Report from Simeon on recent trip to Brasil

Summary of Study Visit to Brasil by Simeon Smith

January/February 2008

Rio de Janiero

Samba School Rehearsals

I visited Rio for the two weeks immediately before carnival. This is a great time to be there, as the samba schools and blocos are in the last stages of preparation for the carnival celebrations. This is the best opportunity to see groups operating at the top of their game, without having to pay the huge booking fees for the sambadrome. More importantly, while the sambadrome is a great opportunity to see the full spectacle of carnival, the technical rehearsals are the best chance to get up close to the performers and observe elements of technique, particular musical phrasings, etc.

This year, I visited rehearsals by Imperatriz (twice), Portela, Mangueira, Vila Isabel, Grande Rio and Mocidade.  This was my first time visiting Grande Rio and Mocidade, which was good in that the general wisdom is that these schools are too remote from Rio city centre to be worth visiting. This is not strictly true, and it was relatively easy to visit both these locations.

Highlights for me were getting some great footage of Portela during one of their rehearsals, being allowed onstage to film part of an Imperatriz rehearsal and, most importantly, being invited to play with Mocidade for their rehearsal. It is an honour to be invitied to join a rehearsal, especially that close to carnival when the pressure is really on, and I feel that it forms a good basis for some collaborative work with their Musical Director, Jonas d’Oliveira, in the future.

Monobloco

This year, I had a special reason for visiting Rio just before carnaval, as I have now made contact with the Musicial Director of Rio-based group Monobloco, who toured the UK and Ireland during 2007. Monobloco run a series of training workshops and performances in the immediate run up to carnaval, and I had been invited to participate in these workshops and to perform with the group in two of their shows.

This process went extremely well, and I managed to facilitate three other Irish musicians to perform with Monobloco for part of their show, as well as performing in the show myself. I had originally planned to be there for two of the shows, but a bit of a travel disaster with Air France meant that I missed the first rehearsal with the group, and therefore wasn’t ready to perform at the first show. However, the experience I had, both through the performance, and the rehearsals in Ireland and Brasil beforehand, were excellent and has broadened my repertoire.

Ivsom

I had planned to try to find a small instrument manufacturer based in a suburb outside Rio called Ivsom. Finding this place was a bit of an adventure, as the address I had been given was a steel door, down a fetid alley in a favela (shantytown)! However, with some local help, I eventually found the workshop and spent a couple of hours with the owners of the company, where they showed me how they manufacture some of their instruments. This was a great learning experience, and I passed their details on to a UK based instrument importer, in the hopes that they might get some business out of it. I also arranged that I would be able to place orders directly with them for delivery to Ireland, which might be a good alternative source of instruments for the future for maSamba Samba School and the other bands I work with, although I would have to investigate the business and legal implications of this.

Samba City

Samba City is a new initiative of the local government in Rio, which centralises the production of carnaval floats into one warehouse complex. The first advantage of this is that it provides a custom-built, safe environment where the float builders can work. Previous to this, many of the samba schools used semi abandoned warehouse space on the nearby docks, which were ramshackle at best. More importantly for me, Samba City is open to the public and it is a great opportunity to see some of the float production up close – in the past, most float workshops were strictly off limits to the general public because of well founded fears of industrial espionage and sabotage!

Resource Materials

The last main aim of this trip was to gather some resource materials for use in future work. I did a tour of the main record stores and book shops and did pick up some excellent cds and a couple of good books relating to samba and carnival in general. As always with resource materials, time will tell how useful they will be, but I strongly believe that having access to these materials is a vital part of the development of Brasilian music in Ireland into the future.

Sao Paulo

The Sao Paulo leg of the trip was equally successful and I managed to achieve most of my goals there.

I arrived in the city three days before the official start of carnival, so was under pressure to get some things done before everything shut down.

Samba Schools

I had set up meetings with some people involved in the organisation of samba schools, and even though none of them had a lot of spare time, given the proximity of the big event, I did gain some valuable insights into how pageants are organised. Some of this fed directly into our own preparations for St. Patrick’s Festival, which were happening concurrently with the trip.

Costume Manufacture

Specific to these preparations, I met with Nilson Lourenço, a costume maker from Sao Paulo, who was busy finalising costumes for some of the top Sao Paulo samba schools. While I was at his workshop, people were arriving at the workshop to collect some of the most amazing creations.

I spent a couple of hours there looking at costumes in various stages of construction, images of some of the costumes he had previously made, and discussing ideas for costumes for maSamba Samba School, which he would later go on to create for us. I think that it is very important to meet these artists face-to-face to see if there is a shared vision between us.

This interaction led to Nilson creating some costumes for us for St. Patrick’s Day, and his visit to Ireland in March to supervise the costuming of our performers for St. Patrick’s Day, which was a huge asset to us, and a great opportunity for him.

Meninos do Morumbi

Meninos do Morumbi is a youth project set up by local drummer Flavio Pimenta. Flavio notived that he had a steady stream of kids showing up at his home, looking for tips on drumming, and decided to set up a formal drumming class. Now 14 years later, the project employs over 40 people and delivers classes in drumming, singing, instrumental music, dance, digital media to over 300 young people from disadvantaged areas.

I visited a rehearsal of the group and spoke with Flavio about the possibility of an exchange project with Irish young people. My suggestion is that they work with the Bradog Regional Youth Service, as Bradog delivers a similar range of activities with young people from the Markets area of Dublin. Since returning, I have spent some time moving these ideas forward and investigating funding opportunities to make it happen.

Instrument Endorsement

Another very positive aspect of the trip was my meeting with Roberto Guariglia of Contemporanea Instrumentos Musicais, a leading instrument manufacturer from Sao Paulo. I made contact with Roberto a number of years ago, while on another trip supported by the Arts Council, and we have kept in touch since. On this trip, I visited the Contemporanea factory, which was a hive of activity, with many orders being rushed through before carnival. The company is expanding and Roberto showed me around a new building which will specialise in the production of instruments for children. Given the current world economy and currency fluctuations, it is heartening to see a Brasilian company expanding.

The main reason for my meeting with Contemporanea was to negotiate sponsorship for maSamba Samba School, and these negotiations proved successful. In fact, Contemporanea provided some new snare drums for our St. Patrick’s Festival Pageant. This endorsement deal could be worth up to €6500 to MaSamba over the next few years, so this meeting was extremely worthwhile. As well as the actual value of the drums, it creates a close link with people who are very active on the samba scene in Brasil, which will have many positive outcomes for MaSamba and myself.

Carnaval

Roberto also organised tickets for the main samba school parades in the local sambadrome. A sambadrome is a straight, flat street with permanent viewing stands on either side, holding around 100,000 people.

Over the two main nights of carnaval, 14 samba schools parade at the sambadrome, each one numbering up to 5,000 people. To put that in context, the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin consist of 2,500 – 3,000 performers, while the samba school competition involved up to 70,000 people. As well as the impressive numbers, the quality of the music, costumes, floats, etc., are of the highest standard and it is truly an amazing spectacle.

I managed to stay for the entirety of both nights, which was a total time of about 16 hours of non-stop street theatre. What made the experience even more enjoyable, was seeing costumes from Nilson’s workshop in action on the performers, seeing instruments from the Contemporanea factory in the hands of the musicians, and even recognising some of the performers from the various meetings and rehearsals I had attended. Even without these connections, the experience would have been more than worthwhile, and I came away in the early hours of the morning, with ideas buzzing around my head for things I might try to do in Ireland – it was like a battery-charger for the creative imagination!

Conclusions

As always, I didn’t get to do everything I had planned to on this trip. Carnaval is a black hole that draws in so much time and energy from its participants, that it is very hard to set up meetings with key people. I was guilty myself of missing opportunities, because other unplanned opportunities presented themselves. However, I was very happy with the trip overall and the contacts and experiences I had.

It is also true that with each new trip, I am becoming part of the samba scene in these cities. As well as my own expanding network of friends and colleagues, people are recognising me and acknowledging my own commitment to the music and the scene, For example, it would be rare for outsiders to be allowed on stage to film rehearsals, or, for that matter, to participate in rehearsals. These opportunities are an honour and only bestowed on real ‘sambistas’, not tourists

Peter Keenan R.I.P.

Peter Keenan was a drummer for over forty years and an active member of the Irish samba community from the very beginning. Peter mainly played with MaSamba Samba School and toured the length and breadth of Ireland, playing at some of the largest (and smallest) events. Peter was always willing to 'play in' with any other samba groups and his enthusiasm, skill and knowledge were well respected. Peter also had huge respect for the knowledge of others and was one of the strongest supporters of MaSamba's regular training programmes, working with the likes of Dudu Tucci, Esteves da Silva, Ze Allen, Claudio Santana, Giba Goncalves, Colin Blakey, Erin Scrutton, and many others. Peter was a great ambassador for the samba scene and drumming in general and will be deeply missed by anyone lucky enough to have known him.