Paraiso focusses on carnival. Most of our activities throughout the year - samba dance classes and percussion workshops, events, costume making and carnival arts workshops, and educational projects - are related to preparing for the best possible parade at Notting Hill.

Although dance and percussion form a big part of what we do, there are lots of other activities - float design construction, sound systems, helping with organisation...and just socialising. If you are interested in participating please contact us or just come along to one of our events.

Every year we have a new theme which covers our activities and carnival parade. A theme song (Samba Enredo) is written each year which is played and sung throughout the carnival.

We follow the tradition of Rio Carnival - we incorporate all the main elements of a Rio Carnival parade in the Sambadrome. Ours is a little smaller - we parade with a total of 250 in costume whereas in Rio samba schools in the Grupo Especial parade with 4,000 or more!

How to join us for carnival