Thanks to Prof. Indio we have pics and video footage of the event. You can check out his website at http://guanabara.ca/ for more information on his school in Canada. Thanks Prof. Indio!

We just had 4 full days of incredible workshops and batizado. What a week! Mestre Di Mola, Prof. Baiano and Prof. Indio came in for the event and added amazing energy to the event. Prof. Baiano conducted incredible music classes, we had an open roda on 24th and Mission and played a ton of capoeira!

But they weren’t the only ones to come visit us in SF! We had students from every single one of our chapters in the US and Canada join us. Chicago, NYC, LA, Seattle, Madison, Amherst, Minnesota, Winnipeg, and even Sweden. It was such a great event. But let the pics tell the story….

Here are photos from the batizado.

Wednesday, August 19th

• 4:00-5:15 Music Workshop ($10) @ Aceituno Arts, 2141 Mission Street, San Francisco 94110 (Mission District)
• 6:30-10:00 Capoeira Workshops @ Harvey Milk Center, 50 Scott Street, San Francisco, 94117 (Castro)

Thursday, August 20th

• 4:30-5:30 Open Roda @ 24th st.and Mission st., 94110
• 6:30-10:00 Capoeira Workshops @ Harvey Milk Center, 50 Scott Street, San Francisco, 94117 (Lower Haight)

Friday, August 21st

• 4:00-5:15 Music Workshop ($10) @ Aceituno Arts, 2141 Mission Street, San Francisco 94110 (Mission District)
• 6:30-10:00 Capoeira Workshops @ Harvey Milk Center, 50 Scott Street, San Francisco, 94117 (Lower Haight)
• 11:00-1:00 am Celebration for Mestre’s 50 years of capoeira @ Aceituno Arts 2141 Mission Street, San Francisco 94110

Saturday, August 22nd (Batizado)

• 10:30 am-3:30 pm San Francisco Batizado @ Harvey Milk Center, 50 Scott Street, San Francisco, 94117
• 10:00 pm-2:00 am Party at Pena Pacha Mama with Fogo na Roupa (Carlos Aceituno’s Brazilian Bateria) $10 at the door

***Individual workshops are $30. Each day there are 2 workshops. The first workshop is 6:30-8:00 and the second is 8:30-10:00. (if you plan on attending only the second workshop please get there at 8:00 to warm-up). Batizado without the package costs $60.

Getting to San Francisco from SFO or Oakland

For those of you flying in from out of town it is really easy to get to the city from the airport. The BART (The Bay Area subway system) has a stop at the airport and you can take that into the city. Go to this website for further info http://tripplanner.transit.511.org/mtc/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en. This website works for both SFO and Oakland. This website will also give you the routes for the MUNI (the san francisco bus system).

Housing

As for housing, we are working that out right now. Once we get everything settled which should be within this week, we will have your hosts contact you.

San Francisco Resources

Also, for those of you out-of-towners, there are a lot of things to do in the Bay Area. Here are some websites that you can check out that will give you some good places to check out.

http://www.sfstation.com/ (General san francisco guide)

www.yelp.com (Great website that will give you great restaurant and shopping recommendations)

http://www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/

We look forward to this years batizado!

Instructor photo from lasts years SF batizado (2008)

Congratulations to our top fundraisers!

First Place: Rebecca Calisi  Second Place: Todor Tzolov  Third Place: Laurette Garcia

A big thanks to everyone in coming together in this fundraising effort. This is proof that grassroots fundraising is as strong as ever!

If you are interested in participating or watching Omulu Capoeira Guanabara’s batizado go to www.omulu.org for more info.

I had no excuses. I was going to Rio. It will be my 3rd tour of duty.

Palhaço was in summer school and he couldn’t miss any classes without getting kicked out so he had to stay home. I called up a couple of my girlfriends (also capoeira students) and in 24 hours we had our tickets.

Angela (Manga Rosa), Vicki (Sabeginha) and Me (Andorinha)

So we were on our way to Brazil.

I was given no information about recording times, possible songs I was singing, or training times or locations. I had no information other than Professor Baiano’s phone number. That’s it. Hopefully he picks up…..

We finally got in touch with Baiano and were told to meet him at Cosme Velho to train a little bit with Mestre Preguica and Mestre Di Mola. As we get there we are greeted by all of the capoeira instructors from around Brazil. No students, just Instructors and Professors. And so it begins.

The training was excellent and as a capoeira teacher, it is rare to get to train with a group of fellow capoeira instructors. It was invigorating to challenge and to be challenged.

But I digress, This blog entry is about the music, let’s refocus on recording this CD.

A bunch of capoeira kids that joined us after training.

After training, we head out to Barra Tijuca which is where the recording studio is located. It took us about an hour to get there. We were sweaty and hungry from training and seeing that we would only get started at about 10pm, it looked like it was going to be a long night.

…….And it was.An awesome night but one that kept us going until 5:30 int he morning. We recorded throughout the evening. Excellent songs, on point bateria, perfect. However, I still didn’t have the song that I was going to sing. Mestre Di Mola spoke of this ’song’ throughout the evening but I still have yet to see anything. I was getting nervous but I have to have faith so I waited.

Finally around 2am I get the song. Baiano sings the lyrics and melody with me. For those that have heard any of  Omulu Capoeira Guanabara’s CDs you will recognize baiano’s voice immediately. He has a voice that stands apart from the capoeira crowd, it is incredibly operatic. One can easily consider him a prodigy. Simply said, he’s got vocals. As Baiano goes through the melody with me, I start to see that he is a stickler with details. He is a perfectionist and was not going to let me slide for a second. I get nervous. We decided that rehearsing at 3 in the morning was not going to get me anywhere. We finally finish at 5:30 am and it is at this point that I am reminded that I am not as young as I used to be.

Recording the 4th CD

Next day, I holed myself in my apartment in Ipanema. I practiced the song throughout the day. Later on I met up with Baiano and Indio. We hung out at Ipanema Beach and I, of course, continued to practice and sing. I had very little time to make this song not only sound good but also my own.

We met the next day to record. This time we met a little bit earlier because we needed to be finished in time to get to Lapa for the roda. This means that I cannot mess up because I will NOT be the one making Mestre DiMola late to his Lapa roda. We go through all of the songs and I was the last to go. I was ready.

A shot of cachaça settled some of my nerves and I was felling confident. Let’s do this thing.

BUT then Mestre DiMola flipped the script. He wanted Baiano and I to do a duet. Wait. What?? That is like trying to hang with Mariah Carey. So, ladies and gentlemen, it was time for my ‘A’ game. Take no prisoners. Let’s unleash the dogs.

It it turned into an experience that I will always remember. Signing with Professor Baiano forced me to push myself out of any comfort zone. He has got crazy vocals and an ability turn any melody into something that is absolutley poetic. It was truly a humbling experience but also one where I know that I let there be no boundaries on my own voice. It was then that I realized that I hold back quite a bit when I sing in the roda and I am not sure why. Singing with Baiano gave me license to unleash my own true ability.

The contributors of the 4th CD

And that is priceless.

Sometimes I wonder why I stayed with capoeira for such a long time. Sometimes I fell like capoeira is the boyfriend that I can’t break up with even though he can sometimes give me a huge headache. But then I am reminded. Capoeira brings me gifts. All the time. It brings me training with world classes mestres, recording CD’s, staying up till all hours of the morning with fellows capoeirstas signing capoeira songs and drinking chopp, dancing samba and pagode, and, of course, roda’s in Lapa.

Muito Obrigada, Meus Mestres, Rio, e capoeira!

We’re pleased to invite you all to our upcoming $5 Beginner Sunday on Sunday May 3rd! For those of you that haven’t attended one of our special events in the past, Beginner Sundays are your chance to try out as many of our classes as you like at an introductory level for just $5. This spring has brought us several exciting new classes that we’re eager to share with you all, and hope you’ll join us in welcoming our newest instructors and students to the Aceituno Arts community.

The Beginner Sunday schedule will be as follows:

9:00 – 10:15 AM –  Bhakti Flow yoga with Mike Richardson

10:30 – 11:45 AM – Capoeira with Monitor Palhaço and Monitora Andorinha

12:00 – 1:15 PM – Jeet Kune Do and Philipino Martial Arts with Sharon Cadabona

1:30 – 2:45 PM – Bollywood Dance with Seema Shah

3:00 – 4:15 PM – Pole La Teaze Poledancing with Shelly Lamb

Location:

Aceituno Arts Cooperative 2141 Mission St (at 17th), Suite 200 San Francisco CA 94110

(http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&q=2141+Mission+St+SF+CA&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=3u3oSZTBAqTitAOU1dj2AQ&ll=37.763217,-122.419088&spn=0.009279,0.019312&z=16&iwloc=A)

Each of our instructors will be teaching a class tailored specifically to beginners, so no experience is necessary, and $5 gets you an entire day of classes! Spread the word, invite your friends, and we hope to see you there =)

Questions? Send us an email at aceitunoartscooperative@gmail.com or check out our website at http://www.aceitunoarts.com