![]() Rio is ready for the crowds: it has set up 34,000 portable toilets in public areas, and deployed a small army of sanitation workers, who typically clean up around 1,000 tons of carnival trash.Shadowlands introduces a variety of new factions with reputations to earn, but not all of them are immediately apparent. Hotel occupancy rates are expected to top 95 percent. The city estimates carnival will move 4.5 billion reais ($880 million) for the local economy. "It's all about life, about overcoming difficulties," he told AFP. His own school's parade will tell the story of Lampiao, a northeastern outlaw-hero from the 1920s and 30s who has been called Brazil's version of Robin Hood or Jesse James.īeyond sociopolitical messages, this year's carnival will be "a great expression of joy," said Adair Rocha, head of cultural programming at Rio de Janeiro State University. ![]() This is a time of light after the darkness." "This is a moment when Brazil needs to reaffirm what's best about itself, after a dark period for both politics and popular culture. "Carnival is a mirror of Brazil," he told news magazine Veja. It's "no coincidence" the region features prominently in this year's carnival, said Leandro Vieira, creative director at the samba school Imperatriz Leopoldinense. The northeast voted overwhelmingly for leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against Bolsonaro in October's elections. Many of the schools chose themes linked to founding figures of the samba genre, the Afro-Brazilian culture from which it emerged, and Brazil's northeast - the poor, majority-black and -mixed-race region that is the spiritual home of the percussion-heavy musical style. This year's parades mark a return to the roots. In the parade competition, the samba schools, which were born in Rio's impoverished favelas, assemble thousands of dancers, singers, and drummers and corteges of dazzling floats to tell a story on a chosen theme, vying to wow the jury.ĭuring Bolsonaro's presidency, the shows often included politically charged messages on topics such as racism, intolerance, environmental destruction and Brazil's disastrous management of Covid-19. ![]() Many in the carnival community are also celebrating the end of four years of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, a critic of carnival whose far-right policies were often a target of protest messages during the samba school parades. Rio is ready to party, after two years of pandemic disruptions. ![]() Millions more people will be watching on live TV.Īnd more than five million are expected for the iconic beach city's street parties. ![]() Officials are expecting a sold-out crowd of more than 70,000 people each night at the "Sambadrome," the avenue-turned-stadium where the 12 topflight samba schools will compete for the coveted title of parade champions. Paes, an avowed carnival lover, calls it "the greatest show on Earth." The festivities officially start Friday, when Mayor Eduardo Paes symbolically hands the key to the city to "King Momo," the jovial "monarch" who "rules" Rio for carnival. Whatever it takes to bring people that happiness on carnival day," said Rogerio Sampaio, 54, a prop master at the Viradouro samba school. We work until dawn, we sleep right here, we have no social lives. This year, the full-on festival is back - and the samba schools are racing to put the finishing touches on the sparkling costumes and over-the-top floats that are its trademarks. ![]()
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