Austin Samba School : Learning with The Acadêmicos da Ópera

samba school os academicos da opera

I am back to school. Two weeks ago I started to participate in the Austin Samba School weekly meetings at a gymnasium located in the campus of a former Texas Insane Asylum now transformed into a State Hospital. The school is also known as The Acadêmicos da Ópera. It is a vibrant community of dancers and percussionists that dance and play for more than 3 hours every Wednesday. It is also a community of learners. The learning happens in a very intense way, by immersion into either dancing or drumming, and some cases into both.

gym

One of the things that surprised me the most, and that I really enjoy, is the very few overt teaching that occurs in this school. Instead of lectures or hierarchical teaching what happens at this school is peer collaboration and collective learning. Once you enter, even if you are a newbie you start to dance and play with the experts. You just join the group activities and start follow the collective action. In my case, I am learning to play the samba drums, or some of them to be more specific. The very first day I had to grab the sticks, the caixa drum (a kind of snare), and hang it over my neck with a strip. And then I had to form in line with the other members of the bateria (group of drummers) and start to imitate what they were doing.

bateria

The sound of the bateria is massive. Super loud. All the players wear earplugs due to the high volume produced by the drums. One of the challenges of learning the rhythms is that you are literally immersed in the sound of several drums and sometimes it is not as easy to hear the sound of your own drum. However, once you start catching the basic beats, it is great to fill part of that massive sound. The mix of drums is perfect and empowering. As a drummer one also has to be moving all the time, marking steps to the left and to the right, dancing samba in a bateria kind of way. Keeping the steps is key for learning to keep the beat. Furthermore, the rhythmic movements of the drummers provide a nice balance and camaraderie with the sophisticated choreographs that the dancers are doing. It feels good to be part of this communal rhythm and performance.

director da bateria

Members of the bateria, including newbies, form in lines creating a rectangle. As a beginner I preferred to be in the last line near other drummers who were also playing the caixa. In front of all the lines, the director of the bateria stands with a whistle in hand. He is the one in charge of telling the drummers (with coded hand gestures and whistle blows) when to do a transition, make a pause, speed up the tempo, or change the rhythm.

free dance

A similar process happens with the people who is learning how to dance. They form lines where they can follow the movements that the dance leader is doing at the front. I talked to some of the dancers and they confirmed to me that they are also learning by immersion and without any kind of specialized and personalized teaching. The only difference with the drummers, is that the dancers can actually enjoy moments of total free dance. At some points of the three hour samba sessions, usually during the last 30 minutes, after the practice of specific choreographs has been done, all the dancers are released to a free form of play. They can move freely without any constraints and improvise with their movements while the bateria keeps playing and practicing the rhythms.

samba school practice. drummer circle

As with other learning process there are moments of assessment. For the drummers and the dancers, assessment is needed in order to identify errors and honing the skills. Assessment is also essential for the quality of the public performance. There are several events such as the Austin Brazilian Carnival where Academicos da Opera perform. The first day that I went to the samba school, new drummers, that have been practicing during the past months, presented a sort of evaluation. For the assessment, they formed a circle, and each of them had to perform a certain rhythm. One of the directors of the bateria and two expert drummers were taking close attention to the rhythms and practices the drummers performed. Interestingly, although many of the new drummers seem to be doing good when they play with the whole bateria, when playing alone their sound was kind of weak and also out of tempo. Only few of the ones who were examined passed the exam and were selected to be part of the group public performance.

pre practice outside

I have started to arrive a little bit earlier to the weekly practices in order to have the opportunity to talk in a more informal way with the other drummers. When we are together playing together as a full bateria is  difficult sometimes to really talk and learn some of the tricks. Hence, it turns out to be quite useful to interact with people before the practice start. The informal interactions are peer-to-peer based and there open many opportunities to learn about the different kinds of drums and try new instruments.

caixa abd sticks

As I continue playing and learning how to drum with the caixa I will try to make some entries on this blog about the dynamics and the process of the samba school. So far, it has been an excellent learning experience.

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