As carnival kicks off this weekend, millions of people are will likely take to the streets and forget Brazil’s political and economic woes for a few days. During the country’s 21 year military dictatorship, however, censorship and intimidation meant carnival and politics were too closely linked for comfort.

By James Young
Belo Horizonte

The giddy souls who called for intervenção militar já (military intervention now) at Brazil’s anti-government rallies in 2015 should perhaps be careful for what they wish. For as the country prepares to swivel its hips at Recife’s Galo da Madrugada, Rio de Janeiro’s Cordão da Bola Preta and thousands of other blocos (street parties), big and small, it is worth remembering how carnaval suffered during Brazil’s 21-year military dictatorship.

“During the military dictatorship, just as with song lyrics, plays and films, carnaval did not escape the scissors of the censors,” wrote journalist Mariana Filgueiras in O Globo newspaper last year, in an article about the digitization by Brazil’s National Archive of thousands of historical documents from escolas de samba (samba schools).

While the dictatorship began in 1964, the military censors’ grip tightened considerably at the end of 1968 following the signing of ato institutional no. 5, better known as AI-5. According to this essay by Wellington Kirmeliene, writing in the History magazine of the Brazilian National Library, this presidential decree allowed the authorities “total and unrestricted powers of censorship, as well as practically legalizing persecution and torture, and, as a consequence of those acts, disappearances and deaths.”

During the period, Rio de Janeiro’s samba schools were forced to provide a detailed dossier of their carnaval projects, explaining and justifying the meaning behind their costumes, floats and song lyrics.

In their book “Pra tudo começar na quinta-feira: o enredo dos enredos” (“Everything starts on Thursday: a history of samba themes”, in loose translation) journalists and historians Fábio Fabato and Antônio Simas describe three episodes of government meddling in the country’s carnaval celebrations.

In 1967, the rehearsals of the Salgueiro samba school were monitored by DOPS (Departamento de Ordem Política e Social) officers, while in 1969, the Império Serrano school was forced to switch the word “revolução” (“revolution”) for “evolução” (“evolution”) in a song glorifying the 18^th century Inconfidência Mineira rebellion and the abolition of slavery.

And in 1974, the Unidos de Vila Isabel escola was pressurized into including a reference to the government’s Trans-Amazonian highway in a song about the rights of Brazil’s indigenous people.

In such a climate, it, was hardly surprising that, according to Wellington Kirmeliene, all the “elements of “planet carnaval” followed the jingoist message of the military regime”, with the majority of carnaval samba tunes adopting a highly nationalistic tone.

The chorus of one song by the Imperatriz Leopoldinense samba school in the 1970s, for example, described Brazil as a “a giant evolving and moving forward”, while another group, G.R.E.S. Estação Primeira de Mangueira, used nature to proclaim the country’s greatness “Oh, what a place!/Oh, what a place!/Everything you plant here grows/There’s no place like this”, before ending with the cry “This is Brazil!/This is Brazil!!/This is Brazil!!!”.

At the same time, many Brazilian artists used carnaval as a way of expressing their opposition to the military government, such as in “Marcha da Quarta-Feira de Cinzas” (“the Ash Wednesday Song”) by Vinícius de Moraes and Carlos Lyra. “Our carnaval is over/no one will hear the songs/no one will dance happily in the street/and in our hearts/there are only ashes and longing for what has gone,” ran the lyrics of the song, which was written in 1963 but gained added significance once the dictatorship took control.

And in 1965 Chico Buarque released “Sonho de um Carnaval” (“A Carnaval Dream”): “At carnaval there is hope/that those who are far away can remember/that those who are sad can dance/that those who are grown-up can be like children.”

As the dictatorship’s grip finally loosened in the 1980s, the carnaval sambas became more openly critical of the regime and the censorship that accompanied it: “I dreamt that I was dreaming a dream/a dream of a mesmerizing dream/of open minds/and no silenced mouths,” ran the words to one song by G.R.E.S. Unidos de Vila Isabel (again, loose translation).

This year’s carnaval, like others in recent years, is sure to be awash with satirical tunes criticising the country’s disastrous political and economic state. “Criticism through humour has been used for a long time in Brazil, even though it lost strength during the years of repression, with the (former president Getúlio) Vargas and military dictatorships, when there was less freedom…but in the last ten years it has been reborn,” the researcher Weydson Barros Leal explained in this interview with the Diário de Pernambuco newspaper from Recife, one of Brazil’s great carnaval capitals.

President Dilma Rousseff is likely to be the target of many of the jibes, as is the under-fire Speaker of Brazil’s Lower House, Eduardo Cunha, whose home was recently searched as part of the Operation Carwash investigation into the enormous bribes scandal at state run oil giant Petrobras.

One song that is already on its way to becoming a carnaval smash pays tribute to Newton Ishii, the Asian-Brazilian federal police officer who has appeared in TV news footage of many of the Operation Carwash arrests. “Oh my God, now I’m in trouble, the Japanese from the Feds is knocking on my door,” runs the chorus.

Other carnaval tunes, meanwhile, mock the paean to unrequited love that was the letter sent by Brazilian Vice-President Michel Temer to Rousseff in December, and in “Tia Wilma e a Bicicleta” (“Auntie Wilma and the Bicycle”), the President’s love of riding her bike. The latter is built around a play on words based on “pedalling” and the “pedaladas fiscais” (financial manoeuvres) on which the impeachment campaign against Rousseff is based.

While many younger revellers will give no more thought to what it means to have the freedom to criticise their politicians in this way than they will to popping open their first carnaval beer, it is worth remembering that not so long ago, speaking out in public was a much more dangerous affair indeed.

What if they put on Carnaval, and nobody came? A short work of fiction
By James Young

It was a glorious Saturday morning in Recife. A statue in the form of a multicolored rooster, the Galo da Madrugada, towered over the Duarte Coelho Bridge, streamers hung from the lampposts and on every street corner someone was selling beer, snacks or carnaval paraphernalia – rainbow-colored frevo parasols, wigs or whistles.

The VIP boxes that overlooked Avenida Guararapes were packed with local politicians and minor celebrities. In a box sponsored by one of Brazil’s giant beer companies, the mayor of Recife was talking to a young woman dressed in a halter top and a pair of very tight shorts.

“Being on Big Brother Brasil was just the beginning for me,” the young woman was saying. “Really I’m an actress. It’s my dream to be in a novela.”

The mayor bit his lip pensively and said nothing. He looked at his watch – it was already nine o’clock. What was going on? Normally by this time the streets were thronged with hundreds of thousands of revelers, but this morning there were only the beer sellers and a group of blonde-haired, pink-skinned tourists dressed in German football shirts. He gave an involuntary shudder.

He sipped his caipirinha. It was probably nothing. Perhaps everybody had drunk a little too much cachaça the night before. A few sore heads this morning. They would be here. The people loved carnaval. Everything would be fine.

By ten o’clock the Germans had been joined by a Japanese family and an American couple draped in the stars and stripes. Other than that, Avenida Guararapes was entirely empty. The mayor called his counterpart in the neighboring town of Olinda.

“I don’t understand it,” said the mayor of Olinda. “There’s no one here either. The streets are deserted.”

By eleven o’clock, even with free beer and caipirinhas, the VIP box had begun to empty. In Rio de Janeiro, the organizers of the Cordão da Bola Preta bloco, which usually attracted over two million partygoers, reluctantly announced that this year’s event had been called off as no one had shown up. In the afternoon the trio elétricos rumbled through the deserted streets of Salvador for a few hours before returning to their garages in defeat.

On Jornal Nacional that night, an ashen-faced newsreader described similar scenes across the country – cancelled blocos, deserted sambodromos and empty streets. For the first time that anyone could remember, on the opening day of carnaval, the people had decided to stay at home.

***

In Brasília, the president stared glumly at the TV. No carnaval? She couldn’t understand it. Sure, the economy had tanked, there were the usual corruption scandals, and there were water and electricity shortages, but was that really enough to cancel carnaval? The people loved carnaval! Goddamn it, she loved carnaval – axé, frevo, and most of all samba. Samba was her favorite.

Later that night she addressed the nation. She told the people that even though times were hard, they couldn’t let things get them down. There had always been carnaval. Carnaval was in their blood. Goddamn it, it was their duty to celebrate carnaval! She said “o povo Brasileiro” as often as possible, hoping to stir up a sense of patriotism, and finished off by saying that “God was Brazilian, and carnaval was Brazilian, so get out there tomorrow and party!”

The next day, however, the streets, the blocos and the sambodromos once again lay empty and silent. A survey showed that the president’s approval rating had fallen from 44% to 24% following her speech.

The opposition party was naturally delighted by the president’s woes. A television commercial was hastily put together where the leader of the party, a man from a wealthy family who had trouble connecting with less-well off voters, discussed the crisis. “The boycotting of carnaval is a clear sign that the Brazilian people have rejected this corrupt government, and the president’s message last night shows just how far out of touch she is! Carnaval belongs to the people, not the government!” The commercial ended with an exhortation to vote for the opposition in the next elections.

A survey the next day revealed that the opposition leader’s popularity had also dropped by half.

The crisis continued. Hundreds of foreign journalists arrived to cover the situation, and the Brazilian media reported with pride that the carnaval crisis was making international headlines. A group of well-known soap opera stars, footballers and musicians made a TV commercial in which they sang songs, danced and smiled at the camera, and begged people to come out into the streets and party.

In a darkened underground bunker in Mato Grosso, a group of generals from the Brazilian army discussed what action might be required on their part should the government fail to resolve the situation. Nothing, they decided, was too extreme. In some cities, the police attempted to make Brazilians celebrate carnaval by force – twelve people were shot in two days.

Meanwhile the main TV network attempted to coax people into the streets by showing carnaval footage from the year before and packaging it as live. It did not take long, however, before an observant viewer noticed a banner labeled “Carnaval 2014” and spread the news of his discovery via Twitter. The TV network pulled the footage (though neglected to apologize or admit any wrongdoing). The stock market and the currency both crashed as tourists demanded refunds from their airline companies and hotels and the billion reais carnaval industry ground to a halt.

Monday brought more empty streets. The carnaval cities of Brazil, normally filled with the sound of music and partying, had fallen silent. But then on Tuesday morning something surprising happened. An elderly man, his step frail and uncertain, climbed slowly up the Ladeira da Misericórdia in Olinda. He led a little girl, dressed in a traditional frevo costume, by the hand.

Immediately he was surrounded by TV crews, journalists thrust microphones under his nose and helicopters circled overhead. A nearby frevo orchestra started playing “Vassourinhas” and hired dancers filled the street, leaping in the air and twirling their parasols.

Watching on TV, the president smiled and quickly arranged a conference call with senior party officials. “This will show that playboy from the opposition!” she shouted triumphantly down the phone. “The Brazilian people never give up! Carnaval is back!” She hung up and told an assistant to dig out her old samba records. She was in the mood for a little celebrating herself.

On her TV the elderly man in Olinda was being interviewed. “Sir,” cried one journalist “why do you think no one wanted to celebrate carnaval this year?”

“Hum?” said the elderly man, who was a little deaf.

“Carnaval!” yelled the journalist. “There was no party, no blocos, no Galo. What happened?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” said the elderly man.

“Come on sir,” pressed the journalist, “you must have an opinion.”

“Well, I can only really speak for myself,” said the old man. He looked down at the little girl, who stared up at him with a worried expression. He squeezed her hand gently.

“Of course! Please do!” yelled the journalists.

“Well, personally, it just seemed a bit silly this year. With all that’s going on, I mean. To go out and jump around, though I don’t do much jumping around these days, he he, not with my hip, I’m not as young…”

“Yes, yes,” shouted the journalists impatiently, “but what about carnaval?”

“Oh, well, like I was saying, it didn’t really seem right, with things as they are, to go into the streets and celebrate, and drink, and laugh, and pretend that everything is great. How does the song go? “Sadness has no end, but happiness does…the great illusion of carnaval, we work all year for one moment of joy”, something like that? Like I say, I can’t speak for anyone else, but…”

The journalists looked perplexed. They stood quietly and tried to digest what the old man had said. Finally, someone asked another question.

“But you’re here now, aren’t you? Have you changed your mind? Do you think there are others coming? Is carnaval back on?”

“Well,” said the old man. “I wouldn’t know about that. And anyway, I’m not here for carnaval. I live around the corner, and I’m on my way to the bakery. My granddaughter here is hungry and wants a snack. Do you know if it’s open?”

Slowly, the journalists lowered their cameras and their microphones. The frevo orchestra fell silent and the helicopters drifted away. In the president’s office, the television screen went blank.

*

Disclaimer – this is a work of pure imagination with no relation to the reality of 2015 Brazil. Tens of thousands of Brazilians have already taken to the streets for Carnaval. Some Folha coverage of that here. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. (With thanks and apologies from James Young to Jose Saramago’s “Ensaio Sobre a Lucidez”)

Brazil is divided economically, socially and politically between its two major population centers, the wealthier Southeast and the historically richer Northeast, so much so that prejudice still exists. Far too few appreciate the ways in which the fiercely proud, culturally rich Northeast revels in its uniqueness. 

by James Young

A week after Brazilian football was rocked by the racist abuse of Santos goalkeeper Aranha by Grêmio fans during a game in the south of Brazil, veteran Ceará midfielder Souza wanted to talk about a different type of prejudice after his team were knocked out of the Copa do Brasil by Rio side Botafogo.

“I don’t want to play the victim, but I’m nordestino, [from Brazil’s poor Northeast]. I’ve seen this happen plenty of times. When it comes to the crunch, they always favor the other side and hurt teams from the nordeste. How can I go home and explain this to my kid?” he said, in protest at a number of controversial refereeing decisions made during the game.

It may have only been football, and worse, Brazilian football, where conspiracy theories blossom like flowers in the spring. But Souza had touched upon one of Brazil’s most virulent, though often overlooked, forms of prejudice.

While Brazil’s racial and social divisions are well documented (as in this article by Vincent Bevins), the country’s regional schisms are perhaps less well publicized. But subtle or not so subtle prejudice against those from the northeast of Brazil is a common occurrence.

Football, as it so frequently does in Brazil, provides a convenient illustration of the ills of the country’s society – in this case the lack of respect with which nordestinos are often treated. It is hard to imagine a journalist from a major US or German broadcaster, for example, asking a famous athlete if people from his or her part of the country are “different because they’re funny” and if “it’s their accent that makes the rest of the country think they’re so funny” – as a journalist from the Esporte Interativo channel asked Brazil international Hulk, from the northeastern state of Paraíba, this June.

The roots of Brazil’s regional divisions are historical. There were times in the dim and dusty past when the nordeste was the country’s powerhouse – Salvador was the country’s colonial capital until 1763, while Recife remained a city of major influence until the beginning of the 20^th century. “People like us from the interior of Bahia used to look at Recife like the world looked at Paris,” said MPB legend Caetano Veloso. 

But a number of interrelated factors – among them the decline of the sugar trade (the region’s staple industry), the poverty and social disadvantages of huge swathes of the population, many of whom were descended from freed or escaped slaves, the harsh terrain of the sertão (the parched nordeste backlands), which forced hundreds of thousands to migrate to state capitals ill-prepared for their arrival, the indolence and self-interest of the area’s ruling classes, and a lack of investment by both state and federal governments – brought steady decline.

Now, tragically, the nordeste is best known in Brazil for its poverty, and the region trails the south and south east of the country in every social and economic indicator. A 2012 study by research agency IBGE found that more than half of the 12.9 Brazilian adults who are unable to read or write are nordestinos, while Veja magazine recently stated that the region is home to 52% of Brazilians who claim Bolsa Familia, the Brazilian government’s basic welfare program strongly associated with the ruling Worker’s Party (PT). According to a 2011 study by research agency IBGE, 9.6 million people in the nordeste live below the government’s definition of extreme poverty (U$30 a month). It is such hardship that forced hundreds of thousands of nordestinos to the south and south east, to work in cities such as São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, where if they were lucky they found a menial job and managed to eke out a basic living, as well as being almost universally nicknamed “paraibanos” – regardless of what state they actually came from.

Even today the more unreconstructed of southerners perpetuate the nordestino stereotype, blaming the people of the region for maintaining the grip on power of the PT of Lula and Dilma Rousseff by voting out of ignorance or under the influence of coronelismo (the abuse of power by wealthy landowners or politicians), and portraying them as toothless, illiterate simpletons. Never was this clearer than in 2010, when a court found São Paulo law student Mayara Petruso guilty of discrimination and sentenced her to community service after she tweeted “Nordestinos aren’t people. Do São Paulo a favor – drown a nordestino!” after Rousseff won the presidential election.

At the same time it is impossible to deny the vivid differences between the south and southeast of Brazil and the northern half of the country, whether it is in terms of climate (whereas Minas Gerais and points south shiver through chilly winters, the nordeste basks in summery temperatures all year round), food (from the acarajé of Bahia to buchada de bode, a backlands dish not unlike the Scottish haggis, though made from the innards of a goat, rather than a sheep), music (such as forró) or accent and dialect (the manioc plant, known as aipim in Rio de Janeiro and mandioca in other parts of Brazil becomes macaxeira in the nordeste).

“From its larger coastal cities, the Northeast can look very like the Southeast,” wrote Peter Robb in his intoxicating interpretation of Brazilian culture and history, A Death In Brazil. “But these appearances deceive. The Northeast is different. The past is present in the Northeast. Rio and São Paulo destroy as they grow, but walk down certain streets in a north-eastern city and you might be in the 1940s. There is the cream painted curved art deco cinema…there are the lean men with hats over their faces, asleep on the tray of a beat up old truck.”

Robb was writing over ten years ago, however, and the nordeste has changed a great deal over that period. While the expansion of Brazil’s welfare state arguably began during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, it was the election of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, born in the hardscrabble backlands of Pernambuco, as president in 2003 that truly kick-started the region’s transformation. Social support systems such as Bolsa Familia and increases to the minimum wage, together with a number of major infrastructure works included in the PAC (Program of Accelerated Growth) and increased private investment, led to greater prosperity in the region.

Now, while the same social problems remain (a report by the UN Drugs and Crime office earlier this year put six nordestino cities among the 20 most violent urban areas in the world, the nordeste continues to enjoy economic growth that outstrips the rest of the country– in the first five months of 2014, for example, the economy in the region grew by 4%, in contrast to Brazil’s sickly 0.6% growth rate, according to the Brazilian central bank. 

At the same time the area maintains a fiercely independent sense of pride. Never was that better seen than at the funeral of the former governor of Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos, last month, when 160,000 people flooded onto the streets of Recife in mourning. Campos was hugely popular in his home state but overlooked elsewhere, reaching only 8% nationally in the presidential election polls before his death. There had been equal, though not quite so public, lamenting over the death of the great Paraibano playwright and author Ariano Suassuna in July, while a torch still burns in Recife for Chico Science, leader of the band Nação Zumbi and founder of the mangue beat movement, which mixed rock, hip-hop and maracatu, who died in a car crash in Olinda in 1997, aged just 31.

Regional pride is also on vivid display at the nordeste’s massive carnaval celebrations, where Recife, its sister city Olinda, and Salvador, throb to the rhythm of maracatu, frevo and axé, respectively. “I came back to Recife,” goes one carnaval anthem by Alceu Valenca, “it was homesickness that dragged me by the arm.” And the same passion is reflected in the popular support enjoyed by many of the region’s soccer teams, who, due to financial disparity struggle to compete against clubs from the south and south east of Brazil, but still manage to pull in massive crowds – last year two teams, Santa Cruz (Recife) and Sampaio Corrêa (São Luis) were among the top 10 best supported clubs in the country – while playing in Serie C.

“To be Baiano (a native of Bahia) is a state of mind,” wrote the great writer Jorge Amado, one of the state’s most famous sons. In truth though, he could have been talking about anywhere in the nordeste –perhaps Brazil’s most unique, and bewitching, region.

James Young lived in Recife for years and now resides in Belo Horizonte. Follow him on Twitter.

Carnaval, long concentrated in traditional party centers like Rio, Salvador, and Recife, is taking roots in new cities all over the country. James Young reports from landlocked BH, Brazil’s unglamorous third-largest city, which is learning to put on its own celebrations.

By James Young

Brazil’s carnaval capitals are well established. There’s frevo music on the steep cobbled streets of Olinda, and the giant Galo da Madrugada bloco (street party) in next door Recife, until recently considered by the Guinness Book of Records to be the biggest carnavalesque gathering in the world.

If trotting behind giant sound trucks listening to axé superstars such as Ivete Sangalo or Claudia Leite is your thing, then Salvador, Bahia is the place. And the most flamboyant carnaval of them all, whether you fancy watching the samba schools parade in the sambodromo or getting hot and sweaty among 2.5 million revellers at the Cordão da Bola Preta bloco, is in Rio de Janeiro.

It’s safe to say that the comparatively reserved, landlocked city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s third biggest, is not high on the list of traditional carnaval destinations.

Gradually, though, the seeds of carnaval are beginning to find fertile soil in BH, as locals refer to the capital of Minas Gerais, usually more famous for its delicious if stodgy comida mineira cuisine than scenes of gay abandon. Last year over 500,000 foliões (carnaval–goers) partied in the streets. This year, according to the city’s tourist department Belotur, over a million people are expected to kick up their heels at the festival.

Last Saturday more than 50,000 attended the famous Banda Mole bloco on the city’s main central drag, Avenida Alfonso Pena. The theme of the party, which was first held 39 years ago, was “We Were Ready Before The World Cup,” a dig at Brazil’s often shambolic preparations for this June’s footballing jamboree. Among the giant papier mâché dolls were recreations of president Dilma Rousseff, Pelé, and national team coach Luiz Felipe Scolari.

Belotur director Mauro Werkema suggests the growth in popularity of the city’s street parties may be connected to recent social change in Brazil. “It’s part of the social democracy phenomenon. The lower middle classes are growing and have more disposable income to spend on TVs, fridges, and on going out.”

What gives carnaval in Belo Horizonte a different feel is that there are few central, officially organised hubs at which people gather. Instead, in the style of the older carnavals, individual blocos parade through the streets, pulling in crowds as they go. This year, according to Werkema, there will be over 200 blocos, almost triple the total in 2013.

“It’s not like the bigger carnavals,” Monica Carvalho, an English teacher, said at last year’s Bloco Alcova Libertina in the city’s most bohemian neighbourhood, Santa Tereza. “It’s more organic. It’s not based around mega-events organised by the council or the beer companies. It’s like carnaval used to be.”

Not everybody is happy about the explosion in size of the BH carnaval, however. A lack of official organisation led to complaints about insufficient infrastructure and planning at last year’s event. One bloco, Baianas Ozadas, anticipated a thousand revellers at its downtown street party. When over 20,000 showed up, the parade route had to be changed at the last minute. In Santa Tereza, revelers complained about a lack of toilets, security, and public transport.

Many residents of carnaval neighbourhoods were also unhappy, complaining that the parties went on long after official closing time, and that streets were littered with refuse for days afterwards.

The city has promised to improve things. “This year will be better,” promises Mauro Werkema. “It’s a learning process. We’re all learning, from the city council to the police. And it’s great preparation for the World Cup.”

But Belo Horizonte faces another battle if it is to join the ranks of Recife, Rio and the rest as a carnaval hotbed.

“You can tell the difference between those who were born with the carnaval rhythm and those who are trying to learn it,” Francielen Alves, a veteran of several Recife and Olinda carnavals, observed while watching the predominantly middle-class revellers at the Bloco Alcova Libertina take a break from dancing to snap selfies with their I-phones.

Later, at the same street party, a band took to the stage in the Praça Duque de Caxias and belted out raucous Beatles covers while the crowd sang lustily along. Although no one was complaining, the essentially and uniquely Brazilian nature of carnaval, so prevalent in other cities, was conspicuous by its absence.

Perhaps the lack of tradition and authenticity is unsurprising. After all, Belo Horizonte is a mere 116 years old, a baby when compared to Rio (448 years old), Salvador (464) and Recife (476). And while the roots of carnaval in the city date back to 1897, today’s mass celebrations are a relatively recent development.

For decades the festival in BH was best summed up by the saying that “at carnaval, you can walk down Avenida Alfonso Pena naked if you want, because no one will see you,” a reference to the fact that the holiday was traditionally a time for locals to flee to cities where the party pulse beats stronger.

“On the last night of the Recife carnaval all the old maestros get up on stage and all the frevo orchestras play together. And when the sun comes up and it’s finally time to go home, everyone cries because it’s over for another year. It’s not quite like that in BH,” said Francielen.

Such minor griping is unlikely to concern revellers at this year’s carnaval, however. What it lacks in history and musical heritage, the Belo Horizonte street party makes up for with enthusiasm and energy. That in itself will likely be enough to ensure that carnaval in the city keeps on growing.

James Young has lived in Brazil for the last eight years, alternating between Belo Horizonte and the Northeast. He writes about Brazil and Brazilian football for The Independent, Sports Illustrated, ESPN and others.

Claire Rigby takes us behind the televised spectacle and into the free and fluid world of the street party – Rio’s true Carnaval. Above: The outskirts of a bloco in Leblon, on Tuesday morning.

By Claire Rigby

From the world-class razzle-dazzle of the sambadrome to the endless, hedonistic celebration that takes place in its streets, Brazil is more compelling than ever during Carnival. I spent it in Rio de Janeiro, where the sambadrome reigns supreme – if you’re looking from outside Brazil, that is, where images of the floodlit parade ground, the Marquês de Sapucaí, have become synonymous not only with Carnival, but sometimes with Brazil itself.

But there’s way more to Carnival, and Brazil, than that.

Growing in popularity over the past ten years or so, the street carnival has seen a huge resurgence in Rio, where millions this year took to what seemed like a never-ending festival over four full days. ‘Blocos de rua‘ (street Carnival groups) are the heart and soul of Carnival in places like Olinda, in North-East Brazil, but have become a much-loved fixture in Rio too – and in São Paulo, where they go hand-in-hand with a wave of new, politicized interest in street life and street culture.

In Rio this year, hundreds of blocos comprised an endless, rolling, moving party, from young pretenders like Toca Rauuul and Boa Noite Cinderella, and favourites like Sargento Pimenta and Santa Teresa’s Céu na Terra, to the gigantic Monobloco, and 95-year-old Bola Preta – the latter took place in Rio’s Centro on Saturday morning and is said to have pulled a crowd of more than a million.

What goes on in a bloco? Music, dancing, drinking and general carousing in the style that Brazilians were apparently born to do best. (For a glimpse of one particularly musical bloco in action, see video: A street bloco during Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, 2013, on Vimeo.) Dressing up is de rigueur, and some go all out with their costumes, often in teams of uber-coordinated friends. One of the best this year in Olinda, in North-East Brazil, was a group dressed as a rollercoaster, rolling down the street in a long train, two by two, each dressed as one of the cabs. A favourite of mine from Olinda another year was a platoon of fruity soldiers with hollowed-out half watermelons for helmets. But not everyone goes full melon jacket: as Rio resident Dom Phillips noted in his expert Pre-Carnaval post before the event – just a sequinned tie, a sparkly eye mask or a sprouting of feathers are enough to mark you out as one of the gang –

— or one of the gangs, plural, since there are blocos kicking off throughout the day, with some of the best starting out as early as 6am. People carouse from bloco to bloco as the day wears on, stopping off for a dip in the sea, a break on the beach or a mid-afternoon disco nap before heading out again. And despite complaints from local residents about blocked roads and litter, drunkenness and noise, there’s very little of the bad behaviour you’d associate with no-holds-barred drinking and frolicking elsewhere. Naming no names but staring guiltily at Northern Europe. 

Roaming the streets and the beaches since the early morning, we encountered the true spirit of Carnival on Saturday night, under a small clutch of trees just up from Copacabana beach. A motley crew of musicians, refugees from some bloco or other, were playing a ramshackle set of sambas under the trees on drums alone, while an equally ramshackle, eclectic set of people, drawn like moths to the samba as they passed along the road, swayed and sang or simply gathered round.

It’s a long way from the excess, the precision, the sheer spectacle of the sambadrome – and at the opposite end of the commercial spectrum. Street Carnival is by its nature free – open to all and free to join, whereas the institutionalised form of Carnival – the sambódromo – is a hyper-commercialised sugar rush of grandiose, magnificently gaudy floats, casts of thousands singing their hearts out, and goddess-like, gold-dusted Carnival queens.

The sambadrome has to be seen to be believed; but for good old-fashioned fun it’s hard to beat the big-hearted bagunça (mess) of Brazil’s street blocos, with their fancy-dress gangs of teddy bears, tipsy girls in day-glo wigs in the early morning light, the just-met couples up to who knows what on the beach in the darkness, and the thousands upon thousands of men dressed as women. Carnivalesque.

All images (c) Claire Rigby.

Dom Phillips walks us through the joyful insanity of Rio Carnaval costume etiquette, and the pre-celebration celebrations that are often better than the real thing.

By Dom Phillips

Ambling through the blazing heat and Saturday afternoon crowds on Rio de Janeiro’s SAARA street market, I was getting nowhere in my search for a crucial purchase: my carnival fancy dress costume. Nothing seemed quite right. I hovered, briefly, before a Super Mario outfit in cheap fabric, lingered beneath an all-in-one Spiderman cat-suit, and even stopped in front of some sort of caveman combo that came with a cheap plastic club.

But I couldn’t see myself in any of them. Practical considerations dominated: how much would one sweat in all that man-made fibre, in a crowd, in the Rio heat? But time was marching on. The market was closing. The prospect of a late afternoon beach visit receding. And then I passed the uniform shop for the second time, and this time, turned and went in. Problem solved, or so it seemed.

With less than a week to go, you might think Rio de Janeiro is heating up for its carnival. Instead, it’s already begun: this year, more than ever, cariocas (Rio residents) seem to have decided to just get on with it, and cram in their carnival fun before the tourists swamp the place. Everyone says it’s much better like this. Pre-Carnival beats actual Carnival, hands down.

Consequently, over the last few weekends, the mobile, free street parties called blocos that have multiplied in recent years have been ramming city streets, increasing exponentially as the Carnival gets closer. Last weekend alone, there were hordes of them – a sound truck, a samba drum corps, and a crowd following in fancy dress.

Thousands packed into a square in Rio’s centre Sunday for an enormous party that celebrated the cheesy old pop songs, referred to as brega. In Ipanema, a bloco called Simpatia é Quase Amor (niceness is almost love) was rammed Saturday. Blocos are big on ironic names: one is called Me Beija que Eu Sou Cineasta (Kiss Me I’m a Film-maker). On Sunday, one of the best blocos I’ve come across, a brass and samba drums ensemble called Orquestra Voadora (Flying Circus) paraded through the rain at the Aterro do Flamengo. This was the third Sunday in a row I’ve seen them. And the bloco has just got bigger, and better, each time.

Led by giant tubas that tower above the musicians playing them, they specialise in brass-band arrangements of popular songs, with a heavy, syncopated samba beat. It works much better than that might sound.

Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’, Brazilian classics, movie themes, even the 1970s funk classic ‘Low Rider’ by War – with the lower-note brass instruments doing a sterling job on that funky bassline – were all greeted with loud, happy cheers. Even in a torrential downpour, with some of the band walking and playing under a gazebo, which helpers were obligingly carrying over them. Most of the crowd were already in costume. The carnival, for them, was already in full swing.

But I still hadn’t braved the fancy dress. I’m a Brit, and consequently somewhat reserved, and I’ve got through my whole life – and three Rio carnivals – without ever putting on a fancy dress costume. The closest I’ve come to it was going to a theatre do in London dressed, rather optimistically, as a ‘gangster’, in a dark suit and sunglasses. My partner was dressed as a flapper.

But the whole night, people kept asking me then where my costume was. The same thing happened at Orquestra Voadora on Sunday. It seems my fancy dress-free days are numbered. It’s time to bite the bullet and fall on my sword, to mix a few carnival-costume related metaphors (plastic swords and guns both being popular accessories).

So I explained the outfits I’d bought at the uniforms shop to the people I was with. One is an all-purpose cleaner’s outfit, with shirt, slacks and baseball cap in matching navy blue. I was planning to carry a brush, and had even begun mentally rehearsing a spiel about how the financial crisis in Europe had motivated a move to Rio in search of gainful employment.

A girl dressed as a bride and holding a flower frowned. “That’s no good,” she said. Her friends – Snow White and a girl in a leopard-skin print one-piece gym outfit – nodded in agreement. “Your costume needs to be interactive. It needs to invite some sort of exchange.”

I wondered what sort of interactive signals her bride outfit was sending out. But then she interrupted my thoughts with the killer line: “And I don’t think many women are going to be interested in a guy dressed as a cleaner.”

Damn. Once again, a clumsy attempt at self-depreciating English humour, this time in the shape of a carnival costume, had floundered on the rocks. I told the bride my back-up outfit was that of a chef. She brightened. “That’s good. A guy who can cook…” Her friend in the gym outfit interrupted. “It’s carnival. You have to be in costume. You have to go all in.”

This was more than evident the previous Friday night, at a carnival baile (party) at the Monte Líbano club in Rio, where many of the organizers of Rio’s main blocos were enjoying themselves dancing and singing along to a band on stage. This was the old guard, these were people who take carnival and its associated culture of creativity, celebration, and escaping from a year of drudgery in a three-day costume fantasy, more seriously than anyone else. Their costumes brought this home.

One guy was dressed as a Petrobras worker, in overalls. A girl had come in yellow, with a TAXI sign attached to her head. There were Bo Beep and Princesses, professional footballers, a guy dressed as Nina from the soap opera Avenida Brasil, Roman goddesses – and a guy who told me that when he is not serving on the management committee of the Escravos da Mauá (the Slaves of Mauá, one of central Rio’s most traditional blocos), he is an astrophysicist.

Then a Star Wars storm-trooper in full space-man uniform, holding a ray gun, walked in and stole the show. Photographers surrounded him. So did women. Never mind that he – or she – couldn’t even be seen behind the helmet. It’s carnival. And if you’re not in costume, you’ll stand out like a Star Wars storm-trooper at a wedding. With competition like this, I’m not sure how a simple British chef can even begin to compete…

I’m reporting from the Carnival of Recife, in Pernambuco – but more on that later.

Before I left São Paulo, I caught a striking take on the samba parade.

Former President Lula is in treatment for cancer, so he could not march this year with Gaviões da Fiel, the samba school associated with Corinthians, his favorite football team. We knew that as a result, they would pay homage to him this year.

But we didn’t expect this. The hour-long show went through his life history, the political battles that led to the creation and success of the Worker’s Party (PT), which has dominated Brazilian politics for almost a decade, and its successes and vision for the future, all to a samba beat. We got the fall of the dictatorship, migration tales, and the major policy initiatives of the 21st century.

Essentially, what we saw was a history of modern Brazilian politics told through dance, and the costumes and placards donned by half-clothed women.

Continue on to see how it went

The man was born in the arid Northeast of Brazil, in a small poor town in the state of Pernambuco. Like many others at the time, his family migrated from the Northeast, which was languishing in poverty, to the industrial Southeast – in his case, São Paulo – to find work. He became a metal worker, and rose up through the system to be a political leader in the left-leaning union system. Here we see a version of him in traditional Northeastern costume, in front of two placards with distinctly Northeastern artwork.

Yes, that is a samba dancer carrying a card that reads “general strike”. Note the hard hat. What is unfortunately missing from our photo archives is the legions of these, men and women, that made up this part of the parade. In the late 70s, during the military dictatorship, the unions were involved in a set of contentious strikes, which eventually led to Lula being imprisoned for a month. There was also a float of him in jail.

This is a re-enactment of the marches in the ‘Diretas Já‘ movement, which demanded “direct elections now” at the end of military dictatorship, in 1984. Unlike some of the other parts of this parade, virtually all of the major post-dictatorship political players, left and right, consider this a major moment of victory for democracy.

The Worker’s Party was founded in 1980, and entered the official political scene with the fall of the dictatorship. Lula went on to lose presidential elections in 1989, 1994, and 1998. Here we see a float with banners naming issues which dominated opposition, and some of the goals of his presidency which started in 2003: food, health, education, etc.

A dancer wearing a house for a head, presumably meant to represent “Minha casa, minha vida”, or “My house, My life,” one of Lula’s social programs, this one aimed at expanding housing. His most famous was “Bolsa Familia”, a cash-transfer program to the poorest that boosted his popularity massively in the Northeast. These moderate programs, combined with relatively pro-business macroeconomic policy, dominated his presidency until hand-picked successor Dilma Rousseff took over in 2011.

Some other remarkable installations were dancers dressed as the “worker card,” a movement meant to represent the formalization of the labor sector, and one dedicated to hopes and dreams in the future of Brazil. Watch the video for the whole thing.

Lula speaking in a taped recording. Bald, because of the cancer treatment.

Links:

Watch the full, hour-long video on Youtube
More pictures (Folha de S.Paulo)

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