Carnival in Brazil
Carnival in RioCarnival in Brazil sets the standard for all Carnival pre-Lenten celebrations worldwide. Originally, Carnival was a pagan custom celebrating the arrival of spring. However, Christian culture was loath to relinquish the popular festival and incorporated it into their religious traditions. Brazil Carnival begins four days before Ash Wednesday, which is the start of the Lenten season. During Lent, Christians prepare for Easter Sunday by fasting or foregoing favorite foods and activities (the requirements vary for different Christian denominations). Brazil Carnival is a great way to cut loose and enjoy life before the restrictions of Lent are imposed.
Every Brazilian city chooses its own celebratory traditions such as masquerades, parades, feasts, social gatherings, and dancing. Brazil Carnival is famous for the sexy, rhythmic samba and rumba music and dance forms. Brazil Carnival has many parades, but the most elaborate are specifically designed to showcase plot-driven, themed samba school performances. To fully appreciate the complexity and artistry of the performances, it is helpful to understand the origins of the dance and even partake in samba lessons. Brazil Carnival performance participants delve into their roles with the help of colorful and elaborate costumes. Ateliers work up to eight months in advance making the costumes by hand. Bright parrot colors, feathers, beads, satins and sequins are typical materials used in Brazil Carnival costumes.
Of course, dancing and reveling lends itself to appetite building. The eclectic and collective tastes and flavors of the Brazilian people are reflected in their cuisine. Instead of blending flavors from the native Brazilian Indians, to the Portuguese, African, Italian, German, Syrian, and Lebanese immigrants, favorite dishes are pulled from each culture. Additionally, regional resources dictate what ingredients are used in cooking: In the north, fish and root vegetables are the predominate staples; in the south, dried meat is a frequent ingredient used in cooking.
Brazil Carnaval, the Portuguese spelling for carnival, will make an unforgettable event of a lifetime. However, to ensure it is unforgettable from a positive experience, and not a negative one, planning ahead is ideal. Brazil Carnaval is upheld as the premiere Carnival event in the world, so reservations and some research will benefit would-be Brazil Carnival goers. When making reservations, make sure you understand your hotel booking minimum night stay requirements. You should also keep in mind that Carnival in Brazil is a national holiday. If you are planning to visit Brazil with a day-in-the-life view, you might be disappointed at Carnival time; many shops are closed for the holiday. After all, who doesn't want to celebrate Carnival in Brazil?
The Brazilian Carnaval (Portuguese: Carnaval) is an annual festival in Brazil held 4 days before Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of Lent. During Lent, Roman Catholics are supposed to abstain from all bodily pleasures, including the consumption of meat. The carnival, celebrated as a profane event and believed to have its origins in the pagan Saturnalia, can thus be considered an act of farewell to the pleasures of the flesh. Brazilian Carnival as a whole exhibits some differences with its counterparts in Europe and other parts of the world, and within Brazil it has distinct regional manifestations. Brazilian citizens used to riot until the Carnival was accepted by the government as an expression of culture. That was because the Brazilian carnival had its origin in a Portuguese festivity called "entrudo".
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[edit] Rio de Janeiro
Modern Brazilian Carnival finds its roots in Rio de Janeiro in 1845, when the city's bourgeoisie imported the practice of holding balls and masquerade parties from Paris. It originally mimicked the European form of the festival, over time acquiring elements derived from Native American and African cultures.
In the late 19th century, the cordões (literally laces or strings in Portuguese) were introduced in Rio de Janeiro. These were groups of people who would go paradeing through the streets playing music and dancing. Today they are known as blocos (blocks), consisting of a group of people who dress in costumes or specials t-shirts according to certain themes or to celebrate the Carnival. Blocos are generally associated with particular neighbourhoods or suburbs and include both a percussion or music group and an entourage of revellers.
This "blocos" have become a big part of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival. There are more than 100 "blocos" nowadays and each year this number increases. Some are big, some are small, most concentrate in square and later parade though the streets and a few stay in the same place all the time. Each "bloco" has its place or street to parade and the big ones usually close the streets for car traffic. They usually start in January and last till the end of Carnival, so since the beginning of the year you can see a group of people dancing samba in any street of Rio in the weekends and during Carnival every day.
"Blocos" parade in Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, Lagoa, Jardim Botânico, and in the centre of Rio. Usually the people who organize the "bloco" write their own music, which is played at all time during the parade, along with old carnival favourites called in Portuguese "Marchinhas de carnaval", and sambas that have become classics. Some important "blocos" are "O cordão do bola preta", that goes through the heart of Rio's historical center, and "Suvaco do Cristo" (Christ's armpit in Portuguese), in the neighbourhood, near Rio's Botanic Garden. Monobloco is another bloco that has become so famous that their band plays all year round in parties and small concerts.
Samba schools are very large, well-financed organizations that work year round in preparation for Carnival. Parading in the Sambadrome runs over four entire nights and is part of an official competition, divided into seven divisions, in which a single samba school will be declared that year's winner. Blocos deriving from the samba schools also hold street parties in their respective suburbs, through which they parade along with their followers.
[edit] Bahia
There are several major differences between Carnival in the state of Bahia in Brazil's Northeast Region and Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The musical styles are different in each carnival; in Bahia there are many rhythms, including samba, samba-reggae, axé, and others, which are performed on a truck equipped with giant speakers and a platform where musicians play called a trio-elétrico. Massive numbers of people follow the trucks singing and dancing. The "Indian" groups were inspired by Western movies from the United States. The groups dress up as Native Americans and take on Native American names. Blocos Afros, or Afro groups, were influenced by the Black Pride Movement in the United States, independence movements in Africa, and reggae music that denounced racism and oppression. The groups inspired a renewed pride in African heritage. Want to go to a Carival in Rio visit: [www.carnivalinriobrazil.com]
[edit] Pernambuco
The state of Pernambuco, another Northeast Region state, has a unique Carnival in its capital, Recife and in the near city of Olinda with the main rhythms called frevo and maracatu and the Galo da Madrugada, the biggest carnival parade in the world considering the number of participants, according The Guinness Book of World Records, as well as in other cities like Olinda and on the island of Itamaraca. Frevo is a type of music from Pernambuco especially typical.
Unlike the Carnaval in Salvador or Rio, Pernambuco's festivities do not include competitions between parade groups. Big groups in magnificent parades dance side by side with improvised others. Troças and maracatus, mostly of African influence, begin one week before Carnival and end on the Sunday after Carnival up until Ash Wednesday. There are well-known groups with funny names such as: Tell me you love me, damn it, The Midnight Man (with a famous giant dancing doll that leads the group), Crazy Lover, Olinda's Underpants and The Door.
[edit] Minas Gerais
Minas also holds some important carnival parades, mainly in the historic, baroque stylized cities like Ouro Preto, Mariana and Diamantina. There are also other major carnivals in the region, such as the one in Pompéu. Carnival em Minas Gerais is often characterized by blocos carnavalescos (carnival blocks) with varying themes and fantasy styles, almost always acompanied by fanfares (having at least fanfare on practically every town is a musical characteristic of the state). However, Minas Gerais carnival received firstly influence from Rio de Janeiro Carnival (several cities have their own samba schools) and later, some Axé groups from Bahia came to play in the state every carnival.
Once a pagan celebration in ancient Rome, Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is now considered one of the greatest shows on Earth. Rio de Janeiro is known as the cultural capital of Brazil and was the capital from 1822 to 1960, when it was moved to Brasilia. The first festivals of Rio date back to 1723.[1]
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[edit] Parade
The famous carnival parade has been going on since the 1930s. The parade starts Sunday evening and continues into early morning Monday of the celebration. Until 1984, when it was moved to Av. Presidente Vargas, the parade took place at Praca Onze. In 1984 the parade finally found its permanent home, the Sambadrome. The Sambadrome is a large structure that was built in the downtown area, which includes several buildings that make a circular open area in the middle. In the off season, the buildings of the Sambadrome are used as classrooms for the local public schools.[2]
[edit] Samba Schools
The carnival parade is filled with people and floats from various samba schools. A samba school can either be an actual school or just a collaboration of local neighbors that want to attend carnival. Samba schools include: Imperio Serrano, Academicos do Salgueiro, Unidos da Tijuca, and Beija-Flor de Nilopolis.[3]
The purpose of carnival is for samba schools to compete with fellow rival schools, it is the climax of the whole carnival festival.[4] Each school chooses a theme to try and portray in their entry. The samba schools work to build the best floats and costumes to represent their themes, and to include the best music they can from their band called the bateria.[5] There are many parts to each schools entry including the six to eight floats and thousands of participants.
There is a special order that every school has to follow with their parade entries. Each school beings with the "comissão de frente", which is the first wing. The "comissão de frente" is made up of ten to fifteen people only, and they are the ones who introduce the school and set the mood. These people have choreographic dances in fancy costumes that usually tell a short story. Following the "comissão de frente" is the first float of the samba school, called "abre-alas".
Some of the important roles include the porta-bandeira and mestre-sala. The porta-bandeira is a very important lady who is in charge of the samba school flag, including making sure to not allow the flag to roll. She is accompanied by the mestre-sala, who is supposed to draw everyone’s attention to ‘his queen,’ the port-bandeira. Floatees, who are also important, are the people who populate the floats, also known as destaques. The floatees have the most luxurious and expensive costumes that can be extremely heavy. Along with all the floatees is one main floatee that is located at the top of each float. The main destaque dances and sings for the entire time that the float is on the runway.
One other aspect that is mandatory is the presence of the ala das baianas. This is a wing of the samba school entry that includes at least 100 females only. These women along with many other people do not ride on the floats as many others do, instead they are passistas, the people who belong to the samba school that do the marching alongside and between the floats.[6]
[edit] Balls
Besides the magnificent carnival parade, there are wonderful balls. Balls of every kind can be found in Rio including gala balls, balls for singles, and gay balls. The gala balls are the only luxury balls that are still around that can be enjoyed at the Copacabana Palace. Many different people attend the gala balls such as local socialites, soccer players, models, and international stars. The gala balls are a luxury event which requires black tie or fancy costumes. Besides the fancy gala balls are more casual and specific balls including the balls for singles and gays. Balls for singles are found at Copacabana Beach and a club called Scala. Gay balls are found at the Gala Gay at Scala and are open to everyone, especially for gays with alternative lifestyles.[7]
[edit] Street Carnival
As the parade is taking place in the Sambadrome and the balls are being held in the Copacabana Palace and beach, many of the carnival participants are at other locations. Street festivals are very common during carnival and are highly populated by the locals. Elegance and extravagance are usually left behind, but music and dancing are still extremely common. Anyone is allowed to participate in the street festivals. Bandas and bondos are very familiar with the street carnival especially because it takes nothing to join in on the fun expect to jump in. One of the most well known bandas of Rio is Banda de Ipanema. Banda de Ipanema was first created in 1965 and is known as Rio’s most irreverent street band.[8]
[edit] Music and Dance
Incorporated into every aspect of the Rio carnival are dancing and music. The most famous dance is the samba, an African dance brought over by the slaves. The samba was created by the African slaves mixing with the choros, street bands, of Brazil.[9] The samba remains a popular dance not only in carnival but in the ghetto villages outside of the main cities. These villages keep alive the historical aspect of the dance without the influence of the western cultures.[10] Other dances include the lundu, the polka, and the maxixe.
The samba is the main dance of Rio Carnival but it is not performed in silence. Music is another major aspect of all parts of carnival. As stated by Samba City, “Samba Carnival Instruments are an important part of Brazil and the Rio de Janeiro Carnevale, sending out the irresistible beats and rhythms making the crowd explode in a colourful dance revolution fantasy fest!”[11] The samba that is found in Rio is batucada, referring to the dance and music being based on percussion instruments. It “is born of a rhythmic necessity that it allows you to sing, to dance, and to parade at the same time.”[12] This is why the batucada style is found in most all of Rio’s street carnivals.
[edit] Instruments of Carnival
Before the samba gained the percussive style, it was played with flutes and string instruments because percussion was looked upon as corrupt. It was in 1930 that the shift came to allow for percussion instruments. There is an ensemble of drum and percussion players that are led by a man that plays an apito, a whistle used to control the music. The apito has three tones but is not very loud, so many leaders prefer to use referee whistles instead.
There are several types of drums within the ensemble including the surdos, caixas, repiniques, and tamborim. The surdo is a wide and deep drum that gives the bass drum foundation sound. The caixas is similar to the snare drum that gains it sound from the thin springs underneath the scin of the drum. Repiniques are just like the caixis except they do not have the sharp snare sound because they are missing the springs. Tamborims make similar sounds to the snare but are actually small cylinders covered with one tight skin. Not like any other of the drums is an instrument called the cuicas which is used to promote the melody. It creates is sound by rubbing a wet sponge alone a stick that is attached to the head of the drum on the inside. Accompanying the drums are shakers called chocalhos, made from metal, and ganzes, made from seeds enclosed in a cylinder. Little bells called agogos are used to promote the melody with two to five tones.[13]
With the combination of the parade, the balls, and the street carnivals, Rio’s carnival is said to be the greatest show on Earth. As the Rio de Janeiro handbook states, “The Rio carnival is probably the most famous party in the world.”[14]
[edit] Controversy
In recent years, the samba group Beija Flor has been dominating the competitions. However, its directors are accused of conspiring to win tournaments by intimidating judges. Investigations have yet to yield anything conclusive.[15] Also, the parade have also been pushing the envelope in terms of nudity. While female dancers can come out topless, judges draw the line when it comes to exposing genitalia.[16]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Virtual-Brazil, Brazil Travel: Rio de Janeiro History, http://www.v-brazil.com/information/geography/rio-de-janeiro/history.html. April 1, 2007.
- ^ Ipanema, Carnival in Rio_de_Janeiro, http://www.ipanema.com/carnival/sambodro.htm. April 1, 2007.
- ^ Samba City, Samba Music, April 1, 2007.
- ^ Roger Robinson, Brazil, Oxford, Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1997, p. 12.
- ^ William Alves, Music of the Peoples of the World, California, Thomson Schirmer, 2006, p. 295.
- ^ Ipanema, Parade, http://www.ipanema.com/carnival/parade.htm, April 1, 2007.
- ^ Ipanema, Balls, http://www.ipanema.com/carnival/balls.htm, April 1, 2007.
- ^ Ipanema, Banda, http://www.ipanema.com/carnival/banda.htm, April 1, 2007.
- ^ William Alves, p. 297.
- ^ Shanachie Entertainment Corp, The Spirit of Samba: Black Music of Brazil, VHS, 1990, April 1, 2007.
- ^ Samba City, Samba Instruments, April 1, 2007.
- ^ Samba City, Samba Carnival Instruments, http://www.sambacity.info/samba-carnival-instruments.html, April 1, 2007.
- ^ Ipanema, Banda, http://www.ipanema.com/carnival/banda.htm, April 1, 2007.
- ^ Mick Day and Ben Box, Rio de Janeiro Handbook, England, Footprint Handbooks, 2000, p. 4.
- ^ CNN - Samba groups strut stuff in Rio carnival parade
- ^ CNN - Nudity rules breached at Rio carnival
Bahian Carnival (Portuguese: Carnaval) is a popular street event in the Brazilian state of Bahia and is characterized for being a collective bacchanal. It began to evolve from the gap between social classes - street carnaval vs. private clubs - resulting in an inversion of the social order, a utopic celebration of equality in which the social divide is temporarily suspended.
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[edit] Festival's proportions
Two million people participate in the annual festivities that last nearly a week, immersing themselves in music and dance. During sixteen hours a day Brazilian popular culture reaches its maximum expression and Salvador’s local economy gets a boost of unequivocal proportions.
[edit] History
In 1950 Dodô and Osmar created the fobica, an open float adapted for musical presentations and the trio Elétrico was born. With it the participatory potential afforded to the public during Carnaval multiplied.
Shortly thereafter, the sound of the trio Elétrico became Bahian Carnaval’s main attraction. In 1969, Caetano Veloso’s song, Atrás do trio-elétrico (Behind the trio-elétrico) consecrated the old fobica for good as Bahian Carnaval’s number one draw. By that time the trio elétrico had already metamorphosed into a flatbed truck that doubled as a roving stage for headliners.
[edit] Carnaval blocos
Meanwhile, the carnaval blocos began to evolve and branch out into various currents of aesthetic, musical, and even religious manifestations. While the afoxés, whose members brought their Afro-Brazilian religious cosmology to the Caranaval procession by maintaining their African roots with the puxada do ijexá (a rhythm played in honor of the orixás or Afro-Brazilian deities), the flourishing middle class blocos mostly relied on carnaval music styled on Rio de Janeiro’s samba-enrredos.
Then the Afro-blocos emerged with an aesthetical proposal extrapolated from the Indian blocos, introducing some fundamental innovations in the process: parades revolved around themes and music was tailored to fit the occasion. During this phase, Bahia’s street carnaval was infused with the glamour and elitism propagated by carnaval clubs, initiating a slight reversal of the egalitarian ideal.
[edit] Bahian carnival musicians
With the emergence of new Bahian talent who continued to popularize regional rhythms, Carnaval became more of an organized affair though it somehow retained its informality and contagious spontaneity. The success of Luiz Caldas, Sara Jane, and Chiclete com Banana, along with the evolution of Ilê-Ayê and the emergence of Olodum played a part in transforming Salvador’s Carnaval into the biggest, longest, most itinerant open air show in the world. The upper and middle classes finally succumbed to the Carnaval –inspired ideal of racial harmony and by the end of the 80s the pre-lent celebration entered a process of irreversible debauchery. Street carnaval came to represent the collective identity of Bahian Carnaval.
By the start of a new decade, Bahia’s Carnaval became an institutionalized talent factory. The success of precursors such as Luis Caldas, Chiclete com Banana, Ilê-Ayê, Margareth Menezes, and Olodum heralded the convergence of Carnaval and commercial music. Slowly the northeastern and national music markets began to open.
[edit] Daniela Mercury
Between 1992 and 1993 Bahian Carnaval became the stage for the greatest success in Brazil’s musical landscape yet: Daniela Mercury landed the number one spot in radio stations throughout Brazil with her samba-reggae hit O Canto da Cidade. Her show broke public attendance records from Oiapoque to Chuí and she became the first exponent of the new Bahian sound to have a television special on her musical career transmitted on a national station, Rede Globo. Mercury’s stunning success radically tore down the preconceptions and barriers that Brazil’s musical epicenters had imposed on Bahian music with origins entrenched in carnaval.
Ironically, Mercury’s huge success on a national scale transformed her into Bahian Carnaval’s main artist. She reached that distinction long after having conquered a niche in Bahia and having participated in many carnavals.
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