The lovely Donnington Doorstep organized a music event to help raising funds for the organization. It was an event filled with nice energy, good music and great food!

 

In the spirit of Petipa and Ivanov’s The Nutcracker, Sol Samba took part in this year’s Christmas Lights Festival as the Tin Soldiers and led by King Rat.

 

During the August bank holiday weekend, Sol Samba attended Towersey festival. On Saturday, we hosted a great dance workshop, and played two more sessions on Sunday. This was our last gig playing Rio Samba style – the style we’ll be perfecting for the next two years will be Maracatu!

 

 

As 2016 marked 400 years since the death of Shakespeare, Sol Samba decided to commemorate this event by doing the Cowley Road Carnival as Midsamba Night’s Dream:

 

Our majestic maestre, the Donkey, led a group of Fairies and Athenians through the always entertaining Cowley Road, all the way behind St. Mary and John’s Church where we jammed with Ran Kan Kan and the Larkrise School of Samba, and finally ended our performance with a stage set in the Manzil Way Gardens.

 

 

Photos by David Stumpp.

The annual festival in Aylesbury celebrated the 100th anniversary of the famous Roald Dahl’s birthday. This year’s theme was BFG, and in the style of the Big Friendly Giant, Sol Samba drummers became the Queen’s guard for the day, whereas our dancers represented the beautiful dreams. Check us out in the first two minutes of the video below!

This was the first time Sol Samba has done the Beacon festival, located on the lovely Watlington Hill. We enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and friendly visitors, as well as other amazing acts during the three days of the event!

For more photos check The Beacon Festival’s FB page.

On June 4th, Sol Samba led the Oxford Pride Parade, this year themed ‘We Can Be Heroes’. Surrounded by hundreds of superheroes made us feel invincible!

For more colourful photos, visit Oxford Mail.

 

An incredible weekend of amazing music, fantastic bands and arts. We were proud to be able to be on the ticket with Duran Duran, Primal Scream and others!

In between performances, several of our members were spotted getting pumped up by Mr Motivator, which definitely raised our energy level over the roof – look for us in the bottom left corner:

A traditional celebration of the coming of Spring in Oxford. Despite its start at 06:00, the energy was high with the dancing, singing and revelry. Spring has been officially welcomed!

A rich variety of musicians keeping the party going pic.twitter.com/lJjfZDl7DL

— bbcpetercooke (@peteralancooke) May 1, 2016

Jully Caxiado is coming to lead a samba dance workshop next week, 3 February!

Jully is a professional dance teacher from the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. She grew up in a family of dancers and her dancing CV includes some of the most prestigious groups of the state, such as Balé Cultural de Pernambuco and Maracatu Nação Pernambuco. She has worked with Sol Samba previously and is currently leading samba workshops in Reading and London.

Would anyone like to join? Drummers, dancers, absolute beginners all welcome.

The dance workshop will last two hours, from 18:30 to 20:30, after which we’ll join the drummers as usual. Normal location (New Marston Primary School, Oxford). Price for this class will be £10 (£7 concessions).

Remember to bring water!