Are you a sambista or a sambeira?

news from Rio, from afar.... (translated and summarized from O Dia's Carnaval news website)

- Unidos da Tijuca is going to have a 27-meter peacock, as well as a float covered in penguins. Their theme this year is "Collectibles" ( a very Unidos da Tijuca theme! They seem to pick the oddest themes sometimes). Just about every float and ala will have an assortment of some kind of collectible object. Postage stamps, books, dolls, paintings, etc. So anyway, yes, they're going to have a 27-meter peacock and a float covered in gigantic penguins. (Do people collect peacocks and penguins?) The float will have 50 enormous penguins, the largest 9.5 meters tall. U da Tijuca's carnavalesco also reports that they're working on more of those Tijuca-trademark choreography floats - floats covered with people, "living floats", dancers all are doing some kind of choreography.

- Rainha news: There's an article today in O Dia about the rainhas-da-bateria, the Queens of the bateria, those gorgeous girls who strut around in front of the baterias in the incredibly sexy outfits. There's some sniping about body type going on, of course! Salgueiro's rainha is proud, proud I tell you!, of her liposuction. Porto da Pedra's "queen of plastic surgeries" says defensively that it's best to look feminine, by whatever means, and disparages the queens who are "too muscular". Portela's & Mangueira's fit and toned rainhas say they're just jealous.

Mangueira's rainha also went on record with the surprising opinion that that it is NOT necessary to be able to samba to be a good rainha. She says it's more important to have charisma. Scant comfort for the two rainhas this year who notoriously cannot samba, Grazielli Massafera (Grande Rio) & Natalia Guimaraes (Vila Isabel), because they both clearly feel very worried about it and have had to put up with some jeering from the crowd. ("Samba! Samba! You can't samba!") They've been giving each other moral support. Grazielli (Grande Rio) says she felt "hopeless" (desesperada) last year in her debut, but was very heartened by the warm reaction from the Grande Rio crowd. Natalia (Vila Isabel), debuting this year, says "I'm anxious and am taking lessons to learn the samba. But I will make up for my inexperience with "claws." ["garra"; heart, courage, guts]. (She is the one who I heard being jeered at the Vila Isabel Sambodromo rehearsal two weeks ago.)

Milton Cunha, carnavalesco for Sao Clemente, has invented the word "sambeira" to distinguish the rainhas who truly know samba from those that don't. His definitions are:

Sambista:
Can dance the samba.
Will parade on a float, on foot, in a parade section, or in a director's t-shirt.
Knows all the words of the song.
Loves the public in the Avenida.
Doesn't treat the job of rainha as a business proposition.
Only misses a rehearsal at the escola quadra when it's completely unavoidable.
Is a born-and-bred "foliã" (partier, lover of samba and of Carnaval).

Sambeira:
Doesn't samba, and doesn't want to learn.
Parades tense and worried about being in photos.
Becomes rainha-da-batera just because she's famous.
Chews gum all during the parade to help pretend she's singing the song
Ignores the members of the bateria.
Is a social climber. (literally, "uma alpinista social" - a social mountain-climber)


I'm reminded of Mestre Jonas's [of Mocidade] reported comment of how "annoying" the queens of the bateria can be - "There I was trying to lead the bateria and she kept bumping into me! Stopping and posing for pictures when we were marching up behind her! And her feather poked into my eye."