Rio Carnival Samba Parade

Rio Carnival Samba Parade tickets are now available and you can enjoy this renowned festival in the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro. The show was started in 1723 and is today an annual event that takes place six weeks before the Christian festival, Lent.
 
With an attendance of over two million, it is considered as one of the the largest carnivals of the world. In 2011, almost five million people attended the carnival and around 400,000 of them were foreigners. In Rio, huge parades are organized and led by the city’s samba schools. The bigger parades are watched by the crowd whereas as smaller ones allow crowd participation too. Rio’s carnival also has huge influences of African-Brazilian culture. It started around the end of 19^th century’s when Bahian immigrants brought their tradition to Rio. Candomble playing and a Bahian dance known as ‘samba’ got famous in Rio’s slums and were originally used for religious ceremonies.
 
The carnival involves a magnificent parade involving floats, revelers and participants from various samba schools that compete against one another. Even though carnivals have taken place for centuries, samba schools were started around 1920. These schools are dancing institutes or clubs. They are formed as collaboration between locals who plan to attend the carnival together and have the same geographical or regional roots.
 
Deixa Falar was the first samba school that opened in 1926. Samba schools practice it year-round for performances at different festivals, the biggest one of them being Rio’s annual carnival. The leading samba schools of 2012, named the ‘Special Group’ are Mocidade Independente, GRES Uniao da Ilha do Governador, GRES Imperatriz Leopoldinense, Protela and GRES Academicos do Salgueiro. Others include GRES Academicos do Grande Rio, GRES Estacao Primeira de Mangueira, Beija-Flor de Nilopolis and GRES Unidos de Vila Isabel. The school that won 2012’s Access Division is Inocentes de Belford Roxo. Music genres that the carnival covers are the marchinha, samba de embalo, samba de bloco and samba-enredo.  
 
The competition between samba schools is the best part of the festival and is highly anticipated by all the viewers. During entry, every school has to choose a theme that it would portray. It is not only the dance that the schools have to prepare; they work on making magnificent floats, cheerful lyrics, beautiful costumes and aesthetics to display their themes, known as ‘enredo’. The drumming band that provides music for schools is called ‘bateria’ and each institute tries to get the best musical compositions. Each school has at least six floats that are accompanied by a team of three to five thousand revelers of the Special Group. Themes vary each year and can be on anything from famous Brazilian personalities to some specific event to specials animals or one of the four elements (earth, fire, water, air). All the parade participants have a specified place and role in the ‘wing’ they are a part of.
 
The roles are decided according to the costume of every person. The main characters that are part of the parade are Carnival King ‘King Momo’, Carnival Queen and Princess. The king opens the parade and the schools follow him in the form of wings
 
Each school has fifteen to twenty dancers who display unique and difficult skill of dancing the samba at a walking pace. It is not an easy task and that is why samba dancers are chosen after a tough competition every year. The schools are judged on various factors such as the general appeal of the theme it uses and the strength of its idea. Other points are more technical and the school with the most points wins Rio’s carnival parade.
 
You can get Rio Carnival Samba Parade tickets to be there to support your favorite school or simply to join the excitement of this breathtakingly beautiful carnival that is famous throughout the world!