Since 1986 The Trinity Centre has been a home to samba for the city’s Afro Brazilian community, and next month it is set to host a huge carnival-like celebration dedicated to drumming, movement and song.
On April 16, Bristol Encontro will be staging the Centre’s first Tambor since 2019, providing a wide range of live performances, stalls and workshops, for all to experience firsthand the expressive dance and percussive rhythms of Brazil.
Encontro, which means meeting in Portuguese, serves to uplift the great Brazilian festivals of today, from São João to Carnival, as well as to pay homage to the exuberant movement and song that were first created by the slaves of Brazil’s colonial era.
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For local musician Terry Moore, forming Bristol Encontro was the perfect opportunity to create a community space to celebrate Afro Brazilian culture to explore how deeply rooted music and dance is throughout the country’s history.
He said: “The Encontro for Bristol is a new thing but it’s not a new concept. Encontro has been happening for many, many years around the UK and Europe.
“I was really heavily inspired by the Glasgow Encontro and even though we had the St Pauls Carnival, we wanted something that celebrated Afro Brazilian culture - Cardiff even had one.
“The first one in 2019 was at The Black Swan which was really successful, as groups were involved and they also supported us because they played for free in order for the event to happen. We didn’t have any funding.
“Obviously we went into a lockdown and coming out of that, there were also postponements. I think that’s why there’s so much energy around this at the moment because people have waited for two years for it to happen."
Alongside Encontro’s head organiser Terry, Peter Holthuis has been a secondary key figure in the promotion of the upcoming event. Both Pete and Terry say the team are looking forward to bringing Tambor back, after what was described as a ‘rocky two years’ since the pandemic.
Pete added: “There was a lot of appetite for the Tambor event since 2019 and there’s been a drought of creativity with the pandemic. People want to get involved and see live music. They want to experience something like this.
“It’s about bringing together the wealth of many different Brazilian groups in our region and in the UK across Europe. We wanted to expand it from the session in 2019 to include more groups and to try and cover a range of styles of music from Brazil.”
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From Samba, Maracatu, Afoxé to Capoeira music, this year’s line-up will be bringing an extensive variety of sounds led by a number of DJs, musicians and bands such as Afon Sistema, Ru Robinson, Carnaval Transatlântico and much more.
In addition, Tambor will be putting on several workshops such as dance classes, which Pete explained that the team may consider extending beyond the one-day event.
Terry said: “Since we have the additions this year, we’ve also invited London School of Samba to play and one of the only reasons to do that is because Stu and his team from Bath Carnival have sponsored Tambor and by doing that we’ve invited London School of Samba.
“We have financial difficulties, but because of the funding, we have the oldest school in the UK, and the original school of Samba - which is a big deal.
“We’re trying to reach out to the Brazilian community within Bristol and one of the ways of doing that is through Claudio and his Capoeira group. They are heavily involved in the community.
“There is also an after party at The Exchange, which is a community-shared venue which is important to us. We'll also have an outside space this year with local food traders, so it’s naturally growing and going upwards for us.”
With Tambor holding 700 attendees on the day, including a whopping 200 performers who will be making guest appearances, Pete and Terry hope that the event can create an environment of inclusion where not only can all people enjoy themselves but also take advantage of the opportunity to learn.
Pete said: “All the groups, including ours at Bloco B, are running classes for beginners or intermediates, which is part of the Brazilian School of Samba style where they will run workshops and classes for their community in the build up for Carnaval.
“It’s a real tradition to do this so it’s an ample opportunity for people to attend classes in drumming or dancing. We have a lot of creatives in Bristol and Tambor would be no different for people here who love to learn.”
Terry added: ”Bristol is so vibrant and people are open to going to different things - so if you host something like this, it’s a platform to educate people on what this music is, which will hugely benefit Bristol.
“It’s really important to mention that Tambor means ‘drum’ but it’s not just about drums, it’s about singing, dance, movement and drums altogether. For Bristol, I think it’s important to show this exists and we do it justice.”
Plans to become 'citywide' event
Despite fighting for visibility with a limited budget, Terry and Pete hope with the community’s rising support, Bristol Encontro can both thrive and survive in the years to come, by using Tambor as a symbol for the rhythmical richness of Brazil.
Terry said: “The future of this event is hopefully for it to grow into a citywide event and have it over the weekend and for us to host in multiple venues and spaces including outdoor spaces so some of the groups can parade and play outside.
“That means applying for more funding but this is just the seed we planted and we’ll just have to watch it grow hopefully in the next X amount of years.”
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