My choir singing on the streets of Wellington

Last weekend, there was a big street festival called Cuba Dupa in downtown Wellington, and the Wellington Community Choir was one of the performers.

This is a huge festival with several different performance areas, and many varied performers all through both Saturday and Sunday. If you want to check out the huge list of performers and what they do, check out the Cuba Dupa website.

We were part of the opening ceremony. We started at the top end of Cuba St, and walked down the middle of the street singing a capella. We met another group who walked up Cuba St, and joined them to support a band called Grove Roots performing a song written especially for the opening. Sadly I can’t find a video of that anywhere. But this page from TVNZ has a short video showing us approaching the other group.

After that we had a singalong session, teaching the audience some of our songs.

Here’s a video put together by our tenor section leader, Roy, of us walking down Cuba St, and then the workshop. (You'll need to click through to our Facebook page to see it)

And if you like dance or drumming, here’s a video of our choreographer, Lala, who comes from Madagascar, teaching an African dance workshop, accompanied by the marimbas. (Click through to the choir Facebook page again.)

The Wellington Community Choir is a very active choir, and we usually do several performances over the course of the year, plus a choir trip. A few months ago, I posted about why I love being in a Community Choir. Check that out here.

We also featured in a news article recently about how singing in a community choir boots wellbeing. This includes a video of us rehearsing the same song we did walking down Cuba St, this time complete with choreography.

We’re currently working towards a concert at the end of May featuring NZ music, ranging from Maori waiatas to songs by popular artists such as Crowded House. Hopefully there will be some good video footage I can post after that.

And, going back to the original topic, if you’re curious about what else was on offer at Cuba Dupa, this Youtube video shows rather an eclectic mix, though it’s still only a snippet.