Saturday – we were even more awesome than we had been on Friday (is that even possible?) – more people, more intricate costumes, more beautiful weather and fabulous drumming.
Could you wish for anything more? Continue reading
2015 marked the year we TOTALLY AND UTTERLY ROCKED IT with our Sevens waterfront parade costumes.
I don’t know what it is about Steampunk that fires people up to produce their best work costume-wise, but it sure as hell does.
We’ve never looked better. Continue reading
Gorgeous weather for the Sevens Parade this year – hooray!
We were right at the front of the parade again this year, which was nice. Huge crowds, lots of sunshine and a whole lot of happy people. We love the Sevens! Continue reading
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:
Now go check out the CubaDupa website and see what wonders await you!
…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?
THANK YOU xxxxxx
Continue reading
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
Creating a spectacle at the 2009 Cuba Street Carnival
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
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
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.
We 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
