Katya Wesolowski Recognized as a Spring 2026 Top Instructor

The award winner smiling while wearing a black sleeveless dress and necklace.

Katya Wesolowski was recognized as a top instructor in Spring 2026. Her course, CULANTH 221 Capoeira: Culture and Practice, ranked among the top 5% of courses based on student evaluations in Spring 2026.

Capoeira is a dynamic Afro-Brazilian art form that combines play, dance, martial arts, acrobatics, music, ritual, history, and philosophy. Through learning this game of physical prowess, strategy, and aesthetics, practitioners develop a particular way of seeing and moving through the world.

Capoeira emerged as a physical discipline and knowledge system within the context of the African Diaspora. Created by enslaved Africans in Brazil several hundred years ago as a form of self-defense and social bonding, capoeira was shaped by—and responded to—conditions of extreme social and cultural oppression. Today, practiced by men, women, and children from Sweden to Japan and Angola to Hawaiʻi, capoeira continues to evolve and transform in response to global and local influences.

Katya and her class were also featured in a Duke Daily video.

CULANTH 221SL Capoeira will be offered again in Spring 2027.