All-girl gig at the MIA Latin Festival

Batucada laydeez kicking ass again!

MIA Latin FestivalLast year, for the first time, we were invited to play at the MIA Latin Festival. As it’s organised by a women’s group, we thought it might be nice to send an all-female version of the band in recognition of this. Last year we didn’t have a female #1 surdo player, so Nigel became Nigella for the day and helped us out.

This year, Anny switched codes for the day and became our official #1 surdo, with Lisa holding the fort on the #2. It was Marion’s first-ever gig, having been called on by Kate about 40 minutes before we were due to go on, so that our only other repinique player would have some company. Carin did the honours as director, and she did a brilliant job – both in directing us, and in getting the crowd going as well. Our dance director Hillary was Principal Dancer, and she was just wonderful.

We began with Hillary and a few of our lovely Latin boyz on an otherwise empty dancefloor, and ended the gig with a completely packed no-one-left-sitting-down OMG-this-is-amazing everyone up-and-dancing dancefloor. At one point, when we were doing Six-eight, the entire crowd decided to do the conga, and the line went weaving in and out of itself like some demented snake until it was completely knotted up and no-one could move any more. Fabulous.

This is how it went down. It was awesome:

The band warming up before the gig, practicing the Steamtrain break during Samba Reggae
video by Phil Ansell

Playing our first piece, Samba Reggae – watch how the dancefloor gradually fills up…
video by Phil Ansell

The final moments of the gig – doing the Jump break during Samba
video by Phil Ansell

Photo gallery

Click on any thumbnail to see the larger version. All photos by Phil Ansell:

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