We were at the sambadrome during Carnival in Rio 2003, and this man cleaning up the discarded costume debris after a samba school performance really got carried away with the samba spirit - the crowd loved his dancing and flag bearing and gave him a bigger cheer than one of the main attractions!

Actors from Nós do Cinéma, who starred in the Brasilian hit film 'City of God' and the acclaimed series 'City of Men' visited Liverpool Samba School in our home city. We had fun hanging out and playing impromtu samba at different locations around the city whilst showing them some favourite tourist haunts, and doing a photo shoot for the Liverpool Echo/Daily Post.
Shown here singing with us our samba enredo 'o Samba foi Viajar

Welcome to Rhythmic Uprising's March 2006 Video Pod. These Video Pods are meant to give our internet community members a glimpse of our progress each month. In this first video, director Benjamin Watkins speaks about his arrival to Bahia with 2 new iMacs and 4 new camcorders for the groups. He also describes the 4 events he and other RU supporters organized in New York City and Washington DC this past fall. He goes on to describe how he collaborated with Paulo Rogério Nunes, the Instituto de Mídia Étnica, Eliciana Liz, the Municipal Secretary of Reparations and two new volunteers from DC - Bill Delano and Judy Durkin - to accomplish a variety of things during Carnaval. The group captured fantastic images of Didá and were able to assist an Observatory for Racial Discrimination by lending RU equipment to journalists covering grievances in the field.

Un 'tit bœuf pendant la soirée de soutiens aux buccantropes, enfin dans le gymnase à coté :p
Tive Razão de Seu Jorge

Last month we visited Guanabara for the contest of Queen of the Paraiso Samba School's 'Bateria' (Samba School's are divided into sections and each section has a godmother or queen). Eight contestants strut their funky stuff in front of a panel of judges, including Paul O'Grady and Mark Almond. The ladies did the Samba School proud and showed great dancing skills and some sexy moves and in a very tight finish the judges were charmed by an African born beauty known only by the moniker - "TJ".

TJ is the perfect Samba School Queen: during the day she is Ms Arlette, an English and Maths teacher but at night practices her moves with Paraiso Samba School - that is, when she's not too busy choreographing dance numbers or appearing pop-promos. She's also the owner of one of the nicest smiles I've ever seen. There is no end to TJ's talent's, but you can get a little taster on her mySpace page..

We were honoured to have TJ as a guest on CucaBrazuca a week after her coronation. Nando Cuca taught her about Batidas and how to make a special, extra creamy and cold Coconut Batida, which from know on shall be known as the Batida de Coco TJ!

Batidas are a mixture of strong fruit juices with either cachaça or vodka. They are generally prepared in advanced and left in the freezer of fridge so they can be served cracking cold. The most popular mixes are Passion Fruit (Maracujá), Lime, Peaches or Coconut. However, Brazil is home to a few hundred exotic fruits with amazing strong flavours, so every region of Brazil will use different juices in the mix.

Batucada Amazonas With Fernando SEIXAS playing Samba Reggae in Cyprus 2006 ,with Anacelia & Nilton