Samba Elégua

Poetry, meet Samba; together you’ll make for an unforgettable showcase! On Saturday, January 28th beginning at 9:30 pm, Samba Elegua takes part in SLAMBA! Late Night ReFrame, the closing event of Reframe: the Peterborough International Film Festival.

A night of spoken word, music, and film guaranteed to propel us toward justice, SLAMBA features Esther Vincent (host), Ottawa Fountain, BAM! The Toronto Youth Slam, Evalyn Parry and, of course, us! Join us as we lay down the beats and set the scene for a poetry slam competition and other good fun. Event takes place at the Market Hall Theatre for the Performing Arts, 336 George Street N., Peterborough.

Night…without a moon, did you say? Yes! Celebrate the ushering in of a new month, according to the Hebrew lunar calendar at the Rosh Hodesh Night Without a Moon Boogie! This is a night of live dance music by local Jewish women, celebrating the new moon and the last night of Chanukah – returning to the light.

Samba Elegua joins talented performers Annie Gilbert and Chana Rothman for this special event at the end of the busy holiday season. Take a break from the hustle and bustle of this normally harried month, and join us on Tuesday, December 27 at 8:00 pm, at the Al Green Theatre (Miles Nadal JCC, SW corner of Bloor and Spadina).

Tickets are $15. Visit the Info Desk at the MNjcc or call (416) 924-6211 x. 0 to purchase. Facebook event link here.

Take a trip into Toronto’s underground tropical scene this November at the first annual Uma Nota Festival. This will be the first annual festival of “Tropical Urban Expression“, which will run from November 18 to 20, 2011 in Toronto. The festival marks the expansion of the event from a successful bi-monthly music series (once every two months at the Gladstone Hotel, from summer 2007 to present) to a full-fledged three-day festival incorporating not only live and DJ musical performances but also workshops, a talk series, film screenings and food and drink.

Samba Elegua kicks off this premier event on Friday, November 18th, at the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (1214 Queen Street West, near Dufferin). Ably led by our own Jonathan Rothman, the reduced ensemble will be joined by guitarist/arranger/composer David Arcus (Aline Morales Band) and the Kensington Horns featuring Richard Underhill. Spinning the night away will be DJ Jason Palma and resident DJ General Eclectic.

Uma Nota is a reference point for world citizens and lovers of music & culture. It is a unique event series focusing on Afro-Brazilian, Latin, Caribbean, Funk and Soul music provided by both live acts and DJs. Unpretentious, open-minded, lively and fun, Uma Nota is where locals, intellectuals, artists and trendsetters come together and dance to the polyrhythmic tropical vibe. Live musical performances frequently feature the city’s heaviest-sounding Brazilian percussion troupes, a popular and thrilling spectacle that remains a key piece of the Uma Nota experience. The DJ roster boasts the city’s finest groove-seeking crate diggers and vinyl selectors who prove it takes more than an iPod to excite and challenge the dance floor.

Samba Elegua has been a part of Uma Nota since its inception. Bring your moves to our dance floor and make sure not to miss out on any of the ground breaking events happening all weekend!

Festival schedule at a glance:

Friday, November 18, 10 p.m. at Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
World Funk with Samba Elégua ft. David Arcus and the Kensington Horns plus DJs Jason Palma and General Eclectic
Admission: $10 at the door

Saturday, November 19
7 p.m. at Revue Cinema: Brazilian short films (AluCine Festival of Latin Film and Media)
10 p.m. at El Mocambo: AluCine awards ceremony and festival wrap party!
World Electro with Funkete and Uma Nota featuring Boogat (live) plus DJs eLman, Linterna and Jerus Nazdaq
Admission: $10 at the door

Sunday, November 20, 3-11 p.m. at Lula Lounge
World Roots Community Cultural Fair with talks by Jose Ortega, Mark Greenspan and Alex Bordokas; workshops by Pitú cachaça and Maracatu Mar Aberto; feijoada by Cajú Restaurant; and performances by Luanda Jones, Maria Bonita and The Band, Maracatu Mar Aberto, DJ David Dacks and more.
Admission: Minimum $5 donation/Pay What You Can

The Trick

Sunday, October 30th will be the last PSK of 2011 – PSK: Halloween! Honouring Our Ancestors. We’ll be capping off a great summer of Pedestrian Sundays Kensington in mad spooky style, as part of a huge parade. What’s the trick, you ask? You’ll have to check this space again for the time and exact location details for the parade kickoff. It’s a surprise!

Thanks for your patience! PSK: Halloween! Honouring Our Ancestors will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the corner of Augusta Ave. and Baldwin St. Prepare to be spooked!

The Treats

The Halloween Bash at Steam Whistle Brewing was wicked good fun last year, so we’re doing it again! We’ll be playing both parties, on Friday, October 28th and Saturday, October 29th (first set starting at 11 pm both nights), so party with us once, or party with us twice – it’s all good! Party headquarters: 255 Bremner Blvd., Toronto.

Earlier on Saturday, October 29th, join Samba Elegua for the traditional Night of Dread, Clay and Paper Theatre’s invitation to the community to parade our private and collective fears through the darkened streets of Toronto. The hour-long procession will return to Dufferin Grove Park for an evening of ceremonial festivities that compel us to call on, mock and banish the fears that unite and divide us in these times. Night of Dread is an unforgettable evening of pageantry, music and masquerade incorporating towering puppets, stilt dancers, fire-spinners and fearful masks in a daring exploration of dread. Rhythmic soundtrack courtesy of Samba Elegua and other live performers.

4 PM: Parade begins assembling at Dufferin Grove Park
6 PM: Parade departs
Dress Code: Black and White
Pay-What-You-Can: suggested donation $10

The Favour

If you’ve seen Samba Elegua perform live before, you know how dynamic and exciting an experience we create, as a band, as a collective, as a community. Unfortunately, we have just lost our rehearsal space, which we have considered home for the past 3+ years. We are searching for a new, centrally located space where we can make noise, have 24/7 access to instruments, and practice 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Sundays. Any leads would be most helpful. Ask us what we have to offer in return!

Do you want to support women’s literacy in Africa? If so, this event is for you.

Catch Samba Elegua and other live entertainers as part of Project Ashia, a party to raise awareness and support for a women`s literacy and numeracy centre in Lewoh, Cameroon.

Lewoh currently faces critical issues related to the position of women, the availability of education and poverty. The literacy centre in Anya-Lewoh aims to purchase farmland and palm nut oil extractors, provide training programs for the teachers of literacy classes, and construct a new literacy centre. Check out the website for more information.

Come out for a great night of music and support this initiative.
Levack Block, 88 Ossington Avenue (Ossington 3 blocks north of Queen). Thursday, October 20th, at 9:00 p.m.

Back by popular demand: it’s the surprise Samba Elegua set during Nuit Blanche! Hold on tight, this one will probably be like last year’s performance, which got us some rave reviews and some new members!

Look for the party around midnight, Saturday, October 1st, at the corner of Dundas and McCaul Sts.

It’s that time of month again…when the streets of Kensington Market become alive with people and music and culture. This time it’s PSK: Earth! Global Harvest Traditions. The new apples, pears and pumpkins are starting to make an appearance and the wheat sheaves are coming together in celebration. Join us on Sunday, September 25th, as we share in the deliciousness of harvest time bounty!

Get your Samba Elegua groove on at 4:00 p.m., most likely at the corner of Augusta Ave. and Baldwin St.

Samba Elegua will be adding our rhythmic soundtrack to the 9th Annual Queen West Art Crawl in Trinity Bellwoods Park (Queen St. W. and Strachan Ave.).

The Queen West Art Crawl (or ‘QWAC’ for the acronymically inclined) is a weekend-long community art festival in Parkdale. QWAC’s goal is to “celebrate and cultivate the unique character, diversity and ethos of Queen West – a natural habitat for individual artists, arts organizations, artist run centres and businesses that promote art and culture.” Unique and diverse, did you say? Samba Elegua will fit right in!

Our set goes down Sunday, September 18th, at 5:00 pm.

It’s a garden party, but none of the likes that Elizabeth Regina II has seen. It’s the Second Annual KEG Harvest Party put on by the Kawartha Ecological Growers, and Samba Elegua will be there to bring the deep rhythms back to the earth.

It’ll be worth checking out this event, held just 1.5 hours outside Toronto. Besides us, other purveyors of fun include Sausage Partners, ChocoSol, Hot Yam! and King Roller. Family outing, anyone?

Saturday, September 3rd, 8:00 pm.
Elm Tree Gardens, Kawartha Lakes, ON.

On the dance floor that is.

Come to the Toronto All-Stars Dance Riot, on Thursday, September 1, 2011 (jeepers, that’s tomorrow!) for a night of great music and community activism. Catch Samba Elegua, Lemon Bucket Orkestra, and Tyler Shipley and the Consumer Goods at the El Mocambo!

This is a fundraiser to sent two university-aged Palestinian activists to the Growing Food and Justice For All Initiative in Milwaukee this September. Abdakarim and Salahuddin are employees of Project HOPE, a Canadian-Palestinian NGO that focuses on providing services, such as arts therapy, media training, yoga and language instruction to Palestinians living in Nablus in the West Bank. At the conference Abdakarim and Salahuddin will share their experience of the food system in Palestine/Israel, and get contacts, skills and resources to bring home, where they will organize community gardens and other initiatives with Project HOPE. (All organizations and bands are linked to below. No one will receive any payment for this event; 100% of proceeds go to this cause.)

The event runs from 9:00 PM – 2:30 AM and $10 gets you in the door and a raffle ticket for great prizes! The El Mocambo is located at 464 Spadina Ave. (just south of College).