Covered head to toe in gold sequins, Brazilian Vera Lucia da Silva is ready to take full advantage of Rio de Janeiro’s street carnival, back after a three-year wait due to COVID-19.
“For us, the cariocas [habitants de Rio]the carnival is the top ! The people mix, everyone is happy,” the 58-year-old housekeeper told AFP, frantically waving her ganza, a percussion instrument that looks like a shaker during a “bloco” parade. Ceu da Terra (heaven on earth), one of the 400 processions authorized in the “Marvellous City”.
The weekend before the official start of the carnival on Friday, parades are already taking place in the streets. From early in the morning, the music is loud, the beer flows freely and the crowd wiggles to the rhythm of the samba.
The famous carnival, whose festivities are divided between street processions during the day and the grandiose spectacle of samba schools at night, was completely canceled in 2021 due to the pandemic, which killed nearly 700,000 people in Brazil.
In 2022, the town hall only authorized the parade of schools at the Sambodrome, a closed enclosure, extending the wait for hundreds of thousands of followers of the great popular festival by one year.
This year, a large number of Brazilians are also celebrating the end of the mandate of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), marked by numerous budget cuts in culture.
“Celebration of Life”
Brazil has been chaired again since January 1 by left-wing icon Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, back in power after having governed the country from 2002 to 2010.
“It’s a rebirth, […] after a dark period”, says Péricles Monteiro, one of the founders of Céu na Terra, whose theme for this carnival is “the flowers are back”.
Their costumes adorned with multicolored flowers, the 200 members of the musical group are followed by thousands of people through the narrow and steep streets of the Santa Teresa district, near the city center.
Some disguises have a political tone, with a scathing irony: a couple of teachers parade in the yellow jersey of the national football team, which had been appropriated by Bolsonarist militants.
Except that their slogan is not “Brazil above all, God above all”, but “Carnival above all, cachaça [un alcool fort à base de canne à sucre] for everyone ! »
“Carnival is the soul of Brazil. Each people has its festival par excellence. Ours is the carnival”, supports one of the two teachers, Caique Torres, 57 years old.
“Redemption”
“It’s a manifestation of democracy, a celebration of life. But Brazil is coming back from a period during which political power was against carnival,” recalls Adair Rocha, director of the cultural department at the State University of Rio (Uerj).
During the election campaign, Lula met representatives of samba schools. He could go to the Sambadrome parades, which take place next Sunday and Monday for the most prestigious schools, although his attendance has not yet been confirmed.
A wind of optimism seems to be blowing this year in the large hangars of the Cité de la samba, where schools have been preparing for months for the carnival, which ends after five days of celebrations on Ash Wednesday.
“We feel that culture is once again highlighted. It will be the carnival of redemption, of hope,” says Tarcisio Zanon, artistic director of Viradouro, champion of the great samba school competition in 2020, the last edition before the pandemic.
The town hall of Rio is expecting some 5 million people for the street carnival this year, enough to inject 1 billion reais (180 million euros) into the local economy alone.
The enthusiasm is palpable at Saara, a popular shopping center in the city center where cariocas buy sequins, wigs and all kinds of crazy accessories at low prices.
“People want to party after this long wait,” rejoices seller Marcelo Rodrigues.