Dancing the Rio de Janeiro Carnival

It’s time for the Rio de Janeiro Carnival ! Exploding rhythms, colours, magnificent carnival floats, women dancing samba nude only covered in body paint, these are all usual associations with the Rio de Janeiro Carnival.

Although it’s not allowed to be completely naked during the carnaval, not much is left for the imagination when the samba dancers move with incredible agility through the sambodrome (Rio’s location for the main carnival parade) or the streets in the city.

For those wondering ‘When is Carnaval in Rio de Janiero?’:

Every six weeks before easter more than two million people gather in the samba capitol to participate in the biggest party in the world, the Brazil Carnival! As the time of easter varies through the years, so does the Rio de Janeiro Carnival, usually between February and march. The 2005 carnival Rio de Janerio will happen the first week of February, the first parades being the 6 and 7 of February 2005.

“What is Rio de Janeiro Carnival? Where does it come from?”:

The history of carnival in rio de janeiro shows roots to both Europe and Africa. Originally the celebration came from Roman tributes to their gods, which the church later turned into the initials of the “Carne Vale” meaning something like “goodbye meat”.

The Carne Vale was the initiation of the lent period which you were supposed to keep from eating for some time as a way of purifying the body.

The Carnival spread to Brazil and Rio through the Portuguese which had divided South America with spain. (Brasil is the only country which speaks Portuguese, the others Spanish)

The big drums and feathers is believed to have entered the Rio carnival with the slavetrading from Africa. The black mans culture was seen down upon and even forbidden until around 1930 when Vargas pin pointed the carnaval themes or “enredo’s” back to the roots of the brasilian population in which Africa had a part.

The big drums came back to samba, and the famous Rio de Janeiro carnival costumes started to emerge as we know them.

There are two places to see Rio de Janeiro carnival, in the streets or in the Sambodrome.

The sambocrome is the Rio carneval as we know it, an enormous parade with samba dancers, batteria (a corpse of drums, playing samba so you feel the rhythm in your bones.).

The Sambodrome itself is a huge stage area with a characteristic design of something that looks like a m at a distanse. The parade enters in between two stages with seats for 100,000 people.

Carnival in the streets is very different! Here you join in on the dancing, and don’t be surprised if you get a kiss during the night, the Rio de Janeiro carnival is know to make everyone a little crazy!

To finish off the introduction, some carnival rio de janeiro photos comes naturally.


From Rio de Janeiro carnival to Rio-de-Janeiro.info