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
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
It was quite a surprise to be asked by the San Francisco Bath House to do a gig just before Christmas – it was quite short notice, but what the heck? It’s not every day you get asked to headline a gig, after all… plus, the proposed date was The Day After The End Of The World, and who wouldn’t want to celebrate that? (Assuming we were still here, of course!)
As we now know, the world didn’t end on the 21st (hooray!) so it was all systems go on the 22nd!
The San Fran Bath House has quite a modest-sized stage, so a small group of 15 of us (plus Tim C and Darryn directing) had been selected to play. The venue got a noise control complaint during our afternoon sound check/rehearsal, so we were definitely going to be loud enough! Continue reading
Our second gig of the day, following on from the Santa Parade earlier on in the afternoon. Go us!
We’d initially thought we would have to RACE across town from the end of the Santa Parade on Manners Street, to the start of the Phoenix Parade at Queen’s Wharf. Fortunately for us, we had plenty of time, so the band strolled along the waterfront, pausing for an impromptu ninja gig to salute the Sea Shepherd’s ship Bob Barker, which is currently in Wellington getting supplies and preparing for another battle with the Japanese whaling ships in the Southern Ocean. Continue reading
The Festival celebrates the Latin culture through live performances, art & crafts and traditional food stalls, games and children’s activities. As the Festival is organised by the Latin American Women’s Group, we thought it would be a nice idea to send along an all-female version of Wellington Batucada, directed by Carin, in one of her first big directing gigs. Exciting!
Two things were on my mind before the gig. The first was along the lines of “Gulp – we’re playing Latin American music to a real Latin American audience – I really really hope they like us!” The second was “Gosh – an all-girl Batucada gig – I’ve never done one of those before – I hope we can show that – much as we love playing with the boys – we can do just as well without them…”
I needn’t have worried – it was an awesome gig in all respects – not least because the audience was COMPLETELY BRILLIANT – and so, as a result – were we. Continue reading
This was the first time we’ve done anything for Wellington Phoenix in aaages, and we were really pleased to be asked to take part in their new pre-match waterfront parades.
We gathered at Queen’s Wharf and waited for the parade of schoolkids to arrive from Civic Square. Once they reached Queen’s Wharf, we hopped onto the tail-end of their line, and together we all marched along the waterfront to the Stadium. It was a pretty big crowd, all very excited and enthusiastic about seeing the Phoenix in their first home game of the season, as were we. Continue reading