Essential Questions

• How does Samba drumming represent Afro-Brazilian history and culture?

• How does folklore provide a bridge from one culture to another?

• How does Samba drumming and folklore arouse community interest and stimulate community participation?

• Did studying drums and folklore of the Afro-Brazilian culture allow you to see culture from the inside out, or rather from the outside in? 

Learning Intentions Upon completing this Module, students will:

• Define, identify and understand the role of folklore in American and Afro-Brazilian culture;

• Articulate how folklore provides a bridge from one culture to another;

• Connect to Samba folklore and culture;

• Develop Samba drum techniques and practice rhythms to express tradition and story.

Success Criteria

• I can learn about a culture’s beliefs through their music, dance and art.

• When I tell stories I will consider using different techniques such as music and rhythms to tell it. 

Learning Outline

This 2.5-hour module is on the Samba Drums: The Rhythms Of Samba In Folklorevideo presentation by Lorin Hansen. It can be taught as a whole learning experience, or in chosen sections as time allows:  

• 45 minutes: Launch Activity– What is Folklore?

• 15 minutes: While Viewing– Discovering Samba Drums and Rhythms

• 15 minutes: Post-Viewing– Oxossi, the King of the Forest and of the Hunt

• 30 minutes: Demonstration– What’s Your Orixà?

• 45-75 minutes: Making Connections– Finding Stories Through Drumming

Supplies for Pre-Viewing and Viewing and Post-Viewing Activities: 

Paul Bunyon (choose to read aloud one or two from this list)

Colored pencils 

Sketchbook or 2-3 sheets of blank paper

Afro-Brazilian Samba Folktale (Oxossi: How He Became King of the Forest)

Supplies for Art Integration Activity

Lorin Hansen: Tutorial Video: Rhythms of Samba (7:36 min) 

2 glasses with water filled to different levels (a substitute for the bells Lorin plays in the video)

Pencils or short sticks (a substitute for drumsticks and used to tap the glasses) 

Orixà Info Handout

Launch Activity–Pre-Viewing: What is Folklore?

[45 min]

[Learning Intention 1]

Procedures:

• Hook: 1 min chatstorm or class discussion: Ask students, “What is your favorite story from your childhood?”

  1. Why do you think you were connected to it?

  2. Did it teach you anything? Explain.

• Ask Students: What does the word “folklore” mean to you? Acknowledge responses. 

• Put the folklore definition up: The traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth. Tell them that folklore is about ordinary people and their beliefs and way of life. It lets us INSIDE the culture. Folk tales let us know a lot about what the cultural group has experienced and what they value. 

• Ask Students: Can you name any American folklore? John Smith and Pocahontas; the tales of Paul Bunyon; the Parson Weems account of George Washington and the cherry tree; the Sage of Hiawatha, the Abraham Lincoln ax story, etc. If students name Disney movies such as Cinderella or Snow White etc. explain that those are fairy tales. Fairytales are different in that they are magical characters, and written for a wide audience, mainly children, by an identifiable author. Folktales/ Folklore are stories with no identifiable author about day-to-day issues and are tied to one group who passes the story down from one generation to another. 

• Have students get out their colored pencils and sketchbooks or a blank sheet of paper. Explain that as they listen to you tell them the American folktale, Paul Bunyon (choose one or two from this list), they will draw whatever they are inspired to. They can use symbols; shading; shapes; images, etc. Anything goes. 

• Ask a few volunteers to share their art and inspiration. 

• Tell Students: We are about to watch a video featuring Lorin Hansen, a Samba dancer and drummer.  Folklore often shows up in plays, pageants, songs, dances, and tales and similarly, in the Afro-Brazilian Samba tradition, their folklore is embedded in their dances, songs, drum rhythms, and carnivals.  We are going to learn what the Afro-Brazilian drum rhythms teach us about their culture and beliefs.

While Viewing: Discovering Samba Drums and Rhythms

[20 min]

[Learning Intention 2]

Procedures:

• Read this introduction to students: Award winning (in both male and female categories!) Samba dancer, drummer, and naturalist Lorin Hansen founded Samba Fogo, bringing Samba dance, drums and the culture’s intimate relationship with nature to Utah. Lorin takes us on a personal journey of discovering Samba drums, and how that not only deepened her knowledge and love of Samba but also helped her better understand herself- who she was and where she came from. 

• Tell students: As you watch the video: Samba Drums: The Rhythms of Samba In Folklore (15:40 min) on a blank sheet of paper and with colored pencils, let your hand move freely, drawing random lines, sketches, symbols, shading, and patterning, anything goes.  It doesn't matter what comes out and onto the paper as long as it is an expression of what you are hearing. 

Post-Viewing: Oxossi, the King of the Forest and of the Hunt

[20 min]

[Learning Intentions 1,2]

Procedures: 

• Have students in groups of 3 share their drawings and discuss what they found most surprising, interesting, confusing, disturbing, or memorable. 

• As a class, discuss what students remember about the folk tale Lorin told. Acknowledge responses. 

• (Optional) Tell students that you are going to read them the Afro-Brazilian Samba Folktale that Lorin told in the video about the Orixà (Orisha) Oxossi, the King of the Forest and of the Hunt. Later we are going to learn and practice the drum rhythms associated with this story.  

Demonstration: What’s Your Orixà?

[30 min]

[Learning Intention 3]

Procedures:

• Tell the students: For our arts integration project we are going to learn and practice a few drum rhythms. These rhythms are played by the Afro-Brazilian drummers during the big carnivals you saw in the film. They come from a long tradition, and they help tell a story about Afro-Brazilian beliefs and way of life. 

• These rhythms are tied to Orixà (Gods and Goddesses at the heart of a religion called Candomblé (Can-dom-blay) . Candomblé practitioners believe that every person has their own individual Orixà which controls his or her destiny and acts as a protector. There is no concept of good or bad in Candomblé. Each person is only required to fulfill his or her destiny to the fullest, regardless of what that is. This is not a free ticket to do whatever you want though. Candomblé teaches that any evil you cause to people will return to you eventually. 

• Each Orixà represents a certain force in nature and is associated with certain foods, colors, animals and days of the week.  Pass out the Orixà Info Handout.  Ask students in pairs to discuss which Orixà they think best connects with their personality. 

• A person's character or personality is strongly linked to their Orixà. You may recall Lorin saying in the video that if you are visiting Brazil, a common question to ask a person you just met is, “What is your Orixà?” Ask students what they tend to ask someone when they  just meet them.  Can they think of anything similar in their culture that they have heard or ask themselves? Some North Americans say, “What is your sign?” meaning what is your zodiac sign. In China every person has a zodiac animal that is tied to their birth date.  Often a subject of conversation, the Chinese zodiac animals are part of Chinese folklore and are often used to explain people’s personality traits. (An option here is to have students further explore their zodiac signs and Chinese Zodiac animals.)

• Tell Students: While in Brazil, Lorin had a reading done by a Condomblé Priestess who told her that her Orixà is Oxossi, the King of the Forest and of the Hunt. Read the following paragraph that Lorin wrote about her Orixà out loud to the class: “The story of Oxossi relates to Samba. Samba carries deep ancestral knowledge that can lead us back home, to dance and live in harmony and connection with the Earth. The quest for this knowledge helped me realize different facets of myself – I was very shy before I found Samba, and my experience of Samba culture and my process of hunting for the knowledge contained within the Samba tradition, brought forth a part of myself that is loud, and bold, and not afraid. Not shy. I call this part of myself my “SamBEASTa” because when someone is involved in Samba they are referred to as a “Sambista” but I feel this part of myself is like a beast that Samba unleashed in me. When the Condomblé priestess told me that Oxossi was my guardian, it made so much sense, because I felt I was in Brazil at that time on a hunting quest, there to acquire “food” (knowledge) to feed to my (Samba) community.” 

Finding Stories Through Drumming

[45-75min]

[Learning Intentions 3,4]

Procedures:

• Tell students they are going to learn and practice a few rhythms. These rhythms are played by the Afro-Brazilian drummers during the big carnivals you saw in the film. They come from a long tradition, and they help tell a story about Afro-Brazilian beliefs and way of life. 

• Make sure each student has two cups of water filled to different levels in front of them so when you tap the glass one sounds deeper than the other. They also need a substitute drumstick (pencil, stick, etc.  ) Tell students that these glasses are a substitute for the agogoô bells the drummers play in Afro-Brazilian Samba. (Or students can clap out the rhythms as an alternative.)

• Ask Students: What do you remember from the film we watched about the connection of  Afro-Brazilian drumming to stories and folklore? Acknowledge their responses and add: “Underneath the Samba tradition is the Orixià (Orisha) (afro-brazilian deities) tradition and these are characters in African-Brazilian folklore. Each Orixà has a specific rhythm, a set of songs that go to that rhythm, and a set of dances. It's a very deep and old tradition and multifaceted and those rhythms and those dance movements that are performed in honor of these Orixà, they make their way into Samba and onto the carnivale avenue.”

• Tell students that they are about to watch a video where Lorin teaches the rhythms related to her Orixà Oxossi (Oshosee) and another Orixà called Ogum (O-goom), both very  prominent in Samba culture. Write or type the word Orixà for students to see and under this write Ogum and Oxossi.

• In preparation, ask students to reference  the Orixa Info Handout and have them find these two Orixàs. Ask two volunteers to read the blurb about each of these Orixàs out loud to the class. 

• Play the Rhythms of Samba Tutorial (7:08 min) and tell students to follow along and tap, drum, or clap out the rhythms.  Tell them they will be asked a couple of questions at the end about the story around the rhythms. 

• Get students to give you feedback on how they did? Was it easy, hard, fun? Now about the folklore story. 

  1. What would you say was the message of the story (no one right answer). Was there a moral of the story?

  2.  How do the rhythms associated with these two deities represent Ogum and Oxossi’s  personalities? 

• Tell Students: Folklore is the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth. The rhythms you just learned are part of this folklore and in Samba this is how they tell their stories. Through song and drums. (Optional: Play each rhythm again and have students play it back.)

  1. Ogum is the warrior: intense, vicious. The rhythm that is played for him is called Vassi. (4:51 she plays this rhythm) You can feel his energy in that rhythm. 

  2. Oxossi’s rhythm (5:40) Agaré is lighter. He is about harmony and community and observing your surroundings.

  3. Oxum- the beautiful Orixà of the sweetwaters (brooks, streams, lakes, etc.) rhythm is called Ijaysha. (6:20) Have them read about Oxum in their handout. 

• (Optional) Take this further by having students choose one of their favorite characters in a story and tap out a rhythm for this character. Perform by telling the story to a beat.

Invite students to “dig deeper” on these topics by providing additional options for research and reflection about Samba culture, folklore, and music.

• Explore that vast cultural diversity of Brazil:

• http://www.sambassadorsofgroove.org.uk/history-of-samba.html   describing Samba roots and connections to the evolution of Bass nova.

• https://worldmusiccentral.org/world-music-resources/musician-biographies/brazilian-music/

• https://www.afsusa.org/countries/brazil/

Blog Posts

• Symbolism of Drums and Percussion by Zen Percussion

• News Clip

• Ilê Aiyê- (Telesur Newscast with subtitles) Salvador da Bahia, in the northeast of Brazil, is the home of one of the carnivals' main and most famous traditional bands, known as "blocos", Ilê Aiyê. Considered as the first band of Brazil, all its members are people of African descent.  In addition to teaching music and dance, it also works in order to insert the youth into the labour market. 

Videos

• Michael Jackson: They Don’t Care About Us (Music Video with Brazilian Band Olodum)

• Jerusalema Feat Olodum Remix - Olodum is widely credited with developing the music style known as samba reggae and for its active participation in carnaval each year. Neguinho do Samba, the lead percussionist, created a mix of the traditional Brazilian samba beat with merengue, salsa, and reggae rhythms for the Bahian Carnival

• Banda Dida Feminina- All female Samba-Reggae band

Lesson Plans

• Folk Tales- Lesson plan from Common Sense: A glimpse of folk tales from around the world and from a variety of different cultures.

Articles 

• Guide to Samba Music: 11 Brazilian Samba Instruments (Master Class)

• Black Brazil Today: History on black soul dance movement that cropped up in the 1970’s in Rio De Janeiro. This movement was inspired by the US Black Power movement and instigated a necessary historical of Black Rio. 

Websites

• Samba Fogo-A Utah-based cultural arts organization inspired by the excitement and beauty of Brazilian music and dance. Founder, Lorin Hansen.