Carnaval Rio de Janeiro street carnival & Sambodromo parade
Street Carnival guide: the Blocos
Bloco de Barbas
It started in 1993 when the Barbas bar(beard bar) where all the guys attending were bearded closed. The bloco continues today. As a trademark the have 2 samba songs, the play one when it starts as they are going and another when they are coming back, and they have a water truck to help everyone with the summer heat in Rio de Janeiro. The bloco makes its parade the Saturday of carnival from 2p.m. to 6p.m.
Carmelitas
Neighborhood: Santa Teresa Meeting point: Friday before Carnical at 6.p.m at the corner of Dias de Barros and Ladeira de Santa Teresa. In 1991 a group of fellow, while sharing a few drinks decided to create a bloco. As the meeting place was in Santa Teresa the reference to St. Theresa Carmelite convent was inevitable. Rehersals every Saturday before the parade, from 19h to 23h, at the corner of R. Dias de Barros with Ladeira Santa Teresa. In 20 years the bloco grew frightening some and attracting many others, what has not changed over the years is a tribute to the neighborhood of Santa Teresa, passion of its members, in music, t-shirts and carmelitenses veils .
Cordão de Boitata
Founded in 1996 in Rio de Janeiro, the "Cordão of Boitatá" has since then developed musical works with reference on popular festivals especially Brazilian carnival and "festas juninas" of São João . The Cordão of Boitatá consists of guitar, cavaquinho, vocals, percussion and brass instruments. There are eight members often swap instruments allowing various configurations in the search for a specific sound for each genre.
The bloco Voadora Orchestra emerged in Flamengo Park, the rehersals of the bloco on Sunday afternoons won great dimencion to become in culture attraction. Today the bloco is a part of the projects of the band where the musicians are involved in open presentations.
The only bloco of frevo in the carnival of Rio founded in 1997. The musical style frevo emerged in the city of Recife in the late nineteenth century, the frevo is characterized by extremely rapid pace.
A very good choice to find costumes, clothing almost mandatory to attend the blocos, is to visit the Saara market near Uruguaiana in the Heart of Rio in the days before the beginning of carnival the streets are filled with all kinds of accessories to create all kinds of disguises, in Saara market you may find hats, wigs of all kinds, mustaches, masks and many other options. Becose of this variety is recommended to have an idea of what you want before going into the stores, many people start planning well in advance their costumes or as they are called in Rio "fantasies." CLICK FOR MORE INFO OF THE STREET CARNIVAL
Carnival parade at the Sambodromo in Rio de Janeiro
Entire process of the parade. How it works
The parades take place on Sunday on Monday of Carnival, during both days 14 samba schools will make their presentation allong the Sambodromo. The puntuation to decide who is the champions happends on Wednesday and the winnig samba school toghether with next best 5 will appear again on Saturday for the Champions parade. Starting in 2012 the number of panelists will go from 5 to 4 variable, and notes now are limited between 9.0 and 10 points, allowing for the final score only the top 3 notes, also taking into account the possible penalties which could have dropped the participant school, for example, exceeding the 82-minute parade is penalized 0.1 points per minute.
List of items:
Front committe(comision de frente):
Unidos da Tijuca 2012
It is the first group of members on parade, the first of the cars responsible for introducing the subject of the song, with a limit of 15 members to develop the choreography. In the video you can see the last winner "Unidos da Tijuca"
Allegory:
Allegory reffers to the decorated cars each samba school uses to represent the theme of the song, the avarage number of cars in each school is 8. In Rio de Janeiro the size limits is 9,8 meters for height and 8,5 meters for lenght
Drumline:
The drumline is where musician playing percussion instruments are located and it is in charge of setting the rithm and support the singers. The avarage number of musucians in each drumlines is between 250 and 300.
Costumes:
For the item of costumes is judged beauty, integrity and creativity in the clothes worn by each wing along the Sambadrome. The costumes should illustrate the theme of music, it is also considered the quality and finishing. within each wing all costumes must be identical, otherwise could receive penalty. Besides the visual aspect costumes must allow people to dance and move freely.
Evolution:
For this item the judges take into account the speed in with which the group parades, if they are all dancing animated, moving next to each other and if they pass compactly so that for who is watching the parade have the feeling that the school is a single body, a continuous row. There is no requirement that all persons dance but they must move together.
Harmony:
To evaluate the harmony the judegs takes into account the interaction between the performer and members. The samba schools in which their integrentes can not sing or dance receive a low score.
Global:
This tem was absent for many years, being brought back to the Rio parades since 2000. It is actually an overview of the whole school, in a uniform manner, where a panel of judges evaluates the interaction of the entire school between the various topics.
Theme:
As a feature of the parades, the plot, often chosen at the beginning of the year, after the carnival, being valid for the carnival next year. Meanwhile, the people in chatge should write a whole synopsis that will guide the manufacture of costumes, floats and samba-composition plot. In this regard, the evaluators must judge whether the school has told his story during the parade.
Samba enredo:
For this item it is evaluated whether the samba is telling the story well, has good melody and a letter of interesting features, musically rich, and without defects or errors in language concordance. Sambas do not possess this characteristic tend to be penalized receiving lower grades. The samba of each school is chosen after an internal dispute at the school, where samba musicians or groups create their sambas, based on previously defined plot. After registering, compete, and for several weekends, some will be eliminated until only about a samba.
Master of ceremonies and flag bearer:
The master of ceremonies and flag bearer,in the samba school, are a couple that performs a special dance and must carry with grace the flag of the school. Their costumes looks typical of the eighteenth century clothe, But "carnavalized", that means, with an excessive amount of colors and decorations. At one point during the parade, they stop in front of the judges' booth to show their dancing and be evaluated. It is forbidden that both deem their backs to each other at the same time, and errors such as the drop of a hat or a slip may yield a loss of precious points. Currently, at least since the 1990s, schools of the Special Group of Rio parade usually have three or four couples but only the first of them is evaluated, the others being merely decorative, and optional. Typically, there to represent the school in certain events, when the main couple is unable to attend.
