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Bloco Orixala: Afro-Bloco, Dance and Percussion workshop

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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

Creative Conversations: Brazil Carnival

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An illustrated talk and seminar with Global Grooves, as part of Creating Carnival 2014

Creating Carnival NZ 2014Easter Tuesday, 22nd April 2014 – 6pm-7pm (FREE)

An interesting insight into Brazilian Carnival and how these amazing cultural and community models have travelled the world and influenced carnival arts and social enterprise around the Globe. Guest speakers Eraldo Marques, Adriana Rosso and Leon Patel will be discussing different carnival traditions from Brazil and internationally and will include imagery, footage and first hand accounts into these fascinating spectacles.

We would welcome carnival groups and producers in New Zealand to share their experience of carnival at the seminar. If you would like to present a short piece about you and your work at this informal event then please contact us and we will arrange a slot for you. We would love to hear about your work. Continue reading

Percussion, songs and dances of the Orixas workshop

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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

Relay for Life 2014

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A lovely day, and a very good cause

Graham & Hazel - photo by Alison GreenThis 24-hour Cancer Society fundraising event celebrates cancer survivors and caregivers and remembers loved ones lost to cancer, and it’s really rather awesome.

We were invited to lead the participants around the first lap of the Relay for Life again this year, and we were really honoured to do so.

It was a beautiful day, there was a large turnout including many school groups taking part, and the atmosphere was brilliant. What a great gig! Continue reading

Mt Cook School Gala

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Happy happy joy joy

Mt Cook School Gala - Nige and a new recruit - photo by Deborah HarrisWe arrived at the school playground in the middle of the outdoor disco. The DJ was playing Pharrell’s song “Happy”, which always makes me happy, and I knew it was going to be a lovely gig.

Mt Cook is an inner city, multicultural primary school with an energetic, inclusive vibe. Kate and Gurdip both have kids at the school, which I guess is one of the reasons why we were invited to play at their fundraising gala today.

Dazzer and Tim G did the directing honours, and both worked hard to get the audience involved. It was lovely to watch the kids gradually realise that Dazzer was directing them to turn around with us every forth bar in Six-Eight, and very cool to see them all following our choreography and having a great time. Continue reading

Newtown Fair 2014

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Drumming and dancing the Newtown Wave

Drumming and dancing the Newtown WaveWe love the Newtown Fair. Oh how we love it! It’s one of the parade highlights of our year.

There’s something about Newtown – the multicultural buzz, the happy happy up-for-it crowd of 70,000 good-humoured peeps, the Friends of Wellington Batucada whom we can guarantee will be there to dance with us – it all adds up to an hour and a half of pure Samba ecstasy, as we make our way slowly along the Newtown parade route, led by at least a hundred dancers – mainly festival-goers who love to groove on down with us every year.

Our dancers teach them the moves – and 100 happy people repeat those moves in choreographed harmony. It’s awesome to see – and wonderful to be making the music that inspires them all to strut their stuff. There’s even an official dance move that our dancers do nowhere else but here, called the Newtown Wave. How cool is that? Continue reading

Brazilian Party at The Grand

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…and a ninja gig in Courtenay Place

The band backstage at The Grand - photo by Deborah HarrisThere’s not much room on-stage at The Grand, and barely any space in front of it either when the crowd is in full-on samba mode, so gigs at this venue are always great fun, highly-charged, very energetic, and a bit of a squash. We were playing at a Brazilian party in honour of Carnival, which was great, because we get to watch a group of pretty enthusiastic dancers at close quarters, grooving on down to our drumming. Continue reading

Homegrown 2014

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Wellington’s waterfront rocks!

On-stage at HomegrownAn event like this year’s Homegrown perfectly demonstrates just what an awesome waterfront we have in Wellington, and why we are so lucky to have retained public access along the entire length of it.

The various marquees and stages meandered along half the waterfront – from the far end of Waitangi Park to the far end of Frank Kitt’s – with music coming from all directions. This year the walkways were still open to everyone, rather than being blocked off and only accessible to ticket-holders, and so it became this wonderful mixture of wristbanded party-goers zipping here and there to catch their favourite Kiwi acts, mixed with the general public out for a stroll on a stunning Wellington bluesky sunny day, and taking in the spectacle for free. Continue reading

2014 Wellington Sevens waterfront parade – day 2

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On playing in the rain, a duet with Niko Ne Zna – and dancing with Elmos!

Batucada, Te Papa, and the cloudsYup, 2014 is definitely going down as one of the wetter Sevens weekends we’ve been involved in. But hey, the show must go on, and so it did.

Lisa and Nige abandoned their beautiful handmade wood-and-goatskin surdos in favour of having a shake on the chocalho for the day (they’d checked the weather forecast in advance), and the rest of us prepared in whatever way we could for a gig that was probably going to end up with us playing in horizontal rain… Continue reading

2014 Wellington Sevens waterfront parade – day 1

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Posing as pirates in the torrential rain

Wellington Batucada at the Wellington Sevens waterfront parade, day 1 - photo by Michael SloleyDarn it! I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned how well the weather turned out in my previous post.

So – this year’s Sevens will go down in the annals of history for a) really crappy weather and b) really awesome costumes by Wellington Batucada.

And really, when you look as fabulous as this, who cares about a bit of rain? At least on Day 1 it started out OK and only became torrential at the very end… Continue reading