godfather to the uk samba scene bosco de oliveira devised this evening show in 2003, an animated (and orchestrated) retelling of the history of samba from its roots until the present day. over the years the show has been to the south bank centre, kings place, cardiff, brighton… today, hatfield. exotic. the university here is having something of a summer festival. being a weekend, there are few students around but the welcome is warm, and the sound engineers up for the complex stage set up. bosco tells the story of the development of samba in between the (full track) musical examples played live. the exact songs may change slightly from show to show, but always follow the order: jongo, batuque, modinha, tango, maxixe, samba… taking in sambas of all decades and styles 1920-2000: samba de roda, samba cancao, samba de exaltacao, sambas of praça onze… bossa nova, gafieira, choro, partido alto and pagode and particularly the development of rio carnival samba, with the band changing and updating the instruments to reflect the changing sound through the century. for this show dancers fabio, leny and liliana animate. musicians (front row): jonathan, gaio, laurie, bosco, barak, fabio + (back row) pat, gab, david, mishka jeremy brian, and catherine is also there but not in the pic. see many videos of the show here, and read someone’s blog/review here.
os tempos do samba @ uni of herts 14 may 2011