With Carnaval just around the corner, I couldn’t resist posting this is an amazing time lapse video of Rio de Janeiro – the City of Samba – made by Keith Loutit and Jarbas Agnelli. The images are captured from Carnaval 2011. Muito legal (very cool)!
The City of Samba from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.
Brazil is an incredible destination – an enormous country with something to offer every type of traveler. And yet, for many people it’s an undiscovered experience – an unfulfilled ”bucket list” dream. Well, it’s time to turn dreams into reality! Here are 7 amazing reasons to begin planning your next trip with Adventures in Brazil. Start packing!
After many years living in the United States and an active advocate for Brazilian culture and traditions, it always surprises me how Carnival – the biggest party on earth – is misunderstood by the majority of non-Brazilians. Many people don’t realize that while it’s a festival, it’s also a competition which is hugely complex to organize. In this post, I’d like to give to you a better explanation of how Carnival works and why it’s considered to be one of the greatest experiences in the world.
Carnival is a Christian tradition that was historically absorbed by every country that receives Catholic influences. Carnival takes place 46 days before Easter. The religious significant of the tradition is to abstain from eating meat (fish is acceptable) from all meals until after the Easter. The term “Carnival” means carne vale – that translation for from the Italian origin means “farewell meat.”
As a Brazilian growing up inside the Carnival culture, I can tell you that not every Brazilian likes Carnival. Some people complain that the country as a whole stops for the festivities (which is true) and wastes precious time from a business/productivity perspective. But it’s important to remember that Carnival itself is as industry that brings more than 1 billion Reais and brings 400,000 tourists to Rio de Janeiro alone.
Every State in Brazil celebrates Carnival but Rio de Janeiro was the first one to be produced on a professional scale, with huge monetary investments and tons of media coverage. Every year thousands of people work for each school of samba inside barracões (storage wear house) producing the floats (you can see a big one with hearts at the picture on the top), sewing complex costumes for the hundreds of participants in each school. Some of the larger schools have more than 7,000 people!
The competition
Every Carnival with parade is a competition. Groups of people from a neighborhood start getting organized and play samba for fun, but over the years these groups grow larger and get more organized. They elected a President and create an entity to practice playing percussion instruments once or twice a week. The first step to creating a new school of samba is to form a bloco. A bloco is a group of people who come together organically and start participating in the street Carnival (not the official sambódromo but in the neighborhood streets) wearing a politically incorrect costume, usually a manifestation of some cause. As an example, in 2010 a famous clown was elected to the House of Representatives in Brasília – Tiririca is the name of the clown. In the following, carnival hundreds of people were wearing costumes representing the clown, a Brazilian way to make fun and protest with humor.
Once the school is formed and they have a theme for the next carnival, it’s time to think about the samba.
The Samba
Samba is a musical genre originally from the state of Bahia (in the Northeast), brought to Brazil during the slave trade between Portugal and Africa. The Brazilian slaves mixed the African religious traditions with their music, creating a true culture melting pot between African and Brazilian culture. Examples of different sambas are:
Played in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, samba-enredo is played fast and is written by a group of composers that use a theme as a guideline for the lyrics. Many samba-enredo will written but only one is choosen to represent the school in the avenue. The enredo is a written as a reflection of a political view, a historical event, or an local or international issue.
Axé music is played in the Carnival of Salvador – Bahia, played over trios-elétricos – a truck with a full band in the top and equipped with a high power sound system. In Salvador you can buy a abadá (a t-shirt with the logo of the musical group with a cool design that also serves as an entrance ticket for the event). To have access to the event you will need to wear the t-shirt.
Very similar of the carnival in Salvador, the micaretas are very popular in the north of Brazil. People dance behind bands and trios-elétricos. Micaretas can happen anytime during the year, not just during carnival.
During the samba-enredo process, the carnavalesco – the Art Director - will design the costumes for each bloco. Blocos are groups of 200 – 400 people, depending how many blocos are participating in the parade.
P.S.: To best learn even more about Brazilian music refer to a older post by clicking here.
The Alas
Alas are segments (usually with between 50/200 people) that wear the same costumes, they represent a historical fact in the chosen theme. During the Carnival presentation you will see alas, one after another that represent a particular perspective or angle of the bigger theme. Imagine if the theme was “The United States of America – from Thomas Jefferson to Obama”, one ala could represent George Washington and all the components of this ala will relate to the first President of the United States.
The Carro Alegórico
Carro alegórico is a truck made with metal and wood built to support a huge structure with lots of people on top. The floats can’t have an engine and have to be push by people (usually people from the school that want to have fun in the parade but don’t want to wear a costume). Below you can watch a video about a great carro alegórico from the school Unidos da Tijuca – Rio de Janeiro:
Each school of samba has between 50 and 60 minutes to cross the whole avenue, if it takes them longer than that they’ll start losing points. There are several requirements that a school needs to meet in order to score high in the competition. For example, the Commission of Front – usually 10/15 guys open the school parade, the allegories – the scenery organized at the top of the carros alegóricos and the size of the cars can’t be different from the ones already decided by the judges. The plot-theme – how the school of samba explained the theme in the avenue through the development of the costumes and the composition of the samba. Many more requirements will affect the scores given by the judges. At the end of carnival the scores will be tallied to determine the Carnival champion of that year.
I hope this gives you some insight into how Carnival has evolved overtime, as well as how it has developed not only into a great celebration but a top-notch competition as well.
If you’d like to participate in the Carnival of São Paulo, Adventures in Brazil can make your dream a reality! We have a tour organized and ready for Carnival 2013. For more information please click here.
One of the most important cultural symbols in the Brazilian culture is the “Festa Junina” – June Festival. This festival originally came from Portugal, a country deeply rooted in Catholic tradition. June is the month that commemorates most famous saints of Catholicism: Saint Anthony on June 13th, Saint John Baptist on June 24th, and Saint Peter on June 29th. According to anthropologists, Festa Junina started before the Christian era with the summer solstice, when the Celtics and Egyptians celebrated the end of the harvest season.
Quadrilha dancing in Oakland - CA
The native Brazilian Indians have their own celebrations during winter (remember that in the southern hemisphere the seasons are reversed), those celebrations were added to the Portuguese celebrations brought by the Jesuits. Brazilian culture by nature embraces and incorporates traditions and festivities from all over the world.
During the celebrations of Festa Junina, you will taste lots of delicious foods, like pinhão, Curau, pamonha, doce de abóbora, sweet-potato and manioc (cassava, yucca or yuca…depending on where you are from). All of these dishes are part of native Brazilian cuisine and incorporate influence from Portuguese dishes like quentão, pé-de-moleque, bolo de fubá and etc. We have our own version of the mulled wine with spices and small apple cubes.
Traditional Festa Junina flags with USA and Brazil flags.
Dancing during the Festa Junina is always the highlight of the festival. Usually you’ll see a theater performance where a single man is pressured to marry a girl because she is pregnant and her father expects him to take responsibility. During the performance, traditional songs are sung and everyone participates, including the families of the bride and groom, priests, police officers, and everyone else from the imaginary village. Watch a great Festa Junina dance performance below:
I’ve never met a Brazilian that doesn’t like music. One of earliest memories of my childhood is my mom singing a song from Ataulfo Alves called “Pois é” – “Pois é! Falaram tanto, que desta vez a morena foi embora…” Because Brazil is so big and receives influences from all over the world, the quantity of musical styles is just enormous. The most famous styles are Bossa Nova, Samba and Forró, some believe that the word Forró is a derivative of the English expression “for all”.
Here are some of the most popular Brazilian rhythms in United States and Canada. I’ve posted audio samples of each type of music, paired with a description and some examples of the most famous artists from that genre of music. Feel free to google the artists names to learn more about them and hear other samples of their music. Obrigado!
Bossa Nova
Bossa Nova started in the 1950′s by a group of young Brazilian students and musicians that were in love with North-American Jazz. Here is a list of famous Bossa Nova singers and bands: Antônio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Billy Blanco, Carlos Lyra, Claudette Soares, Dick Farney, Elizeth Cardoso, Bebel Gilberto, João Gilberto, Johnny Alf, Lúcio Alves, Maysa, Nara Leão, Pery Ribeiro, Roberto Menscal, Ronaldo Bôscoli, Sérgio Ricardo, Sylvia Telles…and more.
Samba
The roots of Samba come from the influence of African slavery, in Brazil Samba originated in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. It is a mix of various popular rhythms like batuque from the Bantos slaves and Portuguese rhythms. Here is a list of famous samba singers: Adoniram Barbosa, Agepê, Alcione, Aracy de Almeida, Ari Barroso, Benito de paula, Beth Carvalho, Bezerra da Silva, Cartola, Chico Buarque, Demônios da Garoa, Dorival Caymmi, Elza Soares, Francisco Alves, Jair Rodrigues, Jamelão, Jorge Aragão, Martinho da Vila, Noel Rosa, Paulinho da Viola, Pixinguinha, Zeca pagodinho, etc.
Forró
Forró comes from the Northeastern of Brazil where it is very popular and played all year around. At the end of the 90′s this rhythm was transformed and started to receive more and more attention from the Southern part of country and internationally. These are some of the principal singers/bands from this Brazilian rhythm: Luiz Gonzaga, Sivuca, Trio Virgulino, Falamansa, Flávio José, Jackson do Pandeiro, Genival Lacerda and more.
Frevo
This rhythm is most popular in the State of Pernambuco and the dancers use an umbrella during the performance. It’s one of the coolest and most colorful dances I have ever seen, during carnival frevo is played at all the parties. Some famous singers are: Gal Costa, Moraes Moreira, Carlos Fernando, Elba Ramalho, Alceu Valença and others more.
Maracatu
Maracatu is an Afro-brazilian rhythm played by percussionists that represent the Congo’s Kingdom, it is performed as street theater. It is played with a slightly different rhythm in Pernambuco and Ceará States, some of the most famous Maracatu players are Calé Alencar, Roberto Cruz, Abissal and Nação Zumbi.
Sertaneja
Sertaneja is the equivalent of country music in USA. Its roots stem from the countryside of Brazil and it’s the most popular rhythm across the country. A list of the principal bands are: Bruno e Marrone, Chitãozinho e Chororó, Daniel, Gian e Giovane, Jorge e Mateus, Leandro e Leonardo, Tonico e Tinoco and Zezé di Camargo e Luciano.
Afoxê
Another rhythm from the states of Pernambuco and Bahia, Afoxê represents candomblé - an Afro-Brazilian religion. The most famous Afoxê group is the Filhos de Gandi, they perform every year during carnival in Salvador (Bahia).
Repente or Embolada
Repente or Embolada is a rhythm where 2 opponents sing against each other like a competition; they mock and use bad words in the context of the verse. The music is based on the facts of life and making fun of the other opponent or making jokes, the crowd usually forms a circle around the Repentistas to watch the performance. The most famous repentistas in Brazil is Cajú e Castanha.
Lambada
Lambada is a rhythm from the State of Pará and comes from the Carimbó rhythm (see below). During the 80′s the French group Kaoma released a song called “Chorando se foi” (the original song was written in Spanish) and made the Lambada rhythm very popular in Europe, the Caribbean and United States.
Carimbó
Carimbó is a rhythm that reaches far back into history, from a time when Brazil was a Portuguese colony. The rhythm was created by the native indians. The colonizers called this style of music “the forbidden dance”, because woman used very short clothes and the dance was very sensual for that period of time. The roots of this genre were developed in Belém (capital of Pará State). The name came from a musical instrument called “curimbó” and is made from a tree trunk.
Choro
Choro or Chorinho is a Brazilian rhythm from Rio de Janeiro. Despite the fact that the word choro means cry in Portuguese - the rhythm is very happy and up beat. Choro peaked in the 30′s and 40′s and used to be played live on the radio. A list of great choro musicians: Altamiro Carrilho, Armandinho, Chiquinha Gonzaga, Ernesto Nazareth, Jacob do Bandolin, Paulo Moura, Pixinguinha, Waldir Azevedo, and many more.
Samba-reggae
Samba-reggae is a mix of Samba with Jamaican reggae, created in Bahia. This mix happened because Bahia is the city with the most Afro-Brazilians in the country, and during the 70′s the black movement emerged in Salvador. The result is a type of samba that reinforces the pride of Afro-Brazilians. The biggest representations of this style are: Olodum, Timbalada, Carlinhos Brown.
MpB
MpB stands for Música Popular Brasileira (Brazilian Popular Music) and is the rhythm that replaced Bossa Nova. It received influence from samba, pop, jazz and rock. Because Brazil was governed by a military dictatorship regime during the time when MpB emerged, the music was very progressive. Some artists have become successful by playing Bossa Nova and MpB, a few examples are: Elis Regina, Edu Lobo , Chico Buarque and Toquinho.
Funk Carioca
Funk Carioca is a rhythm from Rio de Janeiro that uses beats from the Miami Bass style. This music receives much criticism because the lyrics are usually full of violence and sexual references.
