Grupo Especial, Monday: Mocidade

The sun is up, it's 7:30am, and I've been up past dawn for three nights in a row now! Here are my notes from the six parades of Carnaval Monday, compiled from O Globo and O Dia plus my own observations. Summary: Mangueira was the standout of the night - so I think it's a horse race between Unidos da Tijuca and Mangueira. (my vote goes to Tijuca just because of their unique creativity and playfulness.) The six Monday schools in order of parading were:

(I am splitting this post into 6 posts so that I can add some pix - those of you who are getting this emailed, sorry you're getting it twice!)

1. Mocidade. Their enredo (theme) this year was Paradises. They did a GREAT parade this year! I was so happy to see Mocidade do a beautiful parade! They really pulled it together this year, after an alarming slide over the last several years that culminated in a nail-biting 11th place last year, barely keeping them in Especial. One of their composers said afterwards "It's been years since I've seen Mocidade like this." The bateria sounded great, too. I'm so relieved! I was sitting with a crowd of Mocidade fans (plus we were rooting for our friend Bruno in the bateria, and his wife in one of the alas) and we were all thrilled.
Elza Soares, in a wheelchair, was godmother of the bateria. Soooo cool to see her.
On a personal note I was especially thrilled with the (slightly odd) section on "fiscal paradises" - this seems to be a Portuguese phrase for what we would call a tax haven. Just after a hilarious float illustrating money-laundering with washing machines that tossed fake money into the crowd, there were several alas representing the endangered species that are represented on Brazil's currency notes - including several species that I've had the good fortune to study, the golden lion tamarin, green sea turtle and jaguar! Plus the scarlet macaw and grouper. So cool to see Brazil's endangered species being featured. (I was equally thrilled last night by Beija-Flor's alas of the animals of the Cerrado, including giant anteaters and maned wolves. I was TORMENTED by two complete giant-anteater costumes that I found discarded on the ground later, because I could not figure out a way to get them home....)
Mocidade narrowly avoided disaster at the end of the parade route. Their abre-alas (opening float), which had functioned perfectly for the whole parade, abruptly lost power about 2 feet after it had cleared the finish line. (This was very close to my vantage point in Setor 6) At least it happened after the finish line, where it wouldn't affect the judging of that float, but the problem was, it was blocking the whole rest of the parade. Even the people in the alas just behind couldn't squeeze past. Mocidade directors came running from all over and managed to push it a few feet, enough so that the people in the alas could start squeezing past. But the 2nd float was approaching fast and there was no way it could get by. We all watched with bated breath as the 2nd float came bearing down and over dozens of men (the newspaper later said over 50 men) wrestled with the 1st float. (The risk was that Mocidade would suffer a dreaded time penalty if the 2nd float couldn't get off the runway in time) Finally they dragged the whole float backwards, and somehow that managed to uncouple its two pieces from each other and then the 50 guys zoomed the two pieces out of the way. As the paper said this morning, "The public in Sectors 6 and 13 watched the struggle with affliction, and vibrated when the problem was solved." I was indeed afflicted, and I did indeed vibrate, as did everybody around me.