Category Archives: Fun stuff

It’s CubaDupa time!

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Our favourite Cuba Street-based festival of the year

Day of the Dead top hat and drumsticks, ready for CubaDupaNo really – we love CubaDupa with a passion. Last year’s inaugural event was spectacular, and fabulous, and wonderful, and a little bit magical – and we’re expecting great things again this year. Woohoo!

Check out the CubaDupa website – and here’s the CubaDupa map and performance schedule (PDF) for you to download.

Once again we’ve brought together our samba school family from around the country – watch out for performances all over Cuba Street over the weekend by AKSamba (Auckland), Bay Batucada (Hawkes Bay), Sambatron/Tauranga Samba (Hamilton/Tauranga), Samba del Sol (Nelson) and O’Ziriguidum all the way from Oz – as well as Wellington Batucada. It’s gonna be massive!

…and on Sunday it’ll be even massiver (yeah, it’s a word!) with the Carnival Bloco Mass Jam – 150-odd drummers and dancers doing their samba thang through the streets and alleyways of central Wellington, finishing up on the Swan Dancehall Stage (hoping we can all fit on!) for our grand finale. Continue reading

Dr Phill’s wedding to Dr Bron

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Batucada’s most eligible bachelor gets hitched!

Dr Phill and Dr Bron's wedding - photo by Paul Howell PhotographyIt’s no secret that some of Batucada’s well-connected ladies had been looking out for a suitable match for Dr Phill for a while. In the end though, he did it without our help, and met the very lovely Dr Bron, and a perfect match ensued. Hooray!

We were completely honoured to be asked to perform at their wedding, held at the Boatshed on Wellington’s waterfront. Our role was to keep Phill company until the bride arrived, and then to play her up the stairs and into the Boatshed itself.

We were planning to wait outside and start playing once Bron appeared, but the slightly torrential rain rather put a stop to that plan. Instead we waited at the top of the stairs, dressed in our wedding finery, ready to form a guard of honour and drum Bron through to her groom.

Dazzer did the directing honours, we played our little hearts out with massive grins on our faces, and the bride looked lovely. Her flower girls, complete with flowered bicycles, were super-cute. Dr Phill looked every inch the (very proud) husband-to-be.

The wedding ceremony (which we were all invited to) was just fabulous, with a highlight being the mass sing-along of the Monkees’ song I’m a Believer, which was pretty much the most appropriate song I can imagine we could sing from Dr Phil, to Dr Bron. Just fantastic.

The reception was great, the venue fab, the cake spectacular, the speeches all just the right length and hilarious, and we danced until we couldn’t dance any more. What a perfect day. Congratulations Dr Phill and Dr Bron! May you be happy forever.

Photo Gallery

Photos by Paul Howell Photography. Click on any thumbnail to see the larger version. You can use left and right arrows on your keyboard to navigate:

There are heaps more lovely photos of the wedding here – Bron & Phill’s Wintery Wedding at Wellingtons Boatshed – enjoy!

It’s time to do the CubaDupa samba!

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It’s CubaDupa weekend! Hooray!

HeadpiecesWe’ve been madly making our costumes, dressing our drums, building and painting the stage set and – of course – practicing our drumming and dancing for a couple of months now, and things are coming together nicely.

The donations we raised from our Boosted campaign have enabled us to bring a whole bunch of sambaistas to Wellington from across the country. We’re playing host to 37 drummers from AK Samba in Auckland, 40 drummers and dancers (including a brass section!) from Samba de Sol in Nelson, 30 drummers and dancers from Hamilton & Tauranga and 14 from Bay Batucada in Hawkes Bay. Together with the 55 drummers and 15 dancers from Wellington Batucada, we’re going to be bringing Carnival to Cuba Street in a big way this weekend.

We’ve trained up a whole bunch of new dancers, who will debut for you at the Wellington Batucada gig on Saturday night on the Swan Stage. Somewhere along the way we’ve also moved from Upper Cuba Street to Swan Lane, Glover Park and Te Aro Park, and our costume theme has morphed from Pushme-Pullyou into Amazonian rainforest and now “AmazoniAotearoa”.

With our costuming we have decided that you can basically never have too much bling, and so with that in mind we have cleaned Wellington out of green holographic paper and scoured the $2 shops for sparkles, diamante, glitter and other shiny things. We can neither confirm nor deny the rumour that we have also imported a rather large number of fairy lights from Hong Kong. Continue reading

Wellington Batucada plays WOMAD

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An unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience

Wellington Batucada group photo after our WOMAD gig - photo by Graham DwyerYou may recall a few months ago we hassled you incessantly to vote for us in the WOMAD Performer Competition. The prize was to perform at WOMAD 2015.

You may also recall that we won the competition (thank you SO MUCH for your votes!), and last Saturday we claimed our prize, and played for an hour on the Gables Stage at the WOMAD festival in New Plymouth.

Wow. What an amazing experience. When I got up that morning, all excited and full of anticipation, I told myself that this was very likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and a highlight of our drumming career – and that I should enjoy every single moment of it.

Continue reading

We made it!!!!! WOOOHOOO!

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We’re doing the CubaDupa!

Thank you so very very much to all our friends, family, supporters and – perhaps most of all – to the Bat-members themselves, who dug deep, put their hands in their own pockets, and invited anyone they could think of to help us in our next grand endeavour.

Our final total was 104% of our target, at $10,430, with 59 donors – and we reached 100% with two days to spare.

Thank you to:

Alison Green, Alan Shuker, H Carmody, Miett Fear, Anonymous, Darryn Sigley, Graham Dwyer, Charlene Hillyard, Cedric Papion, Barin Das, Anonymous, Anonymous, Gordon Cessford, Simon Bowden, Geoff Simmons, Anonymous, Nick Simcock, Keith Ferguson, Jane Watson-Baker, Jenny Lea, Kate McAlpine, Anonymous, Deborah Harris, Nina Grattan, Alexandra Lutyens, Annette Paul, Michael James, Anonymous, Paula Warren, Lisa Leask, Trish Sullivan, Anonymous, Lizzie Young, Jeanette Spicer, Lise Hutcheon, Ros Nelson Breast Limited Pochin, Dana Mitchell, Zelda Gilbert, Anonymous, J Dwane, Anonymous, Anonymous, Carin Sundstedt, Megan Hand, Alex Gough, Martin Horspool, Hamish Garland, Anonymous, Anonymous, Carol Green, Tabitha Arthur, Anonymous, Anonymous, Anonymous, Andreas Leitz, Maire Harding, Tanya Nock, Anonymous, Sunita Singh, plus a whole host of other Wellington Batucada members who threw money in the hat for us at our Christmas party (I wish I’d written all your names down!).

…and a GREAT BIG THANK YOU to our fantastic Match Donor, Mr Chris Parkin from the Museum Art Hotel who has matched our $5k dollar for dollar to give us $10k in total.

YOU ALL ROCK.

Here’s our page on Boosted so you can bask in the glory of those numbers – and here’s a picture for you of a whole host of very happy Samba people – from all over New Zealand – who will be playing together for your entertainment and listening/dancing pleasure at CubaDupa next March:

Sambanui 2014 group photo

Now go check out the CubaDupa website and see what wonders await you!

A thousand reasons to support our CubaDupa Boosted campaign!

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words…

…so here’s ours – a thousand reasons to make a donation towards the CubaDupa Carnival Zone via our Boosted campaign. So far we have raised $4,710 towards the total of $10,000 – and we have only 6 more days in which to raise the remaining 53%. Would you like to become part of the team and join us in our journey?

MAKE A DONATION TODAY!

Wellington Batucada at Cuba Street Carnival

THANK YOU xxxxxx
Continue reading

We’re performing at WOMAD next year!

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Wellington Batucada wins the 2015 WOMAD Performer Competition

Busking for WOMAD votes on Courtenay Place

Busking for WOMAD votes on Courtenay Place
Photo by Alan Shuker

Check out the WOMAD website!!!

Dear Batucada friends and family, Bat-members past, present, and future…

It’s been one heck of a ride.

Over the past 8 weeks we have worked together on an awesome common goal – to win the opportunity to perform at WOMAD next year – a festival that we love and admire.

We’ve asked pretty much everyone we know to vote for us, and then we’ve asked a whole bunch of people we don’t know to vote for us too – through our regular gigs and special vote-collecting busking sessions all over Wellington and beyond.

It’s been a heck of a busy and full-on 2 months for all of us, and I think what has impressed me the most is the huge amount of original effort, creativity and sheer guts and determination that so many people have shown. Continue reading

Wellington Batucada & the Museum Art Hotel – CubaDupa partners!

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We <3 the Wellington Museum Art Hotel - our new CubaDupa match partners

Museum Art Hotel WellingtonWellington Batucada is delighted to announce that we have found a match donor for the CubaDupa Carnival Zone. We met Chris Parkin of the Museum Art Hotel at the CubaDupa launch event on Monday, got chatting, and he has agreed to become our partner! How fabulous.

The Museum Art Hotel will match all donations made to the Carnival Zone Boosted campaign, up to the value of $5,000. Thanks a million Chris! You are wonderful. Now all we have to do is help Chris decide what instrument he wants to play in the band.

Find out more about the Carnival Zone and make a donation to our Boosted campaign. You know you want to! Your donation will enable us to create a themed zone with music, dance and carnival arts in Upper Cuba Street. Costumes, street dressings, puppets and a stage set will bring Cuba Street alive with colour celebrating the street and the people who make up the creative pulse of our capital.

Donate to the CubaDupa Boosted campaign!

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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

MAKE A DONATION RIGHT NOW!!!

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

Please vote for Wellington Batucada to perform at WOMAD 2015!

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We want to play at WOMAD!

Wellington Batucada has entered the competition to perform as a roving band at WOMAD 2015. The band that gets the most votes, wins.

Check out our video:

If you think we would be good at WOMAD, how about giving us your vote?

To vote, click on the Batucada entry page on the WOMAD website and cast your vote. You’ll get an email asking you to confirm your vote (check your junk mail folder if you don’t).

Thanks so much! Every vote counts, because you can only vote once from any given email address.

If you have friends who might also consider supporting us, please pass this info on to them.