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Day 2 - Dancing

Today we danced! I think I did more dancing than playing (first time that's ever happened).

Starting at the later time of 3pm, we were taught by Luanda again and started putting together small routines using the basic steps we had learnt. With a dancer in each of the small groups, this was made slightly easier as they are used to channelling their creative input in this way. These routines were then incorporated into a much larger group piece as we began mimicking the feel of a Cuban carnival. The transitions between the choreographed sections involved a "revolution" and "bridge". Revolution consists of everyone dancing individually either using steps learnt or just jumping around in true Cuban party style! I struggled with the typical awkwardness of being a musician, what do you do with your body when it isn't occupied with holding an instrument?! I enjoyed the bridge a bit more as it involved finding a partner and dancing in turn through the line of partners with their hands together forming a bridge - a bit like in a ceilidh, which I have done before.

Percussion with Barak 
and his conga specialist 
friend leading.
After a break for tea, we came back and played through some of the Conga tunes our leader, Barak had written out. I enjoyed learning the piece by ear yesterday but I'm much more comfortable playing from a chart because as a Classical musician reading music is what we do all the time. I found the style of playing very liberating as I really didn't have to worry about technique or splitting notes but the rhythm was SO important for it not to make the whole thing fall apart. I had to concentrate really hard on that! On the other hand, in order to be heard over the huge amounts of percussion we had to play really loud so I ended up getting a headache after a while. Fortunately we finished early as Barak recognised how tiring we all found it so we went home to rest before the third day!

Trumpet section looking a bit confused.


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