This year the Percussion Ensemble was invited to be in the MLK Parade. They decided on playing Samba. (you can watch them here) Here is the Percussion instructor's explanation:
This may give some background info on the style of music we are playing, as well as some context for its purpose in a Civil Rights celebration.
Pride movement that occurred in the city of Salvador, Bahia, around the 1970s, and it still carries connotations of ethnic identity and pride for Afro-Brazilians today. Bahia's population has a large proportion of Africans. Africans played a major role in the early development of samba.
So...European Brazilians have embraced the african culture and samba is very much mainstream. Thus, in the mid-20th century, the city of Salvador had many samba schools that were modeled on the samba schools of Rio, as well as blocos (informal street percussion groups), both of which performed Rio-style samba in Carnival parades every year. Yet, ironically, black Brazilians did not participate in these Carnival parades or in the blocos.Samba-reggae represents an effort by black Brazilians to develop a Carnival parade music that they could call their own, and to form all-black or mostly-black blocos with which they could parade during Carnival. The afro bloco music was very different because they aimed to recreate and strengthen their community through their music.
Here we are at the parade. Eating Popcorn and using the Porta-jon. Kenneth came with us to the parade and he had a theory that if we made a line outside the porta-jon, other people would feel like there was some urgency to use it before the parade. The line did gather a couple of people, but the effect didn't last.
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