Baque Luar - NNF 2024
Baque Luar is all about the beat, and that is what their first visit to Norwich will be remembered for, long after this year's Norfolk & Norwich Festival has ended.
London-based collective Baque Luar certainly ensured that the last of this year's 'Speigeltent Lates' provided the Festival Gardens audience with a rousing evening to remember. Although one more day of daytime events remains, including an early evening chance to catch South American circus sensation Circocolombia in the Adnams Spiegeltent, the lovely late-night vibe of the Festival Gardens will now be put to bed for another year.
Baque Luar translates as 'Moonlit Beat', and although this diverse collective of seven female and non-binary vocalists and percussionists' arrival in Norwich may have missed the full moon by just two days, there was still plenty of energy waiting to be expended by an excited and anticipatory audience.
The set opens with a clapping song that reminds of the old Dixie Cups' hit 'Iko Iko', but is actually based on the sacred Brazilian rhythm of macaratu. Drums, shakers and cowbell combine with voices and handclaps to immediately get the audience dancing. And, after a welcome from collective spokesperson Lizzie Ogle, the singers' haunting harmonies take us into the next song, although that cowbell is soon back, priming the drums back into action, getting its own solo, and stimulating the audience into another enthusiastic groove.
Baque Luar's music and rhythm is designed to praise nature, and their powerful percussive force and joyous vocal harmonies are designed to reawaken our cultural imagination. The idea and motive is to make us care more for our living planet and all of its inhabitants. The title track of Baque Luar's album, Brilha (meaning 'Shine Bright'), draws its name from the rainforest and is based on the Brazilian Candomblé.
A slightly ambitious attempt to split the audience in two, and to choreograph a two-part vocal harmony for 'The Earth Is Calling' may have only been moderately successful, but no second asking is required to get the whole room dancing, abetted at one point by Norwich dance teacher Mariana, marshalling the whole room into a huge circle, and then into a tightly coiled rotating mass of bodies.
Other spectacles include a shake-off between ankle-bell clad dancers, a thrilling tambourine tap-off, and yet another extended cowbell solo. But Baque Luar is all about the beat, and that is what their first visit to Norwich will be remembered for, long after this year's Norfolk & Norwich Festival has ended.
PS Will somebody please bring Baque Luar back to Norwich before too long.
