A total extravaganza, WASAMBA! will make you fall in love with life all over again. With upbeat drums, brightly-coloured costumes and fun dance moves, you’ll be jiving in your seat, then leaping straight out of it.

Samba is a type of drumming and dance that originates in Brazil, developed by the African diaspora. You may have heard about the style being part of the Carnivale celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, but it’s spread all around the world and today, WASAMBA! brings the Carnivale to you!

The experience was wildly colourful, extraordinarily loud, and so very funky. I couldn’t keep still, tapping my feet and clicking my fingers. The drummers do some choreographed dance moves as they drum, and they even perform some drumming tricks – and one of the members drummed so hard they broke one of their drumsticks! It was an incredibly fun, musical celebration, and the costumes were really cool with feathers and sequins and some home-grown creativity. Each member of the band seemed to have an excellent stage presence too, which is saying a lot when there are twenty of them. They seemed to fill up far more space than twenty people normally would with their music, dance and tricks.

I could see that many of the audience members wanted to dance along, but weren’t sure how to, and were too shy to give it a shot. It would be amazing if the team could show the audience how it would be best to get involved, or how to do samba dancing.

Overall, you’ll want to witness this amazing, joyful cultural experience by talented locals. I had a smile on my face the whole time. Words can’t really do the energy of the whole thing justice! So wear your brightest costume and your dance shoes – and maybe some ear plugs if you’re sensitive to loud noises!