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 The first Carnaval clubs were founded in 1855.
They were called Great Societies. Today, the highlight of the Carioca
Carnaval is the grand Parade of the samba schools.
Many call it "The Greatest Show on Earth".
By Antonio Sepulveda
A shining festival marked by merrymaking and feasting during the season just before
Lent, Carnaval is drawing near... In case you haven't noticed, Carnaval is nowadays a
trademark of Brazil and one of the main tourist attractions in most of its towns and
villages. But no other place can contrive ways to raise Carnaval liveliness to such
proportions as Rio de Janeiro.
Cariocas (natives or inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro) also make cheerful use of
the informality of Carnaval to toss around their social and political grievances. It's a
good-humored protest against the quotidian tribulations and usual difficulties that are
typical of the daily routines in a big city.
On a Carnaval day you can look around and take in the display of the revelers'
quick-moving feet and wavelike swing; be dazzled with a sprightly bloco (a more or
less organized crowd of revelers wearing similar costumes, and dancing together in the
streets) or an exotic cordão, which means string (a much smaller "bloc"
encircled by a rope); and, above all, you can wonder at the spectacular samba
schools—actually, they're samba associations that compete in a two-day grandiose
sambaing parade for the Carnaval Annual Contest—with their sumptuous costumes,
magnificent allegorical display cars and contagious resonance to the theme sambas (the
theme samba is a narrative of "the plot" being presented by the samba school).
In the mid 19th Century, the Carnaval of Rio de Janeiro was called entrudo,
a word that comes from the Latin "introitu", meaning introduction, entry. Entrudo
first appeared in 1723, when migratory waves of Portuguese settlers from the islands of
Madeira, Azores and Cape Verde landed on the Brazilian coast between the States of
Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro. Entrudo revelers had a great time singing, dancing and
splashing water on one another.
In January of 1840, Rio had its first Carnaval Masquerade. Masks, mustaches, beards and
other trinkets were imported from Europe. In 1846, a lively round dance originating in
Bohemia, known as polka, was brought into the country. They had the first costume and
masked balls.
Later on, in 1852, Zé Pereira sprang up. It was a band that performed only with
percussion instruments led by José Paredes, a fun-loving cobbler. At that time, they
already had the usual musical instruments typical of the Carioca Carnaval: the
drum, the cuíca (it resembles a small barrel and produces a grunting noise), the tamborim
(a long narrow drum), and the pandeiro (an instrument consisting of a small
drumhead with jingling disks that are fitted into the rim, the "pandeiro" is
supposed to be shaken with one hand and struck with the other).
The first Carnaval clubs were founded in 1855. They were called Great Societies. Almost
all of them related not only to the history of Carnaval, but also to civic movements.
Since then other clubs have formed thereby originating the Carioca Carnaval, in the
European fashion, with masked people out in the streets, and costumed revelers and
"blocs" that today constitute a great popular attraction of colors and
amusement.
The summit of the Carioca Carnaval is the grand Parade of the samba schools.
It's a show in which the wealth of the melodies and the rhythmical beauty of the hoofers
blend with the splendor of the costumes and the magnificence of the huge and embellished
allegorical display cars. The samba schools Parade of Rio de Janeiro is known by the
imposing denomination "The Greatest Show on Earth".
The Carioca samba schools have their origin in the blocos of the entrudos
of yore. The first unofficial parade took place in 1932; the first official one came to
pass, in 1935, at a square called "The Eleventh of June Square" or simply
"11th Square". The place got its name in memory of the Naval Battle
of Riachelo, fought during the Triple Alliance War and won by the Brazilian Navy on the 11th
of June 1865. 11th Square used to be the site where, for many years, the blocos
would gather during Carnaval. Nowadays, 11th Square is occupied by the
"Samba Big Terrain", a cleared area created by the City's Department of Tourism
as an alternate choice for those that cannot afford to go to the Passarela do Samba (samba
lanes with roofed stands specially built for Carnaval contests and parades).
The first Rio samba school that literally popped into view was Deixa Falar (Let 'em
Gossip), founded in 1928 in Estácio, a neighborhood of the north end. The first parade
with bleachers, grandstands and ticket sales occurred in the Carnaval of 1963, on
President Vargas Avenue, in downtown Rio. Nowadays, parades are held on the Passarela do
Samba, customarily referred to as "Sambadrome" (a place for samba).
On the other days of the year, the Sambadrome functions as an immense regular public
elementary school. The Carnaval of the year 2001, the first of the 21st
Century, will happen between the 24th and 27th of February. On the
first day of Carnaval, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro symbolically entrusts the city to King
Momus who then begins his three-day reign over the fun and frolic until Ash Wednesday.
Momus, from Greek Mythology, was the god of farce and ridicule; a handpicked corpulent man
always performs his Carnaval role. (Ash Wednesday is the seventh Wednesday before Easter
and the first day of Lent, on which many Christians receive a mark of ashes on the
forehead as a token of penitence and mortality). Every year, Rio welcomes thousands of
tourists attracted by the mirth of King Momus.
Antonio Martins Sepulveda, a Brazilian writer, was born in Rio de
Janeiro. You can get in touch with him at Antonio_Sepulveda@directlink.net
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