Samba and Carnival: History and Today

History
When the Portuguese colonized Brazil, they brought over a medieval tradition called entrudo where people threw eggs and water at each other on the streets just before Lent. Over the years as these Portuguese settlers celebrated entrudo, black people - originally brought over to Brazil from Africa as slaves - also started dancing in the streets simultaneously. However, the conservative whites did not approve of the blacks' dances because of their sexual overtones.

The dance that the blacks were doing was the precursor to samba. The accompanying musicians played drums and whistles, and by the late 19th century, the dancing and the music became more ritualized, and more accepted by the Brazilian society. Dance clubs were formed, especially in Rio. Today, the dance clubs have evolved into escola de samba (samba schools), which are featured in carnival parades with elaborate costumes, music and percussion band serving the school-chosen theme every year.

Carnival in Brazil today is generally celebrated around most big cities starting on a Friday night and ends on Ash Wednesday morning that marks the beginning of Lent. In big cities there are usually designated "stadiums" called sambodromo where samba schools compete against one another for the best parade performance. Besides watching the parade, rich people usually head off to exclusive parties held by private clubs, while the rest hang out in street parties all over the city. Every night during the carnival, the masses start partying in the evening until the early morning, drop dead, sleep, and get ready again for another night.

In Rio, samba schools battle each other in a big parade held at the Sapucai, Rio's sambodromo. The parade in Rio is nationally televised, and many visitors from overseas come to watch it. For those visitors who would rather dance in a parade themselves, the common consensus among Brazilians is to head up to Salvador or some other smaller city in Brazil where visitors are allowed to freely dance in street parades with local music bands.

Fantasia vs. Fantasy: why do Brazilians need the carnival?
Asking why the Brazilians need the carnival seems to be, on the surface, a redundant question. The common conception is that Brazilians have this eternal urge to party, and carnival gives the chance to the entire nation to stop working and go crazy for four days.

But this answer doesn't really answer the question "why". Let's try to answer this from several angles.

First, it helps to know that the Portuguese word for costume is "fantasia". The word for fantasy in Portuguese is also "fantasia." In English and other languages the words "costume" and "fantasy" take on more distinctive meanings. In Brazil, the costume IS the fantasy. Donning costumes, men cross dress as women, women as men, poor girls as princesses, white people as black people - reality is turned effectively upside down - in the carnival.

The "fantasy concept" is especially important for the poor people in Brazil. In a country where roughly 60% of the people are considered poor, the once-a-year carnival offers them a chance to forget about their miserable lives. For four days poor people may dress up like royalty - fantasy indeed - and dance proudly down the streets in their elaborate costumes.

This can be easily seen in Rio's carnival where most escola de samba (samba schools) are based in favelas (slums) Some of the famous escola de samba, such as Mangueira, Vila Isabel, and Madureira, for example, are named after the favela districts in Rio. Naturally, all favela-based schools recruit most of their parade dancers locally.

Getting back to the "fantasia", however, each costume, tailor-made every year, can cost many times or more the monthly salary of an average poor person. That is the admission price one must pay the escola de samba in order to participate in the samba parade. To many, the experience to live out the once-a-year fantasy is priceless. Therefore, despite the extremely expensive price, they will do anything they can to save money just for joining the carnival every year.

Some writers argue that the carnival helps keep social order in Brazil where the poor is the overwhelming majority of the population. Four days of carnival allow the poor to fully release their stress created by their miserable living conditions. Those writers argue that if there is no carnival, the poor may have to get rid of their stress by other means, which may result in more crime and social unrest. Unless one day the Brazilian government decides to ban the carnival for some reason, we may never be able to verify that theory. However, one thing is clear: getting ready for the carnival can be an extremely stressful event for every escola de samba. (To get rid of stress, you need to do something stressful first!) And that will be our next topic: taking a look at the elaborate preparation a typical samba school has to go through for the carnival.
 
Preparing for the Carnival: the schedule of an escola de samba in Rio
At the heart of every escola de samba is the quadra, which roughly means "a place for samba". From the beginning of September when spring hits Rio until the last day of the carnival in mid February, the quadra is where all the escola events and activities take place. The quadra mainly functions as a place for samba practices, but the esocla holds summer dance parties and other social events there as well. Since a major escola de samba can easily have a few thousand members, its quadra is usually huge.

A few thousand members may seem a lot but it is the norm. For a typical carnival parade, the escola de samba will feature twenty to thirty different groups, called ala (wing), and it is common for a large escola's ala to have at least a hundred people. While we usually associate carnival dancers to beautiful women wearing sexy, almost non-existent costumes, there are many other, different wings. The most hard working wing is definitely the bateria - the percussion band - a wing of three to four-hundred people that beats out the samba rhythm while the rest of the school have fun parading. Another popular wing is the baiana wing, featuring very energetic and old ladies spinning around in costumes particular to the Bahia region in Northeastern Brazil.

With some thirty or more wings to manage, an escola de samba must, first and foremost, decide what the parade theme for the coming year's parade. Without a theme, the carnavalesco (art director) cannot design floats and costumes, the sambistas (samba composers) cannot compose songs and no preparation for the carnival can ever take place.

In general, whatever theme chosen by the escola de samba, it must be related to Brazilian history or culture. This is dictated by the samba governing body of every Brazilian city with a carnival, but recently there has been some relaxation of the rule. (One escola in San Paulo even chose Internet (!) as its theme in 1999 carnival.) However, an escola probably lowers its chances of winning the parade when it chooses some non-Brazilian theme since the judging committee is almost always conservative.) Usually an escola de samba has decided to honor a popular hero in Brazilian history, or a storybook figure in Brazilian folklore. Over the years, Zumbi (a famous black hero that led numerous slave revolts during Brazil's colonial days) and members of the Portuguese royal family (that ruled Brazil before the independence) have been targeted frequently as carnival themes.

Once the escola de samba choses a theme, the sambistas go to work. By September, a contest is held to choose the theme song. Usually there will be two or three groups of composers competing for having their theme song chosen by the escola. This contest marks the start of the carnival season, or alternatively known as the harvest.

At the same time, the carnavalesco must start working hard to design the floats based on the chosen theme. Since there can be more than thirty wings, the art director will also have to work with each wing leader to ensure the respective costumes are done tastefully in line with the overall design philosophy.
 
By October, people who have signed up to their respective wings will have their body measurements taken for their costumes. From November to February, it is madness time for the entire escola: wing practices are in full swing, floats are constructed and costumes are made.  Nowadays, even though costume sewing is generally outsourced to contractors and they won't be delivered until just a few weeks or days before the carnival. There is always not enough time and everyone is full of stress, until, of course, when it is time to parade.

It is no surprise that when the morning of Ash Wednesday arrives, streets are empty and littered with trash, and Brazilians feel a tinge of sadness because the carnival is over. This after-the-carnival depression - so poetically portrayed in the Vinicius/Jobim song "Felicidade"  - permeates the country, but it will soon be forgotten when September arrives and the whole madness returns again.

© Copyright 2002 Ivan Chung. Last update: 2002/04/07; 21:46:48.