FESTIVAL MED 2015

If I’m in Portugal in the end of June there’s no way I’m gonna miss this Festival. It’s a World Music Festival where bands and singers from the 4 corners of our Planet come to share their talents and culture. It’s also the perfect meeting point for friends that we don’t get to see for a long time. Yep, it’s in my hometown Loulé.

Old Town is pretty well preserved and the festival organization closes this area for 3 days so we can travel around the World with delicious cuisine and drinks, amazing music, inspiring crafts and so on. My fave program here is to arrive when doors open at 7pm, walk around the narrow streets for an hour and admire the stalls with handmade goodies directly from the World. Then, go for some dinner, usually a greek vegetarian kebab. After my stomach is happy, it’s time to get ride of all those calories and energies accumulated during the week and dance! There are 6 stages going on at the same time, sometimes is so hard to choose only one. This year my heart went to Babylon Circus and Skip&Die both palyed on Thursday. Usually my favorite day of the festival since there’s not many people and somehow musical bands are better.

PUSHKAR FAIR IN INDIA

Today I bring you a bit more of Indian Culture but this time thru the eyes of Sashin Kaushik. This amateur photographer from Jaipur (India) quit his engineering course to follow his dream of being a photographer. 

I support arts and talented beings who had the guts to fight against what society wants you to be, to live an happy life being yourself and doing what you really want.   

Sashin is the author of all photography and text that is coming. I was present in Pushkar Fair 2011 and I highly recommend this event! This is also a glimpse into indian lifestyle, rituals and culture. Enjoy :)

BOOM FESTIVAL 2014 [DANCE TEMPLE]

 

This is the last post on Boom Festival Series, you can find the other related posts here: Boom Festival 2014 by day and Boom Festival 2014 by night.

Today I'll tell you all about the main floor of this festival, known as Dance Temple or by my crew Dance Flower :)

The organization is so amazing that when you think it's impossible to come out with a better idea for decoration, bang! they bring something even more amazing. This year they got inspired by Sagrada Familia, the huge cathedral that is situated in Barcelona, built in 1882 by the talented Antoni Gaudí. This artist gave expression to his deep admiration for the organic forms and designed a monumental metaphor of the perfection and complexity of nature.

BOOM FESTIVAL 2014 [BY NIGHT]

This is the second part of Boom Festival series, you can check the first part "Boom Festival by day" here.

Even though I prefer to sleep at night when "living" in Boom Land, there's a beautiful magic going on during night time. I prefer to sleep at night because usually the music in the dance floor is too agressive or too hard for me, they call it the dark psy trance. (why different kinds of trance? trance is one!) The other reason is that when I sleep at night 5 hours I rest better then sleeping 8 hours during the day, no time wasting at Boom! :)

BOOM FESTIVAL 2014 [DAY TIME]

I'm back with a Festival post! If you are around for a while you discovered my passion for festivals right? But Boom Festival is special, is more then a festival, it's a festival that turned into a village, where we live in harmony and sustainable for a week.

I had an hard time chosing the pictures for this post, I took around 200 and I wanted to post 50 haha don't worry I decided to divide one post in three, so you will read today Boom Festival (by day), Boom Festival (by night) and a special attention to the main dance floor, Boom Festival (Dance Temple). Besides showing my pictures I'll talk about this festival and you will understand why I set going to Boom Festival as a priority in 2014, including it on my Goals List 2014.

FESTIVAL MED 2014

Me with two friends pretty talented: Menau and Renato Brito

Four intense nights this week to celebrate Festival MED in the historical area of my hometown Loulé. It's a celebration of cultures, world music, handmade beauties and delicious food.

If I'm in Portugal on June I have to go! This year I enjoyed full on Thursday, went back home pretty late, barely walking, my legs and feet were so tired but my soul was alive and happy :)

It's turning a comercial festival which takes off all the essence. Also the organization should be more careful when choosing the last musical groups, Friday and Saturday was bad bad bad. But hey! I'm not complaining, organizing a festival like this is madness, so much to do, to think... I mean 5 or 6 stages going on at the same time... I prefer years ago when was only 3 stages (church, castle and university) but all good, I got the chance to see friends I haven't seen literally for years, it's beautiful to connect with them again. Such an honour to watch five friends on stage the last night and a bunch of people claping hands and dancing along.

BUNDI FESTIVAL IN INDIA

VIVA A MÃE SOBERANA

After 1 week of posting every day, unconsciously, I took a break this weekend of electronics. It feels so good to be offline for a while, I felt way more productive.

I was pretty busy this weekend though. Saturday celebrated two friends birthday parties and Sunday was Mãe Soberana party. Although is a religious party, it's one of my favorites and if I'm in Portugal I will attend.

Mãe Soberana is the Mother of Loulé (one of my hometowns) and she's right there above. Every year, there's a traditional party where many people follow her from one church to the other church up hill. There are 8 strong men who bring her, a band and many people holding arms tight in order to give strengh to reach the destination. The priest will talk for some minutes and then the band goes down and again everybody following, jumping and singing.

SHORE TO SHORE FESTIVAL PARADE

We are in Essaouira right now and seems we made a good choice for a place to relax. The city is pretty chilled with a nice Medina (comparing with Marrekech is way smaller but is more open, feels more fresh), beach, portuguese castle (geeez portuguese history is all around) and it's mostly famous for kitesurf and windsurf pratice.

I love when I'm in a foreign place and there's a festival or a traditional party going on. I heard that Essaouira offers many festivals, esp. during Summer. It's a cultural and artistic area, just look around you and you see paintings, music, theatre around you.

CARNIVAL CAME TO TOWN

I'm crazy about Carnival. Since I'm a baby I see my parents playing Carnival with their friends and this celebration pass thru all generations, one day if I have kids I hope they do the same!

Ok, nothing comparing with the famous and awesome Rio de Janeiro in Brazil Carnival (where everything started) but our Carnival is also full of joy, confetti, costumes, singing and dancing brazilian songs.

The costume part reminds me a bit of Halloween but the biggest diference is Halloween is one day and Carnival FOUR DAYS! I mean, four days and nights :) It starts on Friday with the schools, all the children on their costumes and as groups give rounds and rounds in Loulé's main avenue, where the Carnival takes place. At night party until the sun rises. Saturday until Tuesday is non-stop singing and dancing, 24 hours. Believe me when it's Tuesday there's no energy anymore but everybody has a big smile in their faces.

RAINBOW SERPENT FESTIVAL 2012 (AUSTRALIA): WHEN YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE

 *DREAM BIG, REACH THE STARS* I support any big or small dreams. Dreams keep us with faith in life, appeal to your imagination and creativity, some dreams change, some not but if you really believe and really want to, they will become true.

I'm grateful for this life but oh man! Why born during the Winter time when you live close to the beach? My birthday parties were always indoors, with lotsa food, candy, sodas and a princess cake and a bunch of friends and cousins playing all around the house. But cold and rainy. My childhood best friend's bday was on August, usually a pool party and it was so much fun!!

TRANSYLVANIA CALLING FESTIVAL 2013 (ROMANIA)

It took me a while to post these pictures but I was waiting for Viktor to send them to me. I know, shame on me, I haven't take any pic, not even one, but my brazilian friends had profissional cameras and were very happy taking pictures of everyone so I left this "job" for them (good excuse for my lazyness)

It was a pleasure to be part of the tribe of Transylvania Calling Festival 2013, August 19th - 26th, I've made such strong connections with such beautiful beings. It's the difference between twenty thousand people and two thousand in a festival, you get to see your friends more often and share more moments together. It was also great that I met up old friends from Portugal, these seconds you freeze and then make a huge smile and hug them. The Festival was free for portuguese so can you imagine how many portuguese in one spot?? I totally forgot we were in Romania, I could listen portuguese everywhere.

Our shanti shanti camping site covered with smiley and happy portugueses, brazilians and one german :D It was lots of fun!