Sunday Carnaval: Banga and Sambodromo #1

wow.... just got in from a hell of a day.... I just staggered out of bed in time to dash to the Banga parade. So, so fun.... Played third-surdo again. We got a huge crowd again, so huge we couldn't really parade very much. An hour into the parade and we'd only moved about three blocks. And it was HOT today and we were in full sun... I was totally exhausting at the end. For some reason the first and second surdos were kind of obliviously pushing the tempo. A LOT. It got a little maddening - and definitely got hard to play! I guess people were just excited because it was Carnaval. So after four hours in the sun and crushing crowd, playing hard, carrying a surdo, and trying to hold tempo the whole time.... man... tired.

But it was great. My Banga. It was so great. Such a huge happy crowd.

No rest for the weary. Walked a mile down the road to the first bus route and hopped straight on a bus downtown to the Sambodromo.

And bang, there I was again in that mystical world, that great dark avenue outside the Sambodromo, thousands of people rushing in all directions carrying unbelievable costumes. People pouring out of the Central subway stop laden with tridents and enormous blue bubbles and hoop skirts. And ranked in a great column stretching away from me, all the floats of Mangueira, Mocidade, and Vila Isabel. Great huge unbelievable moveable sculptures all lined up, one after the other, stretching down the road as far as I could see. I knew that in the other direction, on the other side of the Sambodromo, must be the floats of the other three escolas. Once again I was stunned that they do this every year... they spend six months making these magnificent, million-dollar floats, just for one night. One hour and twenty minutes. One parade.

Well, okay, the floats aren't exactly a million dollars apiece. But the full set of six or seven floats for one parade is indeed about a million US dollars. I read a breakdown of escola finances yesterday, and the main lesson I'd drawn from that is: You need money to win Grupo Especial! The poorer escolas don't really have a chance; they are just fighting to stay IN Grupo Especial, but they don't have a realistic shot at winning. It takes money to built elaborate floats; to hire the best float designer (like Viradouro did this year), and to make the most elaborate costumes. The government provides a good pack of funding to all Grupo Especial escolas (and some to the lower groups as well), but standards have escalated, and now escolas need to come up with twice that amount to have a realistic shot of winning.

Well anyway - turns out that my two escolas, Imperio Serrano and Mocidade, are among the poorest! They have barely half the budget of the rich escolas. Neither has a bicheiro (like Beija-Flor, which has more than twice the budget of either Imperio or Mocidade) and neither has been able to arrange much corporate sponsorship (like Grande Rio, Vila Isabel, and Viradouro), which increasingly is the new way that escolas get their money. So I'm worried for both of them. Two escolas will "go down" this year - be knocked down to Grupo A, out of Grupo Especial. Could it be my two???

Well, no shame in "going down". Especially if you've got a great bateria, and a loyal community, and it's just for lack of money. No shame at all in being in the company of good escolas like Sao Clemente and Uniao da Ilha.

So off I went to the Sambodromo tonight.

A lot of people get their fill of the Sambodromo in one visit. As one friend put it, "Once you've seen eight hundred people dressed up as a pineapple, you don't really need to see it again." Well, I seem to be a Sambodromo junkie. I saw eight hundred people dressed up as a pineapple last year and I want to see it again! I want to see eight hundred people dressed up as a pineapple tonight, and tomorrow night, and next weekend too! It's just so unbelievable; I can't get my fill of it.

Well, some impressions:

Imperio Serrano: The bateria was absolutely fabulous. Still one of my very favorite baterias! But I've got to admit, the costumes seemed a little dull and repetitive. (I noticed the same thing last year - guess Imperio's costume designer is not to my taste. I like a little more variety.) And the floats, though really lovely, did indeed look a little smaller, a little less luxurious and outrageous than those of the rich escolas. But they were really lovely, they WERE!
I missed one detail that made the news: The sexy Queen of the Bateria, as part of her glitter-and-rhinestone-bikini outfit, had her genitalia covered by a video iPod that was showing videos related of Albert Einstein. Well, OF COURSE she had her genitalia covered by a video iPod showing Albert Einstein - what ELSE would she cover her genitalia with?? Obviously!
To my alarm, Imperio had a lot of problems with their floats. This is often the death blow for an escola that's on the edge, since they'll lose points both for floats and for parade flow. Float after float got stuck at the turn coming into the Sambodromo... one nicked a construction crane on the way in and a giant angel's arm fell off... a beautiful spinning gold globe lost power... and some huge seahorses got a bit unruly. Damn. I am worried for my Imperio.

Mocidade - Oh, it made me so happy to see the Mocidade bateria in action! I knew everyone there - knew all their faces. I saw all my favorite directors. There was Jonas at the front, dancing away. I couldn't see Bruno - he's too little - but he was mic'd, and every time I heard a repique call, I thought "That's Bruno!" It wasn't an anonymous repique any more; it was someone I know! It made me so happy to be able to see them play after watching them prepare for this for all these months.
Mocidade had some really beautiful floats and costumes this year. Not quite up the luxurious standards of the big boys (the Mangeira/Viradouro league) but really beautiful. I think they'll pull in safely ahead of Imperio and Estacio.

Viradouro - All right. They blew me away. They blew everyone away. A great theme - "Games" - allowed them to do a wonderful set of really clever, funny, outrageous ideas - giant dominos, sets of cards running around, mobile soccer fields, jigsaw puzzles forming and re-forming, a huge "Where's Wally" float (I never could find Wally). Every costume fascinating. Every float fantastic (except one that was supposed to look like it was upsidedown - I guess it was a joke - but it was just dull). Beautiful choreographies, fluid and magical. My favorite was a whole ala that was dressed as a soccer field, except the soccer field was on the tops of their heads. Most people had green grass on the tops of their heads, but a few people had soccer players on their heads, and one guy had the soccer ball on his head. And they'd all run around, the soccer players sort of bumping into the ball guy and the ball guy running around. It was just so cute!
Kickass bateria. And YES, the bateria marched right up onto a float, right in front of me, I saw the historic moment! And it worked!
Viradouro is clearly the one to beat. They were the odds-on favorite going on - hot bateria, the best float designer in Rio, formidable will and tradition, and a pile of money. They were the only one that had the crowd chanting "E Campeao! E Campeao!" (you're the champion, you're the champion). There's nothing like hearing the Sambodromo crowd start that chant.... they don't do it very often, and it means you're seeing something truly spectacular.

Mangueira was pretty hot too. But it's a mark of how great Viradouro was that I can remember every Viradouro float distinctly but am having trouble remembering Mangueira's, and Estacio's too, though I do remember Estacio had a really, really impressive giant lion that could turn its head and roar.

One news item about Mangueira: the great singer Beth Carvalho was refused access to a Mangueira float tonight. She'd requested to be able to ride on a float, and they'd turned her request down because she'd asked too late, and all the float positions had already been allocated. Tonight she apparently just tried to climb on up onto the float, and was turned back. She did not parade, and she says her decades-long relationship with Mangueira is over.