Workshops

As well as our weekly, fun packed rehearsals at Marlpit Community Centre we are able to provide workshops right in your school, community group or place of business.

Entirely flexible, we can arrange, design and deliver a workshop to exactly suit your needs, whether it be a one-off taster session, a few sessions building up to your own carnival/fete/festival/party or indeed a regular weekly gathering such as an after school club.

Our tutors are highly experienced ‘Sambistas’ and teachers and, have themselves spent several years fully immersed in Brazilian Carnival Culture (in actual Brasil ?) rendering Fine City Samba uniquely positioned to provide authentic instruction in traditional Samba… then, because we’re British and because we can… ‘mash it up’ with Funk, Reggae, Drum and Bass and a variety of other contemporary or traditional styles.

Musically speaking, workshop participants will learn some complex musical theory and heavily syncopated rhythmic structures… without even realising it! The onus is firmly on fun and the education bit happens purely as a byproduct. The experience gained, living and working in Brasil allows our tutors to pepper the workshops with cultural, social and geographical references… very handy if you need to marry the workshops with other curricula activities.

Why is Samba the best group or community activity ever? Simple, because there is a place in the band (or Bateria, to use its proper title) for every single human on the planet… from the lowly (bankers, politicians, etc etc) to the very coolest, top echelons of society (those with additional physical, mental or learning needs, young people, festival goers and carnivalistas etc etc?). When you stand back and listen to Samba as a whole, it is a very complicated beast, syncopated, insistent, infectious… however each individual role within it is relatively simple. This generates a feeling of almost instant gratification upon which we can build a stronger rhythm, a stronger band, a stronger team, a stronger group and hey, who knows maybe even a stronger society. We have witnessed with our very own ears the power of Samba, with experienced musicians, complete beginners and in particular young people who perhaps have some difficulty in engaging fully with more traditional aspects of academic study. It is an incredibly potent team building, educational and life affirming activity.

So, get in touch at [email protected]

… let us know about your school, team, group, event or celebration and we will devise a workshop especially for you and your budget. Oh… and you can rest assured, we will bring the noise!!