The
Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is a world famous
festival held before
Lent every year and considered the biggest carnival in the world with two million people per day on the streets. The first festivals of
Rio date back to 1723.
[1]
The carnival parade is filled with people and floats from various
samba schools. A samba school can either be an actual school or just a collaboration of local neighbors that want to attend carnival. Samba schools include:
Mocidade Independente, Imperio Serrano,
Academicos do Salgueiro, Unidos da Tijuca, and Beija-Flor de Nilopolis
The purpose of carnival is for samba schools to compete with fellow rival schools; this competition is the climax of the whole carnival festival.
[3] Each school chooses a theme to try and portray in their entry. The samba schools work to build the best floats and costumes to represent their themes, and to include the best music they can from their band called the bateria.
[4] There are many parts to each school's entry including the six to eight floats and thousands of participants.
One other aspect that is mandatory is the presence of the ala das baianas. This is a wing of the samba school entry that includes at least 100 females only. These women along with many other people do not ride on the floats as many others do, instead they are passistas, the people who belong to the samba school that do the marching alongside and between the floats.
[5]
