“Burning the Clocks 2011″ with Same Sky

Posted on December 21, 2011 by admin Comments Off

Same Sky

Burning the clocks parade Start Point

I work a lot with the Brighton arts company Same Sky during the year & 2 big brighton events they manage always make the major parts of my calendar.

Last year they lost core funding to help create events like “Burning the Clocks ” and need some help from the public to put on next years event. Please text the number below and donate a pound so this great community event will happen next year :)

Please help ensure next years burning the clocks happens :)

The two big events  are “The Childrens parade” opening first Saturday in May for Brighton festival, 80 different primary and secondary schools building costume & music makes to parade from the north lane to madeira drive starts about 10pm.

Burning the Clocks the event combines a family solstice lantern parade with a spectacular fire and fireworks show.

Burning the Clocks is a unique community event that brings the whole city together to mark the shortest day and ushers in the new sun.

Rosaria Gracia Choreographer for Beach dancers

Production Event Mangers Dan & To

I work with the production crew during the day setting up the fire site ect. It is a great time to catch up with other freelancers who all work on this event. Most of the time during the year we are all over the uk and beyond working long hours.

 

The main part of my role is as musical director for the 4 Samba groups that perform at this event . Each year i write a samba reggae piece for the groups to perform at the end of the fire show  to play the audience out. I manage the groups leading up to event organising rehearsals to learn the finale piece and on the beach to line them up for the finale.

Bloco Fogo on parade i just had time to get the white costume on !

This year we had 150 drummers & dancers from Bloco Fogo,Barulho,Spirtus Jam & Brighton School of Samba  they all performed for the parade with the lantern makes made by the community of Brighton.

Thanks for the good quality shots taken by Malcom Bull see his Flikr page here 

Finale piece with all Samba groups 120 drummers :)

 

Bloco Fogo, Performance, Same Sky

The Aqaba Tourism Festival 2011 with Bloco Fogo.

Posted on October 2, 2011 by admin Comments Off

Aqaba Tourism festival logo.

This year under my musical directorship we took 10 performers from the Bloco Fogo corporate band to perform at  Aqaba Tourism Festival 2011.

street parade outside the souk.

We were contracted by Tawasol Media & Communications to perform during the early evening at the Intercontinental Hotel Aqaba for the dinner entertainment for Arab and Latin American tourism ministers & the crown prince of Jordan at the gala dinners over four nights.

Then in the later evening we performed for the general public in the Souk by the Sea Aquaba  town this was a small stage open to the general public with local handicrafts for sale in the souk around the stage.

This made a great contrast of performances from the big sit down gala dinners to really busy stages in the souk we enjoyed both types of performance and met some great performers from Lebanon” Jnoon Entertainment“. They were working the same performances time’s as us and provided great stilt walkers,fire jugglers,mime artists,fire eaters & Breakdance dance.

Arms of steel !

We collaborated a impromptu performance together at the Souk and a street parade in Aqaba town. Quickly working together to create a great show.

Keeping the energy going !

They very kindly shared images they took from the performances ,all picture credit goes to Jnoon Entertainment and special thanks to Dee Dee for taking the shots.

See a few more here

 

 

 

Bloco Fogo, Performance

Junk Funk Ensemble Summer School Amman,Jordan

Posted on July 4, 2011 by admin Comments Off

This year the JunkFunkEnsemble went global with 4 Facilitators going to teach and perform in Amman Jordan during July 2011.

The JunkFunkEnsemble Facilitators with Fareed from the Childrens Museum.

I work as a facilitator for the JunkFunkEnsemble as part of a 4 strong team we were contacted by H2OH Entertainment to deliver a three week programme of Scrap drumming and body percussion workshops in “The Childrens Museum” Amman Jordan.

working with the outreach group great bunch of kids :)

The group is led by ex Stomp Performer Ollie Tumner with Conal whyte, Chris Watkins Pitchford and myself (Alex Mann) making up the team for this Summer School.

Ollie leads body percussion workshop

You can see a short prelude to our show below.

Between us the group has a wealth of performance and teaching experience that we had great pleasure in passing on to the children. We worked with about 150 children during the Three week Summer School aged 6-11 years.

During the summer school we were supported by the staff from the museum and made some good friends.

Clearing up after the cup game

At the end of the third week we performed three 50 minute scrap percussion show’s 3 during the evening in the grounds of the children’s museum as the JunkFunkEnsemble.

It was a great space to perform at outside in the cooling evening air to a mixture of adults and children . They were a great audience and happy to get involved in the show .

JunkFunkEnsemble Performance Amman Jordan

JunkFunkEnsemble Performance stage

For our first show director of H2oH Entertainment came out to see our first show . She gave us some great feedback on the performance and it was great to get some time to hang out with her.

The Children from the summer school put on a show for their parents showcasing some of the rhythms and skills they learnt during the summer school.

Leading my group during the performance

Helping out during the cup game with 120 children can be tricky :)

 

We met some real characters during the summer school to many to mention but we hope we get to teach them again in 2012.

bring on the bass section !

The museum staff treated the group really well and were a pleasure to work with .

JunkFunkEnsemble with one of bosses for 3 weeks Shereen

They gave a us a great insite into the life in modern Jordan by taking us out to dinner and recommending the great sites to visit during our free time :)

We look foreword to working with them again in the future.

Educational Workshops, Performance, Summer School

Mk Dons Rendezvous project

Posted on March 13, 2011 by admin Comments Off

I have been working a lot  last year with Mark Johnson-Brown from Hooba:Culture as part of the Rendezvous project .

Who got Bloco Fogo in to perform at the MK DONS stadium during half time on March the 6th 2010.

We had a great response and the fans all enjoyed themselves as you can see from the video that mark made.

Bloco Fogo also went up to perform at another event for the Mk Dons where we learnt arrangements composed by fraser for the “SONGS FROM THE COWSHED” project.

See this picture of the mass Rehearsal in milton Keynes:)

We learnt 4 arrangements that were performed with 100 drummers and about 60 brass players and then it was performed at half-time on the 20th of November we had great time that day.

See these pictures from the Performance day


Dan with his bass Drum playing for the MK DONS at the Colchester game March 12th.The next stage of this ongoing project with Mark was to take up 2 drummers with me to Colchester to play in the aisles with Dan & MK DONS fans.

Jasmine & Sally at the Game Jamming with Dan.

He was great and got his mates up to where we had drums and we all played together for the second half keeping up the spirits of the fans.It was a great game and the dons had 3-1 win !! Maybe our rhythms helped them have win that day (we hope so).

We had lots of positive comments from MK DONS fans on the way out and even some Colchester fans complemented us on the drumming.

We are looking foreword to meeting up with dan and the others when we go up to a home game on March 21st :)

This is all building towards taking up Bloco Fogo again to the MK DONS Stadium on April 9th.

Bloco Fogo, Performance

Foxlease Girl Guiding Workshops

Posted on February 12, 2011 by admin Comments Off

It has been another busy weekend with a Drumming and Dance workshop at Foxlease Lyndhurst Girl Guider centre.

We had 50 Brownies & leaders drumming whilst the other 50 we dancing. Then brought the 2 groups together for a finale performance in the hall.

They got a great groove and dance together in the short time there will be Photos to follow.

We had Lianne Cambell leading the dancers and i led the Samba Reggae drumming.

Educational Workshops

Canterbury College Fair for All

Posted on October 6, 2010 by admin Comments Off

Under1sun was brought in by Canterbury College to lead some Samba Reggae drumming workshops with the Metal work students.

Canterbury College Metal Working Students

We ran 2 sessions for 1hr 30 mins each before the group then paraded through what the college call the street.

This was to highlight the Metal working students and also so they could look at how to make instruments in the afternoon.

In the long term we are hoping to help the College set up there own Drumming group and possibly make their own drums also.

Thanks to Mike,Nick & Tony for getting us involved with this project.

Educational Workshops, Performance