Imperio Serrano samba memorization slam!

I am heading back to Rio this Friday. This is the weekend that everything kicks into full gear for Carnaval. The Sambodromo rehearsals start up again this weekend, and the escolas are bound to be burning hot - in every possible way.

A little background first. Remember Imperio Serrano? Well, if you don't, Imperio Serrano is one of the great escolas (samba parade group) of Rio, a beloved escola with a long history. They were very unjustly demoted from Grupo Especial to Grupo A recently, but never mind about that right now. Anyway, three years ago I paraded with Imperio, in the Ala dos Devotos. The Ala dos Devotos just means the Ala of the Devoted - and an "ala" is a parade section, typically 100 people. Each escola has maybe 30 or 40 alas. (Yes, that means 3000 or 4000 people. Plus the bateria - the enormous 300+ drummer band. Oh, and, plus the sound truck carrying the singers, and the cavaquinhos; and various flag-bearers and an opening dance group and the floats and ... never mind, more on all that later. And that's all just for 1 escola.) Where was I. Oh yes - the bulk of an escola's parade consists of its ala members. The whole parade has a "enredo", a theme - a new enredo every year - maybe "Photography" or "Science" or "The History of Rio" or who knows what, and each ala is dressed in some kind of bizarre outfight meant to illustrate that theme. (If the enredo that year is "Science", maybe everybody in your ala will be dressed as DNA molecules, or microscopes, or Charles Darwin. You don't get any choice in your costume - you've got to wear whatever bizarre thing your ala happens to be that year! You might be a basketball, a cockroach or Mahatma Gandhi. Whatever the costume is, it is sure to be uncomfortable, painful, beastly hot, and completely ridiculous-looking. Hey, you've got to suffer for your art, right?

And then there's the samba, the song. Each escola has a different song every year. It is custom-written to illustrate that year's enredo. Throughout the entire parade, all the paraders sing that same song over and over and over, ad nauseum, so it had better be a good song! (and believe me, by the time you've heard the parade sambas maybe 50 times in a row each, it'll be crystal clear in your mind which are the Good, the Bad or the Ugly.) Over the years, these parade sambas - or samba-enredos - have evolved into a peculiar form. They're very long, with 2 especially confusing and not very catchy long verses, and 2 different short catchy choruses. And they are very poetic and elaborate, with MANY MANY MANY confusing Portuguese words. The thing is, if you are going to parade with an escola you had better know the entire song. Every word! It's considered rude if you don't know the words. Especially since the entire escola is actually being judged on how well you're singing the song and on whether everybody in your ala really knows the words (or is at least faking it pretty well). If your ala is completely drunk and falling down and nobody is singing the song, the whole escola loses points.

Anyway, in most escolas, certain alas are open to tourists, and other alas are "closed" - no tourists allowed. The Ala dos Devotos is closed. It was unusual that I got to parade with them three years ago, and it was an amazing experience, and they turned out to be great people. I've kept in touch with Vitor, the ala director, off and on over the three years since then. The Ala dos Devotes are an extremely dedicated ala, Devoted indeed. They have a well-earned reputation in Imperio Serrano as being the ala that sings most passionately, and the ala in which EVERYBODY REALLY KNOWS ALL THE WORDS.

You can see where I'm going with this. Guess what came to my email inbox yesterday, an email from Vitor! He was inviting everybody in the Devotos to do a mass journey together to Imperio Serrano's Saturday rehearsal! I immediately wrote him back telling him I'll be back in Rio and would love to come along. He instantly shot back a reply - he's arranging for someone to pick me up and bring me along. AND, he's holding one of the last few spots in the ala for me for the big parade at Carnaval - good thing I asked because it turns out they only have 2 costumes left!

So you can see what's coming next: I have got to learn that entire song by Saturday night! As an outsider, and an American no less, and one who is hoping to parade in a closed ala famed for its singing, it is especially important that I show that I am up to the task!

To spur us all on, Vitor sent around another email today with a link to a video of a 2-year-old who already knows this year's Imperio song completely by heart. OK... if a 2-year-old can do it... surely I can do it? But then again, that was a Brazilian 2-year-old.

Excuse me, I have to go memorize a lot of Portuguese words:

click here if you're curious about the full lyrics.
(If you want to try to follow along, they actually start on the last chorus, the four lines at the end. And they repeat it. They'll also repeat the other short 4-line chorus once they get to that. LBTW, Imperio's theme this year is "The streets of Rio" - a great theme, close to everyone's heart and lots of potential fun costume ideas.)