People

Bakari Santos arrived in California, hitchhiking the dusty and unpaved back roads of South America from his homeland of Brazil. A Biology major in college with an innate curiosity, Santos ventured throughout the southern hemisphere, at times landing at remote archeological sites and isolated small pueblos. After traveling for two years, he finally arrived in Los Angeles and landed a job with the Brazilian Consulate where his place as a tourist leapt to diplomatic status.

Santos immediately began to establish roots and embraced the variety and flavor as he became more familiar with the enormous range of the city. Exploring East Los Angeles, he discovered the music and dance of the Latin community. He also developed affinities for the South Central community and the Asian communities.

When you visit Santos at his home, a whisper south of Washington and West Boulevards, you will find Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Morocco spilling over everywhere. In his garden, guava and papaya trees flourish alongside a variety of other undetermined exotic flora. The walls of his home are drenched with art, revealing lands visited and relished. Santos’ own work -- which is, at times, personal, tribal and universal - covers many of the walls.

Santos is a master of many mediums: making masks from the palm fronds that have fallen from a discordant Santa Ana wind, etching with metal, using canvas, oils and brushes, henna Mehndi tattooing and making jewelry. His dynamic range even landed him a stint as a principal dancer in a Hollywood movie doing the Lambada.

Santos not only participates in art exhibitions in and around town but also straddles the world of Brazilian events as a promoter and producer. Coming up this December, Santos will be participating in a group show at the Bluebird Gallery in Whittier where several of his pieces will be shown.

David de Hilster founded SambaLa Samba School in 1994 and the Brazilian Street Carnaval in 1996 and has done community work for over 17 years.

In 1997, he started the World Samba Home Pages where he helped organized the samba schools from around the world.

Via the World Samba Home Pages in 1998, David founded the project later entitled "Unidos do Mundo" (United World Samba School) where he found Alexandra Pirotelli, webmaster for the League of Samba Schools in Rio de Janeiro (LIESA) Brazil. Together with Alexandra, David brought samba schools from 19 countries around the world to join up with Brazilians to parade in the Sambadrome during the day of champions to form the first samba school comprised by gringo samba dancers and drummers. There, David de Hilster became the first non-Portuguese native speaker to sing in the sambadrome along with Neguinho da Bejia Flor.  The project also had the support of the Brazilian government who applauded the project with a standing ovation in 1999. Other support came from Beija-Flor Samba School, the League of Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro, Composer and musician Martinha da Vila who wrote the samba for the parade, Bete Carvalho who admired David's work, and Carlinhos do Jesus who participated with Unidos do Mundo during the parade.

Through the years, David has forged lasting friendships with people such as Valeria Valenca and Hans Donner, the president's family of Beija-Flor Samba School, Alex de Oliveria (Carnavalesco for Vila Isabel), and Roberto who manufactures Contemporanea drums in Sao Paulo - all who have been involved with the Brazilian Street Carnaval in Long Beach, California.

In 2009, David, his wife Doris and daughter were honored during New York City's Brazilian Day by Regina Caze for their work with SambaLa Samba School and the Brazilian Street Carnaval. There David got so see the workings of the Brazilian Day in New York up close an personal hoping to someday grow the Los Angeles version in the growing phenomena known as "Brazilian Day" started in New York by Joao de Matos.

In 2010 on New Year's day, SambaLa Samba School became the first samba school to parade in the United States' granddaddy of all parades, the Rose Parade.

David de Hilster makes his "real" living as a computer scientist, artist and filmmaker. His documentary Einstein Wrong is slated to come out in 2012 and hit the festival circuits in Europe and the United States.

The Carnaval Artist (carnavalesca) for the event, Doris de Hilster does not perform herself, but her costumes are a very important part of the performance.

Dóris de Hilster, a Brazilian and native of Rio de Janeiro, is a natural-born clothes and costume designer. Dóris’ clothes and costumes have been featured and seen all over the world including a 2011 Honda commercial, the 2010 Rose Parade, the Latin Grammys, Dancing with the Stars (2 times), in the Rio Sambadrome in Brazil in the year 2000, and in front of celebrities including all the Fondas at Bridget Fonda’s wedding, and Carl Lewis’ 45 birthday party to name a few. Doris was honored in 2006 by a national tour of carnaval arts at the Fowler Museum at UCLA.

This lover of all things fashion first displayed her talent for clothes in a small store in Copacabana Beach in Rio. Her ability to spot the trends and what would be hot and what would not, attracted the attention of the owner who relied on Doris to make major purchase decisions. In 1989, Doris married American David de Hilster and moved to Los Angeles. There In 1992, Doris opened the doors to her first store and her first label: Samba Collection. First located in an artist loft in Long Beach, she soon moved her store to the main street in the heart of downtown where her fashions were recognized by many appreciative customers. She then moved her store to the Long Beach Mall. During this same time In 1995, she entered the world of the internet where her talent went worldwide. Today, Doris has hundreds of clients around the world from over 30 countries  and counts as her friends, Brazilian carnavalescos from Rio and from Sao Paulo.

Being a clothes designer, it was a natural for Doris to start making costumes for the samba group SambaLa’ Samba School started by her husband. Soon, it was apparent that her talent for design easily made the transition to the colorful costumes of Brazilian Carnaval.

Doris' costumes were also displayed on the biggest samba stage of them all: Rio's famous Sambadrome during Carnaval 2000. Her mestre-sala porta-bandeira (ballroom master and flag-bearer) costume were on display for over 20 million Brazilians to see.

Valeria Ruggieri is a Brazilian and native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is current reigning "Godmother of the Percussion" (Madrinha da Bateria), the top position in a samba school.

She is also the Vice-President, Samba Instructor, and Choreographer of SambaLá Samba School. We look foward to new directions and growing of this great organization from Valeria.

Valeria is a combination of looks and brains. By day, she is the CEO of (New Leaf Staffing, Inc) in downtown Long Beach. By night, she is one of the top samba dancers & Choreographer at SambaLá doing shows in and around Southern California.

Certified Event Planner/Producer and CEO - RioBela Productions, a Brazilian Themed Event Planning Company for Private & Corporate parties. http://www.riobela.com/

Producer/Founder - Brazilian Summer Beauty, a Charity Pageant to help the children of Brazil. http://www.braziliansummerbeauty.org/

CEO - New Leaf Staffing, Inc http://www.newleafstaff.com/

Valeria did not rise to the top in rush. It took many years of persistence and hard work. Entering the top samba dancer contest (Rainha contest) for many years, Valeria slowly moved up the ranks working closely with Doris de Hilster to improve her form. It all paid off. From her first show in Korea and Cambodia, to becoming the top SambaLá samba dancer since 2002.

Click here to go to her RioBela Production website for event planning.