Category Archives: Performance

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.

Beginners’ drum workshops start Sunday 12 October 2014

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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)

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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

Hastings Blossom Festival 2014

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Fabulous 1950s costumes in the rain

For the first time this year we decide to dress up in costume for Hastings, instead of wearing our normal Batucada uniform. The theme was Spring: Back to the Future – referring back to the heyday of the Hastings Blossom Festival in the 1950s when thousands of people would descend on the town for the annual festival.

It was a perfect opportunity for us to delve into the dress-up box and pull out our favourite floral swing dress, petticoats and cardis; or rock it out with a variation on 1950s James Dean T-shirt and jeans attire. We looked awesome, if we do say so ourselves.

The band in costume at the Hastings Blossom Festival - photo by Simon Shuker Continue reading

Brazil National Day 2014

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The 192nd anniversary of the independence of Brazil

Brazil National Day 2014We were honoured to once again be invited to perform at the Brazil National Day celebrations – a black tie event held this year at the beautiful (and very grand) Massey Museum Building.

A smaller-than-normal hand-picked group played two sets as the guests arrived and walked the red carpet into the event. Technically I suppose we were playing in the inner foyer of the building – but oh my goodness what a room! A vast open space two or three storeys high within this classical structure made of solid old stone, and the acoustics were – amazing.

Each time we came to the end of a piece and heard the echoes dying away for three or four seconds (which is an unusually long time, as you can imagine), we let out an involuntary “ooooooh!” at the volume of the echo and the sheer wonder of the noise, and the space, and the atmosphere. Just brilliant. Continue reading

Coburg Samba Festival, Germany 2014 (1)

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Part 1 – London

A Batucada adventure with Lisa, Christian, Nige, Debs, Dr Phil and AliG

London School of Samba's Orquidea Lima, onstage at the Coburg Samba Festival - photo by Nigel SloleyEvery 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

Samba, moonhoppers, zombies – and the Rugby Sevens!

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Sevens Wellington campaign shoot – Where Rugby Meets Awesome

The Batucada crew - Where Rugby Meets Awesome - photo by Nigel Sloley

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

2014 Soccer World Cup – opening game

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Brazil v Croatia

Soccer World Cup - Batucada and friends - photo by Karina ShawOur lovely friends at the Brazilian Embassy invited us to make some noise before and during the opening game of the 2014 Soccer World Cup. As the match was between host nation Brazil and Croatia, it was bound to be a bit of a spectacle, and we were very happy to oblige.

It was a crazy early morning start (and on a schoolday too!), but a bunch of hardy drummers and dancers gathered at Queen’s Wharf to dance and play for the fans, and then to watch the game on the big screen in Shed 6 (and provide suitable accompaniment to any exciting on-screen events). Continue reading