Title: Off the Record

Author: Samara McDowell

In: Sport 32: Summer 2004

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, December 2004

Part of: Sport

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Those Fiery Latins

‘This Alda, I can't bear it, she never come in on the beat. Brazilians, they are hopeless, they have no sense of rhythm,’ Miguel grumbles, to Mabeth, who grew up in the Netherlands but whose father was Spanish: the Spanish, presumably, are acknowledged to have a sense of rhythm.

Mabeth thinks this is nationalism gone crazy, and will have no truck with it. Some of it may also be that Alda hasn't always been able to rehearse new material enough with the band; on stage she will glance backward at Jonathan, looking for her cue. ‘In Brazil we call it chicken eyes,’ Alda says, and demonstrates, darting her head from side to side in sharp, scratching movements.

At the festival in Taupo, there is a photographer from California, little and black and cute, with shoulder-length dreads and an American-sized attitude. His way of introducing himself to you is to throw his arms around you, tucking himself confidingly into your sternum (that's where the top of his head comes to). New Zealanders tend to be so bemused by this kind of behaviour they're charmed by it. Miguel is not. The photographer comes to one of Miguel's Master classes, and succeeds both literally and figuratively in getting in Miguel's face. Miguel orders him out; so the next time the photographer sees Miguel in one of the subterranean, neon-lit corridors behind the stage, the photographer says, ‘Hey how's that ego going man?’

Miguel slaps his face. Think of it: those hands, those slabs of teak. The shouting, on both sides, echoes around the whole ground floor.