*** Rio Carnaval 2010 ***

THE MAIN EVENT!





Sunday Feb 14th - Valentine's day kind of passed us by... we were more concerned with readying ourselves for the world-famous Rio Carnaval parade in the purpose-built 750m long Sambodromo. The Parade originally started on the streets but as the crowds and floats grew bigger and more fantastic each year, finally Rio had to make it a ticketed event and build the stadium just for it.



A bit of background about the Carnaval: it's a tournament between the 12 best samba schools in Rio; 6 parade each night on the Sunday and Monday before Ash Wednesday each year, followed by the Champion's parade the following weekend. Each parade takes about 1.5 hours from start to finish, with the first school starting at 9pm. You do the math... we were in for a long (but fun!) night. The judging is fierce and often contested; judges mark each school's parade on 10 different criteria, ranging from theme to costume to song. On the night we went, the line up included the 2009 winner, the eventual 2010 winner and the favourite from the past 5 years... so we knew it was going to be a spectacular show!





A fellow hosteller had tipped us off with how to get cheap tickets for the Sunday night parade. Together with Stephen (Alkesh´s friend from Uni), we navigated our way through the crowded grand stands to take our seats in sector 13; it was about 10pm. We caught the last few floats of the first samba school.



Some of you may have seen carnival parades in the past, perhaps even footage on TV from Rio's famous parades. But honestly, being in the 80,000 strong audience (all boisterously singing and cheering on their favourites) with the spectacle taking place right in front of you - it truly was amazing. Forget the basic cheap tacky floats; these floats were intricately engineered featuring different platforms, fountains, swings and moving pieces (with the strength to support many samba dancers strutting their stuff), all decorated beautifully with sequins, jewels and feathers. In between the floats, there were setsof 100 dancers to represent the theme or tell the story - they moved in unison all dressed in the most exquisite costumes. We heard on TV that each costume cost thousands to make and that each Samba school's parade would include thousands of dancers - it was clearly a HUGE undertaking and something that the Samba schools took great pride in.





We watched the following 5 samba schools parade through the Sambodromo - taking us right up to dawn at 6am. Some were better than others but even the 'worst' ones were still utterly brilliant. Clearly the crowds around us had their favourites, some cheering with banners and flags. Our programme featured words to sing along with each parade - I tried my best to keep up with the Portuguese and sing in tune! 1 samba school really did stand out for us: Unidos da Tijuca. They hadn't won since the 1930s so clearly had something to prove. Their parade mystified the audiences with their magic, superheroes tribute and acrobatics. The opening sequence featured 6 couples dancing, who magically changed their outfits several times in succession just with the swoosh of a drape... the video shows it best. They then had Michael Jackson performing, and a 2nd float showed Batmans flying down and Spidermans crawling up buildings. The crowd erupted with cheers and whistles - clearly Tijuca school had entertained the masses... but were they good enough to win?



A few days later, the results announced Unidos da Tijuca as the winners of the 2010 Rio Carnaval parade. We really enjoyed the show and are so glad we managed to fit it in to our itinerary - a fabulous treat!





P.S. lots more pics on Picasa web album so remember to click on any pic above and then scroll through.

P.P.S. Also, all of these videos are available in HD - play the video in full screen and then select the video quality.