Monday: Portela

3. Portela's enredo this year was the internet. After watching the parade I decided this was a terrible theme for a parade. It just didn't lend itself to costumes that made any sense. Costume after costume went by, always something silvery with mysterious little silver balls or silver zigzags or silver somethings. Sure, they were pretty, in a baffling sort of way; I'd check my program and find that one costume was supposed to be illustrating "Downloads" and another was supposed to be illustrating "Control-Alt-Delete" and another was "The connectedness of the internet brings people together" -- but they just all looked like a lot of silver costumes with little silver balls and silver zigzaggy things.
The rumors were clearly true about Portela's floats - a couple of them were barely finished, barely decorated, almost as bad as Viradouro's last night. Luckily, given the computer theme, they seemed to have thought of tossing a lot of silver fabric onto the floats and gone for a sparse, sleek, modern look - and they almost pulled it off.
Portela's eagle was pretty cool, though. At first it just seemed to be a silver spaceship, and then it slowly started unfolding wings, lowering feet, and then its eagle head spun out of its belly and we all suddenly recognized what it was! To complete the transformation it screamed the unmistakeable scream of a... North American red-tailed hawk. (Always the bird of choice when artists want a dramatic sounding "eaglish" scream for a stage production. Because, unfortunately, actual eagles sound like kittens.) Oh well.
Strangest float of the night: A gigantic menacing-looking robot hovering over a pregnant woman, while dancers wearing translucent pregnant bellies, complete with fetuses, rolled around on medical exam tables. ???
Portela had the hottest bateria costume I have EVER seen - and I mean, unfortunately, hot as in "high temperature" and not hot as in "exciting". It was a completely sealed silver spacesuit and with the head partially enclosed in a plastic bubble. Yikes! A caixa player passed out right in front of me - just gently tipped right over like a felled tree, and hit the ground, WHOMP. A cluster of directors rushed over to him and a couple minutes later he was back up and blearily reeling toward the finish line. Later, after the bateria had passed by, a stray cuica player came staggering along about ten minutes later, having apparently passed out earlier in the parade. When will carnavalescos learn they should not put the bateria in hot outfits like that? The one ala that is essential for all the other alas to be able to march and sing, and the only ala that parades for the entire 122 minutes, and the only ala that is working out the entire time too, is the bateria. (Coolest bateria costumes of 2010 were Unidos Da Tijuca's "Mafia" bateria, Grande Rio's street-cleaner bateria, and Mangueira's prisoner bateria. Those are 3 smart carnavalescos.)