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Get involved as Wellington Batucada becomes part of Carnival at the top of Cuba Street

2009 Cuba Street Carnival

Creating a spectacle at the 2009 Cuba Street Carnival

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We are honoured to have been chosen as one of seven groups to spearhead the Wellington CubaDupa Boosted campaign. Each group will be featured as part of next year’s inaugural CubaDupa festival, being held in and around Cuba Street, 28th & 29th March 2015. The Boosted campaign aims to raise an additional $250,000 to match the Wellington City Council’s generous $250,000 funding, which will make CubaDupa the awesome event that we know it can be.

The Carnival Zone target on Boosted is to raise $10,000, which we hope will be equalled by a generous match donor. Wellington Batucada will also be putting in $10,000 of our own money.

Featuring Wellington Batucada and samba groups from across New Zealand; the Carnival Zone will fill the streets with music, dance and festivity throughout the weekend. Continue reading

Beginners’ drum workshops start Sunday 12 October 2014

Learn samba drumming with Wellington Batucada!

Wellington Batucada in the RWC 2011 All Blacks victory parade

Wellington Batucada in the RWC 2011 All Blacks victory parade
Photo by NZ Sevens (click to enlarge)

We are pleased to announce that the new series of beginners’ drumming workshops will start at 12.45pm on Sunday 12 October 2014, and will run till 3pm. There will be 6 workshops in total, and costs are $60 for the series if paid in full, or $12.50 per workshop. Continue reading

Wellington Batucada – we’d love to play for you (retrospective video)

Check out our new video

I thought it might be a good idea for us to have a showreel for the band – so I made a video…. hope you like it!

I’ve used all kinds of Batucada footage, old and new – and selected some of our best photos as well. My aim was to put together a good representation of who we are, what we do – and how much fun it is to be a member of Wellington Batucada – using the random collection of video, audio and photographs currently in our archives. It’s been a fun project!

Wellington Batucada retrospective video – We’d love to play for you
Compiled and edited by Alison Green

Bloco Orixala: Afro-Bloco, Dance and Percussion workshop

An interactive workshop by Global Grooves, as part of Creating Carnival 2014

Batala, LiverpoolWednesday 23rd April 2014 – 6pm–9pm ($20)

The workshop is open to all, whatever your level of experience and/or ability. Welcome!

Following on from the Percussion, songs and dances of the Orixas course (21st April) we will develop an exciting and unique combined percussion and dance arrangement to explore and celebrate Brazilian carnival styles from Salvador.

The beats, songs and movements will draw influence from Brazilian Candomblé adopting percussion and dance themes to celebrate the Orixas. Continue reading

Percussion, songs and dances of the Orixas workshop

An interactive workshop by Global Grooves, as part of Creating Carnival 2014

Genevieve Estevez-Baker – Global Grooves Dance SpecialistEaster Monday, 21st April 2014 – 12noon-3pm ($20.00)

The workshop is open to all, whatever your level of experience and/or ability. Welcome!

This short but intensive master-class in Candomblé features African percussive phrasing and dance moves that have influenced Brazilian carnival traditions today as well as the ancient lost praise songs of age old African gods.

The workshop will be an opportunity for beginners to advanced dancers and musicians to come together to learn more about the roots of Brazilian carnival styles such as Samba and Maracatu and learn new rhythms, choreography, songs and techniques. At the end of the workshop we will bring all these elements together for an informal combined percussion and dance celebration. Continue reading

DANZdance20 – celebrating 20 years of Wellington dance

Opera House, 16 November 2013

DANZ poster featuring Wellington BatucadaWe were quite honoured to be invited to close the show at the DANZdance20 celebration concert at the Opera House. I think they were looking for a crew that could get the audience up and dancing, and we were certainly able to do that.

We did a technical rehearsal in the early afternoon (I assume it’s the first time any of us have ever been on stage at the Opera House!) and then we headed off to the waterfront to do a bit of a warm-up / ninja gig / live rehearsal before our proper stage appearance at just after 5pm. Continue reading

Party in Pink

Raising awareness and funds for Breast Cancer Research

Our own AliCat – as well as being a talented tamborim player – is also a Zumba fitness instructor. This year, she invited Wellington Batucada to play for the participants in the annual Party in Pink, raising awareness and funds for Breast Cancer Research.

This is how it went down…

Photo gallery

Click on any thumbnail to see the larger version. All photos by Alison Childs:

Beginners’ dance workshops start Sunday 27 May 2012

Learn to dance Brazilian samba!

We are pleased to announce that our 2012 beginners’ dance workshops will start at 12.45pm on Sunday 27 May, and will run till 3pm. There will be 6 workshops in total, and costs are $60 for the series if paid in full, or $12.50 per workshop. The workshops are run at our usual practice space, Thistle Hall, which is on the corner of Arthur and Cuba Streets.

The dates for the workshops will be Sunday 27 May, Monday 4 June (Queen’s Birthday), and Sundays 10, 17, 24 June and 1 July. Each workshop will run from 1 – 3pm, apart from the first which has the earlier start time of 12.45pm, to allow for the registration process.

We run our beginners’ dance workshops at the same time as our beginners’ drumming integration sessions, which gives aspiring Wellington Batucada dancers the opportunity to get their groove on to live drumming right from the start. Our dance director Arawhetu Berdiner and senior dancer Hillary Reid will guide you through our dance moves and choreography, all of which are linked to the various rhythms, patterns and breaks played by the drummers.

To find out more, check out our Join page. The page includes a form to fill in if you’re interested in taking part – and please pass this message on to anyone else you think might be interested.