Carnival Time

Animatronics, pirouetting pyrotechnics, nebula like explosions of sound and light, glittering gymnastic bodies, and drum, drums, drums, the Rio carnival is like nothing else. Twice I’ve been lucky enough to experience the Desfile das Campeãs. An all night long event in which top schools of samba like Beija Flor and Mangueira compete for the ultimate crown, it takes place at the height of summer in the melting heat of the Sambodrome, the purpose-built carnival street in the north of the city. Although it is a corporate affair, it is nevertheless an utterly hypnotic and mesmerising display of human creativity. The Escolas de Samba work all year to perfect dance and drum patterns and to build the giant floats that narrate different aspects of Brasilian history. Folklore, racial politics, playful celebrations of sexuality and humour, anything goes, but it is always frenetic and drenched in sensuality.  Carnivals and street festivals  have always played a central role in human culture. Politically, they function as pressure valves, when for a couple of days in the year, the people get to take over the streets and squares and momentarily turn the world on its head. This is why philosophers like Mikhail Bakhtin and Henri Lefebvre celebrated the power of the ludic and lewdic imagination in which satire, play and the lampooning of the rich and powerful assume an almost revolutionary character. Something akin to this spirit can be found in the more spontaneous and anarchic carnivals that take place in backstreets across the country. Fluid, rebellious and ribald, anyone can take part. On one memorable occasion I got to join a parade that meandered through the boarded-up centre of Rio in the direction of the hilltop community of Santa Teresa. Armed with sachets of honey flavoured cachaça and bits of metal and wood, we literally played the city as a giant percussive object. Metal grills, wooden doors, fences, tubes, and anything that reverberated became an instrument, as the troupe laughed, shouted, and beat their way across the city. Then there was the procession of normally macho men who once a year dance through the streets of São Vicente dressed as women. Somewhere there are photographs of me with skirt, lipstick, rouge, and earrings stumbling along with a drum and standing in front of an apartment block screaming, “agua mineral, agua mineral,” at which point windows opened and buckets of icy water were thrown down to ecstatic cheers. Arguably more important than Christmas or new year, for the dedicated reveller, carnival can last up to a week. Then overnight, the street cleaners come out, the debris is cleared and life returns to normal as if it had never happened.