The FlipSide Big Top Tent and Stage is a great place to hang out and soak up the Latin vibe during the festival weekend. Featuring bands, dancers and displays as well as merchandise, it's the perfect spot to drink a capoeira and eat a brigadeiro.
The 2017 line up includes:
Luiz Moraes and Alvorada
Alvorada is a London-based group who explore musical influences from all over Brazil and include their own original compositions. Alvorada play a wide variety of styles from the irresistible swing of samba, from the South and Baiao to frevo, a carnival dance from the Northeast. Choro the classic Brazilian music that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century is an Alvorado speciality, mixing European harmony with lively, playful melodies and syncopated African rhythm and improvisation.
Amarea (appearing at 2pm)
Amarea's fiery mix of Latin Jazz and African sounds includes originals in Spanish and English. As well as passionate and romantic singing, coupled with great dance rhythms, you will get joy, humour and elements of theatre. Heavily influenced by the work of Jobim, Susana Baca, Louis Bonfa and Marisa Monte, Amarea features Daida Carbonell (Catalonia) vocals; Yuri Betancourt Garcia (Chile) guitar, Michael Baldwin (Felixstowe) saxes and Kieffer Santander (Peru) congas and cahon. Amarea has performed at Anteros in Norwich; Vamos Festival, Newcastle; New Cut, Halesworth; New College, Oxford, the Flipside Brazilian Festival, Snape Maltings. They also played at a Festival of Chilean culture in Barcelona and London venues such as Floripa, Bun & Bar and Hootananny.
Body Percussion by Alua Nascimento
Alua, a former member of STOMP is also a musician, teacher and capoeirista who studied classical percussion at Sao Paulo's Music School and Brazilian popular percussion and vibraphone at Sao Paulo's Music University. He moved to London in 2006 and started playing with artists and bands from all over the world. Alua runs workshops of percussion, samba-drumming, body-percussion and capoeira in schools, universities, prisons and youth centres around Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland and Holland.
Grupo Senzala - Capoeira
Lively displays of Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art and ritual that combines elements of dance, game and fight.
Pe-de-Jurema
The award winning Pe-de-Jurema is a folk Brazilian band that plays energetic rootsy music with a vast repertoire of call 'n' response songs and rhythms from the Northeast of Brazil. The audience is encouraged to sing and dance in a joyful celebration of rhythms like Coco-de-Roda, Baião, Maracatu and Ciranda.
Pe-de-Jurema has won the International Press Award in 2011 for representing and promoting Brazilian Culture abroad and has performed at venues including Wilton's Music Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank and Somerset House.
Theatre Train Singers
Hot foot from the Albert Hall, young Theatre Train singers from Lowestoft, directed by West End singer and performer Ashleigh Sendin will perform a selection of their repertoire. Theatre Train has been providing professional training in the performing arts for children and young people for nearly twenty five years.