In Photos: Inside London’s Paraíso School of Samba, shot by Mariana Pires

In a new collaboration with MPB, Crack Magazine has commissioned three emerging photographers to create original photo series documenting the communities and cultural spaces that matter most to them. The platform – a global marketplace for buying, selling, and trading used photo and video gear – provided each photographer with a £1,000 grant and access to equipment to support the creation of their work.

Visual artist Mariana Pires documents a London community keeping Brazil’s samba culture thriving through music, movement, and collective practice.

Lisbon-born with Portuguese-Mozambican roots and now based in London, photographer Mariana Pires has built a practice around music-driven portraiture and community narratives, with a particular focus on identity and visibility for marginalised bodies and the working class.

Her latest series, commissioned by Crack Magazine and MPB, is a vivid study of London’s Paraíso School of Samba – an award-winning performance group whose work spans percussion, music and dance, as well as costume and float construction, bateria workshops, education initiatives, members’ events, charity work, and participation in carnivals and community celebrations.

What sets Paraíso apart, and what Pires captures with quiet acuity, is its singular position in the UK. Led by artists who grew up within Rio de Janeiro’s samba community, Paraíso closely follows the structure and objectives of the Brazilian School of Samba, preserving its core cultural elements and playing only pure samba rather than the derivatives usually heard in the UK. Its creative leadership maintains active ties to those schools, ensuring that the culture practised in London is not an echo but a live transmission, continually refreshed by developments in Brazil.

This authenticity shapes everything: the cadence of the drumming, the vibrancy of the costumes, and the year-round discipline that keeps the school moving as one.

Across the series, which was shot in just under three hours, Pires captures the heat and hum of a room alive with shared purpose. Limbs blur at the edges as dancers rehearse, their motion creating a soft, kinetic haze that speaks to bodies learning together. There’s a vitality to these images – a sense of people lifting one another, keeping rehearsals buoyant through encouragement, rhythm, and sheer presence.

In the portraits, that energy crystallises. Dancers in full regalia stand tall and unwavering, joined by drummers, long-time members and newcomers; men and women, young and old, all folded into the same frame without hierarchy. In one portrait, two women flank a young girl in a Brazilian football shirt striking her own pose – a small, perfect reminder of how this community moves across generations. In Pires’ hands, these scenes aren’t just documentation; they’re a testament to what a cultural practice looks like when it becomes a shared lifeline, powered by everyone who steps into its orbit.

“What I really love about this team, is how despite all odds – you know, cutbacks within the arts – they still survive off their community,” Pires said on her work. “As an immigrant here in the UK, you come to realise that a lof of the culture comes from art and music.”

Check out the photos below and look out for our next two stories, shot by Jock Thomson and Irene Haro, later this month.