Sea Horse - A Folk Street Show From The Brazilian Nordeste

Here comes another rare recording made by Teca Calazans in her native Nordeste. This new CD is devoted to the Cavalo Marinho (lit sea horse, hippocampus), a folk street show inspired from the celebrations of the ox found throughout Brazil, and incorporating elements acquired around farms and sugar cane plants, in close contact with the indigenous and mixed-blood culture, not to mention the inheritance from the French, the Dutch and the Portuguese who once lived in the region. This itinerant theatre form features a catalogue of 63 characters belonging to 3 categories ‹human, animal and fantasy‹ spreading over 66 acts, and accompanied by a band, called banco (from the name of the long bench where the musicians sit and play), which comprises six musicians: one rabeca (a violin of Arab origin), one pandeiro (tambourine), two baje (a scraper resembling the reco-reco) and one mineiro (rattle) players. The band is of prime importance in the evolution of the show. The participants of the banco are the first to enter the scene. They are the ones who sing, play and call the characters one after the other, and guide all the sequences.