UDM is a youth Samba School (Carnival Group) created by Tamara Arom-Hobbs and Iian Pattinson. Since their crazy young dream in 2004, they have shared their love for Rio samba with 100s of young people in London, UK. From humble beginnings with a group of drummers in T-Shirts we have expanded into dance and costume to represent the rich culture of Rio Carnival.

An important element to our training is to provide valuable performance opportunities in the form of street carnivals and shows where participants have the experience of performing alongside professionals.

But more than this, we are a family.

We are a safe place for learning and expression; a place where young people can be in the moment away from the pressures of growing up in this modern world.

We demonstrate how carnival culture reaches deep into both body and soul.

We embed music and dance through creating a culture of community, self-empowerment, teamwork, passion and resilience. Embodying our real name ‘Uniao da Mocidade – Uniting the Youth’.

Alongside this we are providing work for artists! Professional musicians, dancers, costume makers, photographers, videographers. As you know, the UK Arts are under tremendous pressure right now and as a result we are losing precious arts organisations especially in London.

As we celebrate our 20th year we have sadly been unsuccessful at securing our annual Arts Council funding and find ourselves in a very difficult financial position. This means we are unable to afford our project delivery and may be another lost Arts Program.

We have invested so much time and energy into the season already with rehearsals, costume preparation and dance choreography and scheduling summer events. Sadly, event organisers are under as much strain as us and historically cannot pay what it costs us to perform so they too rely on us subsidising our costs through funding.

HOWEVER

We are determined to carry on. The spirit of Samba is born from resilience. We are looking to our friends, family and comunidade to support us get through this period of financial difficulties. In our 20th year, we want to celebrate the love of samba and the power of community. We are doing our bit too, cutting costs to a bare minimum, colocando mais água no feijão (putting more water in the beans!)

We know that it can be tough but as the saying goes “every little helps”!

Thank you again for your time and continued support!

Much love from the UDMFamily xx

Please follow our socials for updates on our progress and to see more of what we do:

Instagram

Facebook

Youtube

Our costs:

- Paying our Artists and Contributors

- Costume design and resources

- ⁠Administration Costs

- ⁠Rehearsals

- ⁠Gig subsidy

- ⁠Band Overheads : Storage/Insurance/Transport/Rehearsal Space

Here's a snippet of last year's season!