Cordão de Ouro Capoeira Birmingham

Samuel Mascote was born in Canterbury, England. He has been passionate about performance and the arts from a young age. As a child he was involved in numerous activities such as the occasional ballet class and learning musical instruments, to being heavily involved with amateur and professional dramatics. He was member of The Spellbound Theatre Company and The Marlowe Theatre where he was involved in many performances including “Peter Pan” with Toya Wilcox and Frank Finley. Later he moved to Nottingham and he continued his acting career as part of the Central Junior Television Workshop. He featured in many theatre productions and worked on several television programmes and also in an ITV drama “My Fragile Heart”.

In 2001 Samuel Mascote discovered Capoeira, and his teacher Papa-Leguas. Having recently arrived from Brazil, Papa-Leguas had just starting to set up his community group in Nottingham. Along with many others who dedicated their free-time, knowledge and experience, Samuel Mascote helped Papa-Leguas develop his group. Due to the intense relationship they developed, Samuel Mascote invited him to live in his family home. Papa and Mascote formed a very strong bond and Samuel Mascote and the Nottingham group assisted Papa-Leguas to set up the first Capoeira academy in the U.K. Having been heavily involved with developing this Brazilian community arts group and with an ever growing passion for the culture, Samuel Mascote, under the guidance of Papa-Leguas decided to spend a GAP year in Brazil to live and breathe the culture.

Having returned from a life changing 12 months and with his eyes truly opened to the beauty of Brazilian culture Samuel Mascote was eager to develop his understanding and so he began his undergraduate degree in Sociology at the University of Nottingham. This allowed him to put into context the experiences he had in Brazil and obtain a better understanding of the cultural and social history of Capoeira. He became very interested in the Capoeira community and how its members interact. For his final dissertation he wrote about the Sociology of Capoeira discussing how social theory can be applied to the art.

In 2009, graduated from University and graded as one of the first C.D.O Capoeira Instructors in the U.K. Samuel Mascote founded Cordao de Ouro Birmingham.