Costume Update!

After several weeks of collaboration, the costuming task force has come up with several options for the highly anticipated, flash, new performance costumes. Thankyou to everyone who offered their ideas, and thankyou for your continued enthusiasm for the project. We’ve released a couple of the preliminary designs for your perusal. We’ll keep you informed as the project progresses.

'A Touch of Tango'

Two tango gigs:

This Saturday’s (July 29): Tango gig (with Nicki playing Cello) at Wellers Hill Sports Club in Esher Road? Music and dancing start at about 8.15pm. Tickets are $15.

and

Sunday, August 6 – 5:30 p.m.

TANGO QUATRO
Tina Marsden - Flute
Evalyn – Cello (Nicki can't make it)
Pablo Boccassino - Piano
George Stanton – Double Bass

Fancy a dip or two on a relaxing Sunday evening? Tango Quatro bring South America’s music to life at Le Classic Restaurant! Enjoy a spin around the Tango’s history dance floor, spanning over a century of music from Argentina and Uruguay. Relive the days of old, and witness Tango music’s evolution through to modern times. Tango Quatro’s repertoire encompasses classic Tango melodies of the ‘golden age’ of world renowned singer Carlos Gardel, to the brooding and sinuous traditional Argentinean Tango rhythms, and the virtuosic melodies of Astor Piazzolla.

$55.00 per person (dinner and concert inclusive)

Ph: 3397 5544 to secure your table booking

Life For My Dreary Walls

Calling all happy snappers and seasoned samba photographers!

As some of you know, I have recently moved! My house warming is still some weeks off (I'll let you know when), but for the time being I'm trying my best to settle in. The walls of my new abode are very cream and I hope to add splashes of colour using images from Brisbane Samba School gigs as well as from our trip to Brazil!

If you have any photographs you would like to share (I hear there were some pretty good Pride photos), could you please let me know and we'll work out the best way to transfer them. I am especially interested in Brazil photos as the colours are incredible (and nostalgia has well and truly kicked in).

Please contact me on my brisamba email address, or at Thursday night rehearsals.

Cheers!

Claire

Party Player

Oh yes I will be playing at the party.
Have to post here as I cannot remember my password but this pipe does remember it.

Performance - Bumba meu boi (Sun 30 July)

We have been invited by the Brazilian Association of Queensland to play during their "Bumba meu boi" party on Sunday 30 July. Bumba meu boi is a brazilian folkloristic festival with African, Indian and Portuguese influences, with a central theatrical performance.

The general plot is as follows:

Catrina, goddaughter of the local farm owner, is pregnant and feels a craving to eat the tongue of the best boi (bull) on the farm. She cajoles her husband, Chico, into killing the beast. When the dead bull is discovered, several characters (caricatures drawn from all levels of society) do some detective work and finally track down the perpetrator of the crime. Chico is brought to trial, but the bull is resuscitated by various magic incantations and tunes (read: the Brisbane Samba School). A pardon is granted, and the story reaches its happy ending when Chico is reunited with Catrina. (from Lonely Planet - Brazil)

The party starts at 2pm, and the actual play around 4pm. We will play during the play for about 10 minutes, and later we'll do a 'normal' performance as well.

Address: 70 Murray Street, Wilston. More about the party here.

Please let me know if you can play through our new gig confirmation system.

Announcing the new gig confirmation system

Some of you might not realise this, but every time we have a new gig I receive at least 30 emails that I have to read and summarise in one list so that I know who's coming. But no more! I'm proud to announce our new gig confirmation system. It's easy as 1 - 2 - 3!

• 1 - Login to the members area of brisamba.com, using your username and password, then click 'upcoming gigs'. Or just follow this link.
• 2 - You'll see a list of upcoming gigs. Click on the gig you want to have a look at.
• 3 - You'll see the details of the gig, including date, time, and further details. You'll also see a list of all members, and you can confirm if you'll be there or not by ticking the box, even leaving a comment if necessary. Finally, click the 'Update' button at the bottom, or just press Enter.
  

It's that simple!

This will save me heaps of time, that I can now spend on other and hopefully more creative tasks within the samba school. So please use this system, post a comment to this post if you have any feedback, issues, problems, or send me an email if you've forgotten your password (if you can't remember your username click here).

Info for new members

This post contains information for new members that recently joined the Brisbane Samba School "G.R.E.S. Unidos da Primavera". I will also update this section as new facilities become available, so have a look every now and then and you'll always be up to date!

• Each Primavera member has his/her own email address: firstname.lastname@brisamba.com. All email sent to this email address will be forwarded to the email address you gave me. I have a mailing list with all these email addresses which I use to send out important and urgent information to all of you.
  
• Each Primavera member has a username and password to gain access to the "members" area of our main website brisamba.com. Your username is firstname.lastname and you'll receive your password by email. The members area also contains our gig confirmation system which you'll need to let me know when you can play at our gigs (or not). The gig confirmation will shortly be replaced and be integrated with the new website.
  
• The samba school has its own blog at brisamba.blogspot.com. Of course you knew this already as you're reading this message now! The blog is being used as the main communication between me and the Primavera members, and between the members themselves.
• On the blog, you'll be able to comment on existing posts, or publish a new post yourself. You'll need to log in to Blogger to do this. When you become a Primavera member, you'll receive an invitation from Blogger to set up a username and password. Note this username and password are separate from the username and password for the members area of brisamba.com. Our Blog is accessible to everyone on the Internet, so please have a look at our blog posting guidelines.
• New members will receive a couple of CDs with the songs we play, so they can practice at home, learn our many paradinhas and annoy the neighbours at inconvenient times with the samba school's unique sound!
  

Please contact me if you have any questions, or if any of the above hasn't been set up for you.

Thanks, and welcome to Primavera!
Remko

Tao Drummers

Hi all,
I realise this is a bit of an awkward day but some might still be interested. We could of course all just rock up with our drums and see if we can get in via the stage door...
Tao Drummers - The martial art of noise
Thu 31 Aug, 8.00pm
Concert Hall, QPAC
$52.65 to $72.65 (inc. fees)
The Number One box office smash hit of the 2004 and 2005 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Powerful bodies, explosive percussion and timeless ritual dating back 1000 years combine in this spectacular production created by Japan's unrivalled drumming masters. Tao have honed to perfection a form of Japanese drumming to cross all cultures.
More Info / Buy Tickets

Upcoming gigs

I am going to use this post to keep you up to date of upcoming gigs. By using the link to 'Upcoming gigs' in the right-hand section, you'll always be able to find the next gigs!

Thanks for your help

More and more sambistas are now volunteering a little bit of time to help with the samba school. Thank you very very much, now we're really getting somewhere:

• Paul, for his ever lasting enthousiasm, helping out with graphics, video, text, and now even with choreography
  
• Miki, for taking the lead in getting new costumes
• Erin, for helping out with recruitment of new sambistas
• Jayne, for looking into free advertising
  

The list will get longer...

Beer and Vodka night Friday 14 July

On Friday 14 July, we've got another Vodka night in the Polish Club. We are invited from 7pm, and there will be free drinks and discounted meals for everyone in the Samba School. Please send me an email confirmation if you want to play that night.

Dress code: black pants, green shirt

Magalenha lyrics

The lyrics for 'Magalenha', the song we did last night, can be found here! If anyone has time to copy this into a nice printable Word document, please let me know.

A unique moment

I'd like to share this unique moment with you: the Samba School being lead at high pace by an enthousiastic shaker section at Pride 2006. Well done!