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
Every summer the small Bavarian town of Coburg holds a rather large samba festival.
It began in 1992 with 20 samba groups performing, and two years later it had grown to 40 groups and 1,000 performers.
Now, 22 years later, 100 samba groups take part, with over 3,000 performers.
It’s now the biggest samba festival outside Brazil, and for three days in July Coburg’s rather modest population of 42,000 swells to an impressive 200,000.
Our adventure began with a random “wouldn’t it be nice” discussion after band practice one Sunday in February – and ended with 5 of us performing on stage with the London School of Samba (LSS) at this year’s Coburg Samba Festival.
This is how it went down… Continue reading
The Batucada crew - Where Rugby Meets Awesome
Photo by Nigel Sloley
One sunny (and icy cold) day in August, Wellington Batucada was invited (in a hush hush secret squirrel kind of a way) to take part in the filming for Where Rugby meets Awesome – the theme behind this year’s Sevens Wellington ticketing campaign and event. Continue reading
On Saturday 22nd December Santa is coming early, bringing the most explosive Xmas party! The heart of Rio De Janeiro is right here in Wellington this Christmas with Wellington Batucada.
This powerhouse ensemble creates breathtakingly complex walls of sound. The throbbing heartbeat of the surdo drum underpins rattling snares, layers of hand-held percussion instruments such as agogo bells, ganza shakers, tambourims, and the panting, surreal shrieks and moans of the cuica friction drum.
Joining the carnival will be Crazy Fat Brazilian: Elaine Abras sings and plays guitar, Matt Smithers on electric guitar beside Darryn Sigley on drums, and Paul Mouncey on bass.
So join us for a sweaty dance hall samba party!
No cover charge – Show starts at 8pm.
Wellington Batucada has a bunch of different uniforms for different occasions – there’s the official black uniform (recently updated to cotton rather than synthetic – bliss!), the old official white uniform which I think has been retired (it really wasn’t very flattering, to be honest), and various T-shirts and hoodies – I especially like our dark blue teeny tiny T-shirts we wore for the Cuba Street Carnival.
All of these uniforms are available to Batucada members once they get signed-off to perform – in fact earning your uniform is an important part of the process. But we haven’t had any items of official Batucada clothing that you can buy before you get signed-off – or to wear if you’re a fan, rather than a Batucada member.
Until now!
So – without further ado we present the Official Wellington Batucada Hoodie and Vest Collection – otherwise known as “We love the band, but we’re not quite in the band (yet) – if you see what I mean…”
From L to R: hoodie (front), hoodie (back), hooded vest (front), hooded vest (back)
Both the hoodies and vests are a generous shade of red(ish), and have the Batucada shield logo on the front and our big Batucada star logo across the back. They’re lovely and warm and snuggly. The hoodies have sleeves that are slightly shorter than normal, so if you’ve got long arms you’ll probably prefer the vests!
Cost: $30 each
Styles: Red hoodies and red hooded vests
Sizes available: Men’s S, M, L, XL and Women’s 10, 12, 14, 16
Contact: our fashionista Phillip Rendle at rendlep@gmail.com if you’d like to buy one.
Wellington Batucada – Hastings 2009 (via drummagirl08)