Grupo Especial update: Unidos da Tijuca

OK, I have still haven't written about the Cubango parade, which was fantastic and exciting and exhausting. (I said a big thanks to Jonas afterwards and he said "Ano que vem!" i.e. come back next year! Which suddenly made me very glad I will not be locked into that teaching job after all.) Got to also give a huge thanks to Daniel for helping me navigate the mysteries of the Cubango bateria.

More about Cubango and the Grupo A parades later. Right now, the Grupo Especial update. I've been up allllll last night (and all the night before....) at the Grupo Especial Sunday parades, which were: Uniao da Ilha (last year's Grupo A winner), Imperatriz, Unidos da Tijuca, Viradouro, Salgueiro and Beija-Flor. I missed most of Uniao da Ilha and Imperatriz, so I won't comment on them myself - the papers today say Ilha did a great parade, while Imperatriz was a little lackluster. (though you have to bear in mind that in Grupo Especial, "a little lackluster" often just means "ever so slightly less jaw-droppingly amazing than the other parades") Here's my impressions of the other four:

- Unidos da Tijuca is clearly the front-runner. It was the only escola to receive the "E campião!" (you're the champion) chant from the crowd. It was one of those parades that absolutely captivates your attention from beginning to end. Where, instead of thinking 'Oh, look, 8 more alas with sort of similar feathery costumes" you're thinking "OH MY GOD! Those ala people are all clustering together and they're making a GIGANTIC CATERPLLAR! THAT'S SO COOL!" and a minute later "OH MY GOD! THERE'S HIDDEN DOLPHINS LEAPING AROUND IN THAT ALA!" and "OH MY GOD! The entire bateria is dressed as Mafia and there's a FULL-SIZE PACKARD DRIVING THROUGH THE BATERIA WITH A CHOREOGRAPHED MAFIA GUNFIGHT!" In the paper today, Tijuca's carnavalesco admitted it was extremely risky to put a choreograped skit literally in the middle of the bateria - the bateria split into two parts and the Packard drove right down the middle. (why oh why do event organizers always think it is a good idea to split a band into two parts????? That potentially cannot hear each other? And can easily get out of sync?) But they pulled it off flawlessly.

Here's the rainha dressed as a 1920s flapper-era Mafia girl:


Throughout the parade, Tijuca's theme, "It's a secret," gave them full license to do as many surprises as possible. Their commissao de frente (dance group at the front of the parade) was dressed a group of magicians who kept magically changing the costumes of their lovely assistants. This was really cleverly done - they had 6 costume changes, all done in a flash and all eliciting a huge scream from the crowd:





Two floats in particular wowed the crowd: A superhero float (because of their secret identities, don'tcha know) with a slanting wall made of some kind of rubbery material. First, several Spidermen climbed up it (big cheer from the crowd), and then, four guys dressed as Batman SKIED DOWN the slope, one at a time - yes, on skis - holding their arms out so their bat capes billowed out behind them. H-U-G-E cheer from the crowd. Batman on skis. Four Batmen on skis. One of those extremely odd Rio Carnaval sights that sticks in your memory for ever.



The other Tijuca float that really got the crowd's attention was an "Area 51" float that was a giant spaceship covered with aliens. A door at the front slowly opened and out slid... a huge alien egg! And suddenly it popped open and out hopped... MICHAEL JACKSON! (A dead-on impersonator, that Tijuca had flown in from Sao Paulo.) He did a whole Thriller-type dance, then climbed back in the egg and slid back into the alien spaceship.



Michael Jackson hatching out of an alien egg. It's so obvious - that's clearly where he came from. Why didn't I ever think of that before? (Madonna reportedly loved this float. She's down here in Rio with her Brazilian boyfriend, and she was watching from the mayor's camarote box. She even tried to join the Imperatriz parade, but was assaulted by so many hundreds of paparazzi when she tried to leave the camarote that she gave up.) (Paris Hilton is here too, and she reportedly drank so much at her Sambodromo camarote that she "fell over", why am I not surprised... )

All in all, Tijuca gave such a strong performance that I'll think I'll head over to their quadra on Wednesday to hear the announcement of the results. They're really a contender this year!! They've often been a runner-up - usually narrowly missing championships because their carnavalesco (the outrageously creatively Paulo Barras) often pushes the limits with floats that are too weird for some of the judges. This time I think he's hit the sweet spot, with several classically beautiful floats to keep all the judges happy, mixed with some of his funny and clever floats and his creative "live" floats. The "live" floats consist primarily of people who cluster together in acrobatic ways to form some kind of immense, amazing visual effect. The last float was like this - dozens of people that clustered together to form a peacock, Tijuca's symbol.)

Funniest costume in Tijuca: People wearing large silver triangles from which are suspended many colorful shorts. Bermuda shorts - yes, it was the Bermuda Triangle!