What can we say about the Hastings Blossom Festival?
We go every year, we love it – it’s like an annual school trip for the band, we get to stay over and hang out at the marae and do daft party-piece performances for each other, and best of all, we get to hang out with sambaistas from some of the other batteria around the country and perform together in the Blossom Festival parade. What’s not to like? Continue reading
We had a brilliant time down on the waterfront before the Bledisloe Cup game. We were invited to lead the fans from Queen’s Wharf along the waterfront to the stadium, Pied Piper style – a bit like what we did for the World Cup games.
After sending a few drummers off to various parts of the fan trail to drum up support, we gathered under the sails for a short impromptu gig-ette, and then headed off down the waterfront with a large contingent of fans following along behind. Once at the Stadium we played a few more numbers for the fans heading along the walkway to the game, then most of us headed back along the waterfront to find somewhere good to watch the game – pausing for a quick jam with our friends Niko Ne Zna on the way. Continue reading
Tonight at 7pm Wellington Batucada will be taking part in Seven Sharp‘s live TV broadcast from the St John’s Bar in Wellington.
The gig starts at approx 6:30pm, and we’ll be joining heaps of other creative performing types to show John Key that Wellington is still New Zealand’s most vibrant city – and that we’re certainly Not Dead.
Come and join us!
As you may know, members of Wellington Batucada will be joined by sambaistas from all over the country this Anzac Day long weekend, to take part in a 4-day samba immersion workshop with international tutors Leon Patel and Adriana Rosso. It’s called Sambanui, and it’s gonna be a blast!
On Sunday 28 April, as a culmination of our four days of non-stop drumming, we’ll be holding a huge Samba Jam featuring Wellington Batucada, joined by our fellow drummers and dancers from all over New Zealand.
We will be gathering in the Dowse Square to showcase our new material. Come on down for a boogie!
Where: Dowse Museum, Dowse Square, Laings Road, Lower Hutt.
When: Sunday 28 April 2013, 3.30pm
Relay for Life is an amazing event, with an incredibly loving, giving, and celebratory atmosphere. We were really honoured to have been asked to take part, and to lead the cancer survivors and their caregivers around the track for the first lap of the 24-hour relay.
From the Relay for Life website:
Relay For Life is an inspiring community event that gives everyone a chance to celebrate cancer survivors and caregivers; remember loved ones lost to cancer; and fight back by raising awareness and funds to support the work of the Cancer Society. Relay For Life is for people of all ages and fitness levels. Anyone can take part!
Team members walk and jog through the night, symbolising the fact that cancer never sleeps. However, people taking part may come and go as they like.
Our Brazilian friends had set up a Footvolley Championship on the beach at Oriental Bay, and asked us if we’d come and play to open the competition. We were delighted to do so.
We gathered at the beachside on Oriental Parade and watched the footvolley teams warming up and going through their paces. It’s such a skilled sport, requiring some serious foot-eye co-ordination, very fast and athletic. It’s fascinating to watch.
Then it was our turn to provide some early afternoon entertainment before the tournament matches began. It’s surprisingly hard to do our choreographed stepping on sand, but in such a beautiful setting, and on such a gorgeous day, with a lineup of footvolley players very keen and eager to be our dancers for the afternoon, it was a pleasure: Continue reading
The Newtown Fair is always awesome to be a part of. It’s vibrant, noisy, multicultural, jam-packed, and has the maddest, most celebratory atmosphere you can imagine.
This year, for some reason, that jam-packed madness was multiplied 10-fold, and we had one of the best parades I think we’ve EVER done.
We were planning to parade down the full length of the Fair in one direction, and then turn around and parade all the way back again in the other direction. Based on previous experience, we estimated it would take us between 30 minutes and an hour.
Boy, were we wrong this year.
It took us an hour and a half to get most of the way through the Fair in one direction – and we didn’t even attempt to turn round and go back the other way, there were just too many people!
It was quite, quite, mad. At times we’d be standing still, playing, rather than parading and playing, because the sheer number of people dancing in front of us (into the hundreds) meant we couldn’t go anywhere!
Completely brilliant. At the end we said a noisy (and rhythmic) farewell to Ang, who’s heading off back home to Ireland. We’ll miss you!
What a wonderful day.
Newtown Festival, Wellington 2013 – video by Benjamin Humphrey
So here we are again – sunburnt and footsore from yesterday, and a little bit tired and worn out from carrying those big drums all that way…
But you can’t keep a good drummer down, so they say – and it’s very true for all of us. We love drumming and samba and being part of the Wellington Sevens far too much to let a blister or two stop us – so let’s gooooooooo!!! Continue reading
Oh how we love the Wellington Rugby Sevens!
For two full days every February, utter madness and an intense need to dress up in ever more radical costumes overtake the good people of Wellington, and we come together to create the most colourful and flamboyant Sevens tournament anywhere in the world. We rock!
Wellington Batucada has had a role to play in the Sevens every year since 2003, and 2013 was no exception. This year for the first time we decided to dress up in our own Sevens-inspired costumes to do our waterfront performance and parade, rather than wearing our normal uniforms – and the theme we chose was Superheroes. Continue reading
