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Carnival In Rio De Janeiro
And The Samba Schools

by Chris McGowan & Ricardo Pessanha
(
An Excerpt From:
The Brazilian Sound)

Every year, seven weeks before Easter, Brazil stops. It is Carnaval  time. For four days from Saturday through Tuesday, as a climax to the Southern Hemisphere summer, the country sings and dances in dance halls and clubs, on the streets and beaches, or wherever there are people and music. In cities like Salvador, the celebration may go on for seven or eight days.

The music may be provided by a three-hundred-piece escola-de-samba drum section, a horn-and-percussion band, or a spontaneous group of people beating cans and bottles. Some wear special outfits for the occasion, some don't. You'll see clowns, pirates, sheiks, Indians, and lots of men dressed up as women. On display are as many different costumes as the imagination can conjure. Women dress in sophisticated costumes or in very little at all—sometimes just shoes, miniscule bikinis, and some body paint. Carnaval is a party in which all that counts is joy, pleasure and frivolity.

Not every city in Brazil has an intense street Carnaval. In some all you'll find are relatively well-behaved indoor balls. People with less carnavalesco souls use the holidays to travel to places where they can relax far from the drums during the day and, if they feel like it, go dancing at night. But between New Year's Eve and Carnaval nothing really important is decided in Brazil. But amidst all the craziness and hedonism, Carnaval serves the important purpose for Brazilians of maintaining cultural traditions—encoded in the music, dance, and costumes of the celebrations across the country.


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