The formal parades ("desfiles") during carnival, are a showcase of each main "escola" enhanced by the participation of celebrities, fans and guests who often pay large sums of money for their elaborate costumes. The resulting competition is a major economic and media event, with tens of thousands in the live audience and screened live to millions across South America.Ī typical performer of Samba dance at Rio Carnival (2016)
Each school's parade may consist of about 3,000 performers or more, and the preparations, especially producing the many different costumes, provide work for thousands of the poorest in Brazilian society. From 2005, some fourteen of the top samba schools in Rio have used a specially designed warehouse complex, the size of ten football pitches, called Samba City ( Cidade do Samba) to build and house the elaborate floats. It is overseen by a carnavalesco or carnival director. Each of the main schools spend many months each year designing the theme, holding a competition for their song, building the floats and rehearsing. Throughout the year the samba schools have various happenings and events, most important of which are rehearsals for the main event which is the yearly carnival parade. Samba and the samba school can be deeply interwoven with the daily lives of the shanty-town dwellers. In Rio de Janeiro especially, they are mostly associated with poor neighborhoods (" favelas"). The phrase "escola de samba" is popularly held to derive from the schoolyard location of the first group's early rehearsals. They are often seen to affirm the cultural validity of the Afro-Brazilian heritage in contrast to the mainstream education system, and have evolved often in contrast to authoritarian development. Samba schools have a strong community basis and are traditionally associated with a particular neighborhood. Although the word "school" is in the name, samba schools do not offer instruction in a formal setting. They practice and often perform in a huge square- compounds ("quadras de samba") and are devoted to practicing and exhibiting samba, an African-Brazilian dance and drumming style. A Samba school parades in the Sambadrome in the 2014 Carnival.Ī samba school ( Portuguese: Escola de samba) is a dancing, marching, and drumming (Samba Enredo) club.
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