Walking into Hales, the most glaringly obvious absence in presentation was the decoration so scant it was almost imperceptible. Judging only from various comments made by the hosts of the event, the idea was to try to somehow reconstruct a Brazilian Carnaval. However, the gaping unfriendliness of Hales was hardly made welcoming, which definitely altered the reception of the event from the guests’ perspective. Had we been greeted with more bright colors and a setting that didn’t quite evoke memories of uncomfortable middle school dances, we might have been less timid dancers.
That said, there was music playing every second from when I arrived a bit before 8:00 to after I left at about 9:30. What lack of visual decoration there was was made up for by the energy of the musicians, the dedication of the hosts, and the vitality of the dancers. Seeing our reservations, the dancers consistently encouraged us to come closer, reassuring us essentially that there were no mistakes as long as we were moving. I arrived wanting to learn how to move to the music and left feeling more than satisfied with what had been so eagerly taught to me.
Feeling the syncopation of the music in person was much more real than listening to a recording. Since I have been dancing for so much of my life, perhaps my most effective and immediate method of attempting to understand music is figuring out how to move to it. By teaching the dance moves in such a way that exclusive partners were not required to participate, everyone had an equal chance of enjoying him or herself.
In terms of participation, it was difficult to discern the level of intimacy between the musicians, but the dancers created an environment that was highly encouraging of dancing with others. A huge part of the reason why I enjoyed the event so much was because I was learning from experience and thus laughing off mistakes with a group of people I already considered my friends as well as acquaintances with whom our degree of mutual familiarity was easily forgotten. In a similar vein, it was fun and somehow comforting to see that most of the attendees were some sort of combination of musicians and dancers. People generally knew how to clap along to the beat and feed off each other’s rhythmically accurate dance moves.
One of my favorite moments of the night was when a student accidentally became the leader of a dance routine he was partially recalling from our lesson before the event and partially making up. The group started with maybe five or six people, but quickly grew to somewhere between fifteen and twenty. Although looking around I only recognized a handful of people participating in this dance, it felt like teamwork. Due to a combination of these kinds of highly participatory moments and wonderful music, I had a fantastic time attending O Brasil’s Samba Workshop.
Deskchair Ethnomusicology 