finally, an office job you would want. yes, we were taken to the arts council building in clerkenwell to educate the officers in carnival. a small band (jp flavio dave hammadi barak and jim) roamed the building playing conga for the assortment of amusing masquerade performers that mandinga had brought down. more photo evidence of the tomfoolery is in
mandinga’s photo gallery.
rotc + mandinga @ arts council 2007
alas, the gold lamé, harlequin, dick whittington, ivorean mask and polkadot pirate costumes have come and gone; now is the turn of the rainbow pyjamas with french-horn-quartet hat. it has been hard for charles of mandinga to outdo himself, but we feel up to the challenge of being as inventive as him… our set includes: starsky and hutch overture + music from carlinhos brown, bosco de oliveira, irakere… more material that was to eventually feature on our cd. maurizio, sally and christiane sang and we were privileged to have in our line up this year as in previous years dave pattman, hamish orr and bosco… who have the type of latin percussion experience you cannot buy. mandinga’s gallery of pictures here, pick up the cd here.
rotc with mandinga arts @ thames festival 2007
we are back once again with mandinga @ thames festival, inspired by a well managed night carnival to try out more ambitious repertoire. adrian evans, festival boss, doesn’t really like samba, which is part of the reason that we developed the funk, salsa, jamaican reggae etc to be played by our brazilian drums. we are joined by australian timba supremos son veneno, with whom we were to make our first cd the following year (2nd cd actually, but library music is not something out there for general sale). what was in the show? salsa, funk, samba, reggae – a little variety show on the road. mandinga’s milk float is back in action after the breakdown of sadler’s weels carnival, but we are still dressed as dick whittingtons. there are pics and vid clips here.
rotc with mandinga arts @ thames festival 2006
rhythms of the city lives at city university (geddit?) and sadler’s wells is on our doorstep, we could walk the instruments to the gig, a shorter distance than the actual parade was – leaving the newly rebuilt sadler’s wells along rosebery ave and looping through exmouth market before returning to base. the streets were rammed, three samba groups of london (us with mandinga, quilombo and paraíso) where costumed up rio style… we were a mixture of dick whittingtons and harlequins. we were to be accompanying songs, but mandinga’s milkfloat/sound truck broke down at departure, so it was percussion alone. 
things like this also happen in rio, we are told. mandinga’s gallery of the event is here.
rotc with mandinga arts @ sadler’s wells brazilian carnival 22 jul 2006
mandinga arts having bought a milkfloat, have given us the possibility of amplifying more than just voices this year, and thames festival 2005 was out first real variety-show-parade. maurizio and christiane sang, alongside the bateria augmented by 2 horns, bass and guitar. once again a suite of music with ascending tempo, one song for each section of dancers. the first time we put in english-language songs. result. the people in the street sing along in the local tongue, and we are no longer (musically) mostly foreign to london. setlist: i shot the sheriff (reggae), superstition (2nd line new orleans funk), bate bundinha (samba-funk), i feel good (yes, samba) big thanks to jérome boumendil of sambatuc for the arrangement, aguanile bonko (salsa-funk). it was this parade that had the first ingredients of our first album. check mandinga’s photo gallery.
rotc with mandinga arts @ thames festival 2005
we are back as pirates, you will have read about or seen these costumes in 2004. rotc now play the rhythms of cuban carnival, aided and informed by ace dancer guillermo davis and with plenty of help from the community of cuban-informed percussionists of london. but why, you ask, are those brazilian drums? that is because congas are damn heavy to carry in procession, and don’t make as much noise as samba instruments. authenticity at the expense of back-pain does not make for an easy future. also, this is a reason why carnival in cuba is but once a year, and probably doesn’t last 5 nights as in rio de janeiro. carnival de cuba ambled around the south bank and also took to the stage in bernie spain gardens. see mandinga’s gallery of the event.
rotc with mandinga arts @ carnival de cuba 2005
stockwell, as you dear reader well know, is the home of the guy who first imported the pineapple to britain. and you can see pictures of fruity costumes in mandinga’s gallery of the event here. we, however, are dressed as pirates in pyjamas. (see below), and we would be rocking the self-same costumes once more at the thames festival later that year. it was a local affair and very much about everything stockwell. note local landmark “the leaning tower of ben” in the background, romero da mangueira is in the foreground. we paraded round the pavements of the area before hitting larkhall park for a stage presentation.
rotc with mandinga arts @ stockwell festival 2004
this was the year things got interesting. we played at this stage by the london eye, then in the night procession: 2 singers (maurizio ravalico and osvaldo chacon) a 10-piece horn section, percussion (lots), a suite of songs. chan-chan, sandunguera, que viva changó, some chants for ochún, blen blen blen. a sequence of ascending tempos with the rhythms of guajira, songo, son-montuno, batá and the conga; a plan that set the style of presentation over the next 5 years. each section of dancers would come forward for the music that they had choreographed, and the set would begin again in parade as soon as it had finished. dancers don’t get tired, musicians don’t get tired, audience gets variety. a win win win situation. visit mandinga’s photo gallery for more of a flavour.
rotc with mandinga arts @ thames festival 2004
in the dim-but-not-so-distant past of 2003 there were not many opportunities for parading. rotc played a lot of samba, but the opportunities for performance were often ones we made ourselves. the lord mayor’s show, with its historic and not-ever-so-slightly military overtones, we have learnt over the years, whilst seeming like a great opportunity was more of a run than an amble. note the gold lamé costumes. they were generously given to us by charles and julieta sometime after the event. visit mandinga’s photo gallery for more of a flavour.
rotc with mandinga arts @ lord mayor’s show 2003
8 members of rotc had played thames festival 2002 as the tamborim section of quiolombo school of samba, who proudly wore mandinga arts‘ costumes and inspired mandinga arts dancers. this year it was our turn, and the start of a long and fruitful relationship with some of the UK’s top carnival designers – charles and julieta. also there were no tamborins in our orchestra – shekeres, bells, timbas, caixas, repiniques & surdos. in the days before mandinga milkfloat/soundtruck we were challenged to provide music of a mostly african theme to link to the choreography of each section of costumed dancers. the result was a mini suite of contrasting african rhythms, arranged for samba drums. behind the pictured drummers in ivory-coast inspired costumes, there was a small horn section, and behind them, 4 sections of dancers. the music: digba (ivory coast), sikyi (ghana), toque for babalu aye (cuba/nigeria), cumbia (columbia). hard and challenging work. visit mandinga’s photo gallery for more of a flavour.
rotc with mandinga arts @ thames festival 2003
