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It was all colours,
music and sensual appeal at the Shell Hall of the MUSON Centre, Onikan
on July 27, when Brazilian Samba paid homage to Lagos, a city that
shares a bit of its culture and language. Titled ‘Por- Ai!’, the event
was jointly organised by the Brazilian Consulate-General and the
Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON).

Preceding the
performance was an alfresco cocktail for guests who had braved the
city’s notorious traffic to enjoy an evening of fun and relaxation. The
hall was filled to capacity, and had the event held the previous
weekend, as earlier scheduled, it could not have recorded better
attendance.

Femi
Adeniyi-Williams, Chairman MUSON, welcoming the audience before the
concert, said that the concert was organised to enable Nigerians enjoy
themselves and recognise that “MUSON is not all about classical music
but music in all its forms.”

Co-organiser was
the Brazilian Consul-General, Cesario Alejandro, who spoke on the need
to bring such a concert to Nigeria. In his words, “Samba along with its
rhythm has its roots in Africa. It started in Brazil about 200 years
ago and has become the most important cultural expression of the
country, the very symbol of Brazil.”

Mathew Holmes, the
event anchor, announced that the concert is part of ongoing efforts by
Brazil to promote its culture across the globe. “Everyone has a soft
spot in their hearts for Brazil,” he declared, proudly enumerating some
of the many attractions of the former Portuguese colony: “Its Samba,
beaches, football, women, carnivals and cultural diversity”

Ruffled six

The six member band
from Rio de Janeiro came on stage with two female dancers, who were
garbed in skimpy Brazilian attires of short ruffled skirts and tops
with bared midriff. The band captured the mixed Nigerian and foreign
crowd with music from its drums, guitars and native tambourines,
creating sounds reminiscent of Afrobeat and calypso.

While the lead
vocalist’s performance was not entirely deserving of rave reviews, the
audience was quickly infected with the performers’ enthusiasm and
excitement as members were cajoled off their seats by the dancers who
strolled into the audience to pick out audience members, who joined
them in the dance.

A la Brazilian
carnivals, the dancers retreated quickly for a break and emerged
bedecked in carnival attires with elaborate head gears with plumage and
colourful bikinis. Then into the audience again they went to treat some
of the male audience to shocking lap dances – a decidedly raunchy
performance for an event which had communicated no age restrictions and
which had children in attendance.

Though the event
employed the universal language of music and incorporated a short
interlude of Nigerian choreography (Performed by the Nitche dance
group) accompanied by a medley of Nigerian and Brazilian sounds, the
unfamiliarity of the language might have prevented members of the
audience from joining the band in song as they were repeatedly urged.

The event, though
it promised a variety of samba such as the classic samba, the Brazilian
Percussion (Pandeiro), the fast paced Samba, and the carnival Samba,
was not well structured, nor was it translated to enable the audience,
who were disadvantaged by the language barrier to be successfully
acquainted with the Samba as was expected. Thankfully, the performance
was not drawn out, enabling participants to commend it for providing
relaxation in less than a couple of hours.

Salacious dances

Speaking with
attendees after the event, it was surprising that many thought the
concert was well worth the N3000 naira ticket price. They expressed no
reservation about how the salacious dances of the scantily clad dancers
seemed to have been employed as a replacement for what the performance
lacked in variety of content.

Actress Dakore
Egbuson, who revealed that she was presently studying Samba, praised
the concert, “I thought it was fun and am glad I was able to come and
get a few tips from this. I have always admired Brazil and its people
and I see a similarity with the Nigerian culture.”

Screenwriter and
Director, Seke Somolu, encouraged the introduction of entertainment
from other cultures to the Nigerian entertainment scene, while also
expressing hope that more effort will be put into organising such
concerts. “We need more of this; though think it could have been better
in terms of musicianship as the lead vocalist was not on top of his
game.” His wife Omonor, one of the actresses featured in the stage
performance of V monologues agreed. “It was just OK. I expected more
Samba dances but they kept performing the same dance steps. But then, I
guess achieving the kind of performance I had hoped for would require a
lot more money than this (concert) did.”

Edosa Eghobanieio,
owner of Alalo and one of the organisations supporting the concert
revealed the difficulty in planning the concert, “It’s not easy to plan
an event across two continents as we had to do. But I do think at the
end of the day, that it was a good concert.”

Lawyer and
elocution expert Tita Young also expressed hopes that the concert
spirit will catch on, observing that publicity for many such concerts
is dismal and limited to the upper class, excluding the average
individual who has an appreciation for such art events. “Nigerians need
relaxing events like this, she concluded, “rather than for them to go
to Owambes where mosquitoes will bite them.”

While the Brazilian concert may be a novel and laudable initiative,
it is high time organising societies such as the MUSON ratified the
standard of the performances being staged. Nigeria may not often get
enough of the international dance and music culture, but the calibre of
arts enthusiasts attracted by such events, might be of the mind (and
rightly so) that the beauty of concerts such as the Brazilian Samba, is
better portrayed not in performances which incorporate immodesty, but
in well executed depictions of the better aspects of the music and
dance culture.