and state of Maine.

In 2015, she designed and produced a short documentary film entitled Healing the Heart®, with one-on-one interviews she personally conducted with capoeira masters, teachers and students, and details the healing benefits of capoeira and how beneficial the practice can be in the lives of children and adults, as well as those affected by trauma and loss. The film is used as an educational tool in presentations and at conferences to expand the knowledge base of capoeira and allow the public to understand the depths of the beauty of this art form.

The film can be viewed below (about 13 minutes in length):