CARNIVAL FIRST HAND - FEB 2004 From Feb 9th - 29th 2004, three members of Planet Sound Community Arts visited Sao Paulo, Brazil. The aim of the visit was to develop the skills and understanding of Brazillian percussion, dance and costume and to bring these skills back to the area to benefit the summer festivals programme of Planet Sound Community Arts. The visit also provided the first step in an exchange of ideas, culture and music between the artists of Sao Paulo and the artists in the North Staffs UK. Throughout the 3 week visit, the artists developed a close relationship with the Sao Paulo samba school, taking part in weekly preperations for carnival and documenting the whole process. A journal of events was kept and is below.

CARNIVAL FIRST HAND - FEB 2004 Week 1 On the whole the first 5 days have been wicked, though a little hairy at moments. Sao Paulo / Brazil is a land of great contrast - rich in culture, music, community; totally beautiful in tropical forest, weather, monkeys, parrots and lakes, but also poor, dangerous in parts and at night, rubbish/pollution everywhere, favelas are pretty full on. Felix´ house is really cool, with forest on one side and favela on the other side! The ´So vou se voce for´ (lit means ´´I will go if you will go´´) samba school rehearsals have been wicked. We´ve been made so welcome and have so much to feed back to you to develop our work and many opportunities for the future - including developing cultural exchange with Felix´s cultural school and with the Taipas samba school. Joe is playing hypeki, Helen snare and Amy has been asked to dance on one of the podia on the front of 3 floats! The piece is wicked, though we´ve a whole song to learn in Brasilian in a week as well as being able to play / dance. Serious stuff too - if we don´t get it right, we will lose points for the school. We were measured up for our costumes on the first day we arrived (Sunday) after a 23 hour journey to get here, a red hot afternoon and a 4 hour non-stop samba rehearsal (in front of 100 people who were checking out the gringos!) Still sorting tuition plan out, though there´s some great musicians and dancers about to learn with! Done some good interviews and got some good footage too. All 3 of us are tanned / burnt, the food & drink has been good, weather lovely and so far its been a wicked experience...with Carnival coming, it´s all so exciting! Week 2 Week 2 brings the team more sun and adventures as we settle in and begin to form some good friendships in Sao Paulo and enjoy the wonderful hospitality of the Brasilian People. The evident love of life (especially for music, dance, drink and general felicidades), and the enthusiasm and openness which we found in Brasil was one of the most inspirational parts of our trip, and somewhat infectious! As they say in Brasil, there's plenty of time for sleeping when you're dead! And so we discovered in a second week of lessons and rehearsals. With the school building cleaned up in Taipas (thanks to the help of our new friends and a hosepipe or two) Amy begins to study Afro-Brasilian dance with Ari with Joe and Helen providing the accompaniment on congas with Felix and Evandro; the differences in technique from djembe proving a little frustrating, but the combination of drum and dance exciting. With carnival fast approaching nerves were creeping in as we struggle to learn the song (in Portuguese) and breaks at So Vou and extra rehearsals are drafted in to get the bateria in shape. An impressive tamborim section and more sections of dancers, pandeiro players/performers appear, and for the last rehearsals the samba school breaks out into the streets and parades at full blast to the surrounding residential areas all in the face of rain, power cuts and traffic! Carnival time arrives and we set off to the city centre to watch Friday night's first division parade in Sao Paulo, which in true Brasilian tradition, begins at 10pm and runs straight through 'til about 8am in the morning. Each school takes 1½ hours to pass through the Sambadrome, a huge purpose built stadium-like structure with tiered seating either side of the main 'avenue'. The sheer enormity and extravagance of the floats and costumes, which passed by, was amazing. Thousands of people per school came by: headed by a 'front commission' of dancers and followed by huge floats, numerous sections of dancers, the bateria, and the musicians and singers who provide the song, all in an abundance of feathers, sequins, and vivid colour and much to the delight of the audience who were singing, clapping, dancing, and drinking steadily all night long! Week 3 Week 3 Starts off with the team discovering the true meaning of 'Foho'! - a Sunday evening of dancing in pairs (very much like dirty dancing!) and drinking bubbling cocktails with dry ice in until 5am! And then a few hours sleep and its up and ready for a lesson with Ari and Felix, last minute learning of the Carnival song, and straight to the samba school to parade with 'So Vo'. When we arrived at the Samba school we were swallowed into the chaos of people trying on costumes, and trying to get costumes (by any means necessary!) Shoes had to be changed, ripped trousers had to be glued and hats had to be made smaller all as fast as possible so that we could all go to the parade. Finally, we get on the 16 coaches provided by the council to take the school to the parade and we are off! Everyone is singing, playing and chanting - a really high-energy atmosphere surrounds us. The atmosphere was stifled a little when a brick flew through the window of our coach, hitting Amy in the face and sending glass everywhere. Once everyone was sure Amy was ok, the electric vibe picked up again. When we get to the parade ground there are people, costumes and instruments everywhere, lots of confusion about the order of the parade …..and then our song starts! It was the most exhilarating feeling, all the crowds cheering the school on and the judges situated high above looking down at you from their boxes along the route. The parade felt like it lasted for mere seconds, when in fact it was closer to an hour! The next couple of days involved lots of lessons, but all the time at the back of everyone's mind was how the 'So vo' samba school had done in the competition. Finally Wednesday arrives, and we venture up to 'So vo', only to be met by sad and angry faces - the school has come 9th out of 12 schools in its division. We were shown the scorecard and we got high marks for most things, but got marked down because the words of the song were too clichéd and the singing was judged as weak! The last couple of days saw more lessons, a jazz gig in the city centre, and discussions over developing the concept of an exchange between artists from North Staffs and Sao Paulo. Of course it wouldn't be a true last night without more lessons and a little 'Foho'! The Team found a bar called 'Planet Beer', with almost the same logo as Planet Sound! Up until 6am again! And back up at 8am for our last lesson with Ari and Evandro!!! Tired and very sad to leave, the team said an emotional goodbye to all of their friends they had met and headed for the airport. Click here to email us about this journal. To view a gallery of images from Brazil taken by the Planet Sound team, click here. Click here to view latest news at Planet Sound Community Arts.