BRAZIL CARNIVALS

BRAZIL CARNIVAL: PHOTOS, HISTORY, CELEBRATION, PICS, etc.

There is no celebration as popular as the Brazil Carnival, this event is an amazing explosion of joy that you have never seen or lived before, the streets are full of people celebrating all along the country. The party is everywhere, in every city, in every region, and that’s why Brazil’s carnival is considered, among all carnivals on earth, the most important and the most traditional.
Although the Brazil’s carnival has a core known as Rio de Janeiro, in where the most beautiful celebrations, costumes and dances are, the whole country celebrates this carnival in its own way. For example, in Salvador instead of organizing the marches of the sambas’ schools, the soul of the celebration is the “Trio Eléctrico”. It consists of a giant truck, driven slowly, which carries loud speakers of thousands of watts, and there is also, on this truck, a music band playing. Around the truck we can see a rope guarded by hundreds of policemen, this traditional structure so popular in the Brazil’s carnival is afforded by a private company called Bloco.

Each “Bloco” sales and wears different jerseys called “Abadá”, that allow the people who bought them to go inside the area protected by the famous rope; the bigger Bolcos, like the Camaleão, can host at least 4 thousand people dancing, drinking and celebrating. Another good option that this Trio Eléctrico offers are a group of balconies located along the path that this truck is supposed to travel across, from there we can observe the whole celebration, and then, go down to the streets whenever we want.
During the Brazil’s carnival, in Salvador, people use to travel to Praia do Forte, a small village which is only 1 hour away from Salvador, there the carnival celebration is organized in the beaches, people get their costumes and dance in the beach for hours during all night long.
The celebration of the Brazil’s carnival in the beaches is very common in this country, since most of the population adore spending time in them, playing soccer, dancing or relaxing.

That’s why when the carnival arrives, they choose the beach as the temple of their entertainment.
As we said before, Rio de Janeiro is also another popular city of the Brazil’s carnival, the tourists and the local people known as “Cariocas” called them selves lucky and privileged since, it is said, the action of this carnival is focused there. Rio is also considered a paradise, a place in where the green mountains seem to touch the deep blue sea, a place with a breathtaking landscape.
A long time ago, Rio was not related to carnivals events, but to the Christ, The Redeemer, located in the Guanabara Bay, a statue involved with the Brazilian religion.

As the time passed by, the “cariocas” gave birth to a celebration with the aim of challenge the nature in terms of beauty and glamour. Now Brazil’s carnival is known mainly thanks to Rio de Janeiro, since this region mixes an explosion of colours, music, joy and costumes that will remain in your eyes and mind forever. For those who live in Brazil, the carnival celebration is something strictly related to religion, and they must follow the rules during those 4 days.

At the same time, the Brazil’s carnival shows in the streets something very different from religion: sophisticated carriages, beautiful women showing their breasts and bottoms without not shame at all, fantasy costumes that shine under the lights of the Sambodromo and alleging songs which contain political and social messages. As we mentioned, the Brazil’s carnival is close related to politics, and that’s why the years of elections this celebration turns very interesting, this year the carnival celebration presented different “scolas” such us Leandro de Itaquera’s that openly sympathizes with the government opposition and as a consequence of that, this samba’s school received money from the public administration to afford their performance. In return, this political group obtained free and public propaganda of this scola that consisted of 2 giant dolls with the images of the opposition marching along the Sambodromo.

But the Brazil’s carnivals is not only politics, there are also many Christian contents in this event; in Rio de Janeiro, the samba’s school called Mocidade Independente chose as a topic to perform in this celebration something named “The life I asked God”. In their carriages they took a big image of the Guadalupe Virgin and a sculpture of the Virgin Mary, but the catholic church in that country forced them to be discreet about the images. And to avoid any kind of inconvenient with the authorities of this religion the members of this scola decide to cover the faces of both virgins.
But in other regions of this country, the Brazil’s carnivals has different topics far from religious ones, in San Pablo for example, the social topics are the most popular, the scola Rosas de Ouro chose a very complicated subject: the African population in Brazil. They represented this topic by performing the drama of the slaves in ancient times in Brazil, showing black people with chains and roped.

Brazil’s carnival is considered the most popular celebration of this country and that’s why every year, many tourists decide to make a trip to Southamerica to get mixed with the natives and enjoy this fascinating event. But when we talk about the Brazil’s carnival we have to name that “thing” that makes this carnival so amazing: its samba schools. Some time ago, the foreigners came to Brazil to be part of this carnival and march along the Sambodromo with the “scolas”, but according to internal politics, nowadays, the access of theses tourists is limited and in many regions of Brazil, it’s also forbidden.

SAMBA SCHOOLS

The most famous samba schools presidents (Rio Gande, Unidos do Viradouro and Unidos da Tijuca), who are also part of the Brazil’s carnival “special group”, explained that keeping the tourists away from their celebration is the best they can do for the event and for the samba schools. The main reason for this decision is the lack of Portuguese in them, as a consequence, the tourists can’t learn the lyrics of the songs properly giving a negative image of the current samba school. Other authorities have other kind of complaints, they say that these people ruin the choreographies and rhythm of the dances by taking pictures and making groups to organize their own marches.
Although Brazil’s carnival became extremely tough with foreigners this year, they still have the chance to attend to the auditions, which are often, open to the public and citizens from October till the day of the big celebration. Guillherme Nobrega, Unidos do Viradouro director stated: “tourists will always be welcome to celebrate and learn from our culture, but according to their participation in our samba school, we must agree there’s a jury and an award to win. Brazilians know how to sing samba and they don’t, the jury is aware of this and the work of a year can get ruined in just a few minutes”.

Is true that Brazil’s carnival is the most spectacular celebration of this country but anyway, it lasts only for a few days (less than a week and the dancers show themselves for only 80 minutes), most of the samba schools work very hard during the year by learning new choreographies, new songs and by designing special costumes with the aim of catching the jury’s attention.
Flavia Lima, main voice of Unidos da Tijuca, agreed with this negative decision for foreigners, admitting that the work made every year is essential to win the competition, and that in the last 2 years they got the second place since they had in their scola tourists who ruined their performance because they didn’t know Portuguese; “If they can’t speak Portuguese they can’t be part of our scola, we don’t want to lose more points again”.
Beija Flor is the most popular samba school of the Brazil’s carnival and they were the first ones in “taking steps”, they won this competition last year, and most of the school’s members admitted they could achieve the award since they kept the tourists away.
But not everything is good news in this carnival, during the years the local government of Brazil has been introducing many programs to eliminate drugs and prostitution in the country during this event, the number of pregnant girls grow in this period as the number of people infected with aids. But this facts have a straight contact with the mafia, that also afford many samba schools and political campaigns.

It’s said that during the Brazil’s carnival the mafia group known as “bicheiros” are in contact with different samba schools, this group is in charge of illegal bets, and afford the scolas with the aim of getting support in their marches. During the last Brazil’s carnival many samba schools showed in their marches pictures of members related to this mafia group, these members promote the illegal bets, prostitution and are the most well known drugs dealers of the country.
Brazil’s carnival has been involved with mafia, culture, costumes, tourists, natives, campaigns, etc, but as time passes by, is still connected with its roots and tradition, from evening to morning we can see people dancing all over the region; and the ones who have the chance to be in the Sambodromo, are part of the this magnificent celebration, an event we must live before we die.
Many people try to compare Brazil’s carnival with other types of carnivals, some say that Venice’s carnival is more sophisticated, due to its costumes and elaborated masks, and mainly because the action of this celebration takes place in expensive palaces.
Some others say that carnival is just a metamorphosis between candome and different Indian sounds, but no matter what, Brazil’s carnival is still the most popular celebration that gathers everything we need to hold a party: music, joy, alcohol, good mood and especially rhythm.

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