Celebrating the Chinese Autumn Festival on the Full Moon
A great gig for the crew at the Ode to the Moon Multicultural show at Lower Hutt Town Hall. A fun and vibrant night was had by all.
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Ode to the Moon 2019
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Category Archives: Performance
Festas de São João 2019
Celebrating a Brazilian festival at El Barrio Latino Bar
Lucy (former Batucada tamborim player) owns El Barrio Latino Bar and was keen for us to do a small gig in June to celebrate the Brazilian festival Festas Juninas – also known as Festas de São João.
Keeping the volume down is a challenge in a small space, so we decided a mini-gig would work best, with 10-12 drummers instead of our usual 20-30. Our dancers came along and danced with the crowd, as there wasn’t space to do a dance performance. So – a bit of an experiment all round.
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Wellington Pride Parade 2019
Bringing the love to the streets of Wellington
Pride is such a wonderful gig to be a part of. We’ve watched this fantastically inclusive event grow over the years to become quite epic, and it’s one of the band’s favourite parades – probably the craziest parade we do. The crowd and all our fellow paraders are so much fun.
Wellington Batucada at CubaDupa 2019
Live on-stage at the Opera House
Due to the recent tragic events in Christchurch, CubaDupa was moved offstreet this year.
Our Sunday Swan Stage show went ahead as planned – but on-stage at the Opera House (ooohhh!!).
Wellington Batucada drummers and dancers perform live at the Opera House, Wellington, New Zealand – as part of CubaDupa 2019. This year we celebrated the life and music of Mestre Moa do Katande, who was an inspiration to us all.
CubaDupa weekend 2019 – samba jam party
Jamming with our samba-loving mates from around NZ
Due to the recent tragic events in Christchurch, CubaDupa was moved offstreet this year.
This meant, sadly, that all of the street performances planned by Wellington Batucada and our samba whanau from around the country could not go ahead. So instead, we decided to host a massive Samba Jam on the Saturday at our rehearsal space – the Cook Island Hall in Newtown.
Wellington Batucada host a samba jam party at the Cook Island Hall for all our samba-loving friends and bands from around the country. Video by Tom S Etuata.
Newtown Fair 2019
Newtown does it again!
We adore Newtown Fair. And this year, the weather was spectacular. As, of course, were we.
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Island Bay Festival 2019
Fun in the sun by the sea
Wellington Batucada drummers and dancers perform in Wellington’s Island Bay Festival Parade. Video by Tom S Etuata.
Thank you from Island Bay Festival:
Hi everyone! Slightly belated, but still heartfelt thank you to you all and your groups for yet another fantastic parade!
Couldn’t do it without you all, and your enthusiastic participation, marching, singing, dancing, trike-riding, acrobat-ing, instrument playing and marshalling really makes it an awesome event. Please pass on my thanks to everyone from your groups who was involved. Til next year… Mel
Te Rā o te Raukura Festival 2019
A beautiful day out in the Valley
We love performing at Te Rā o te Raukura Festival. It’s such a brilliant community event, and we really enjoy wandering round all the stalls and checking out the other acts, as well as doing our bit. It’s got such a friendly vibe.
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Wellington Phoenix vs Newcastle Jets, October 2018
On the field with the ‘Nix
Normally when we are invited to parade on or around the field at a Wellington Phoenix game, they lose. OMG! The curse of the samba drummers!
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The Menagerie Variety Show
Fun and frolics on-stage at the Opera House
Wellington Batucada’s Menagerie performance – the official video. Video by The Menagerie Variety Show 2018.
The last time we were on-stage at the Opera House was for the DANZdance20 gig back in 2013 – so it’s been a while.
25 drummers and 10 dancers from Batucada took to the stage for The Menagerie Variety Show – invited as the “intermission entertainment” – and a brilliant time was had by all.
It was a long day – beginning with a stage walk-through at 3pm. It’s always reassuring to be able to experience the stage and plan how you’re going to get on and off before you do a big gig like this one – and producer extraordinaire Rachel Rouge and her team made sure that every one of the multiple acts in this fabulous Variety Show were able to do just that.
The Opera House is such a beautiful old building – a perfectly grand and decorative old-fashioned theatre – with a veritable rabbit warren of dressing rooms on multiple levels behind the scenes. When you reach the bottom of the many flights of stairs from your dressing room you step through the door from the light-filled stairwell into a dimly-lit and cavernous backstage area. It’s another world.
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