Disaster in Samba City

Samba City, a complex near the port area of Rio de Janeiro, is where the warehouses of the major samba schools are located.

The warehouses, immense spaces with ceilings twelve meters high, have been built to accommodate the huge floats displayed in the parades.

The costumes are tailored and stored there – and so is everything else the schools need to put on their shows.

There was a time when the production and preparation was done in the neighborhoods where the schools were founded. Floats were constructed in the open air. Costumes were stored in the homes of the women who sewed them.

But the Cariocas (citizens of Rio de Janeiro) pride themselves on making every Carnival bigger and more elaborate than the last.

And bigger and more elaborate shows demanded more space for preparation.

So the schools began transferring their operations to abandoned factories.

Those factories were often in the outlying districts, making them difficult to get to.

Or in poorer areas, making them dangerous to visit.

Samba City, an initiative of the municipal government, was designed to end all of that.

Space was provided for each of the Class One samba schools.

The vast warehouses placed at their disposal could be used to hold social gatherings, do rehearsals, even put on shows for tourists – and thereby earn much-needed funds.

The neighborhood selected for the project wasn’t in the best part of town.

But the area inside the fence was to be heavily patrolled.

And the schools were promised a state-of-the-art sprinkler system that would protect them from fire.

The directors of the schools rejoiced.

The complex opened in 2005.

And, six years later, disaster struck.

A fire broke out.

The vaunted sprinkler system was faulty and inadequate.

Four of the fourteen warehouses were destroyed.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time.

It takes a year for a samba school to produce a show.

And, this year, there isn’t a ghost of a chance that three of them will be able to recover prior to the event.

In financial terms, the damage has been estimated at four million US dollars.

That’s big money for folks who live in shantytowns.

But the major damage, the emotional damage, is immeasurable.

The members of the samba schools live for carnival.

It’s the center of their existence, the most important event of their year.

The tourists aren’t going to be happy either.

As many as 700,000 foreigners are expected to attend Carnival in Rio this year.

And they’re not going to be able to see the show they might otherwise have seen.

If you’re unfamiliar with samba schools, or how the event is celebrated, I suggest you take a moment to read my post of February 7, 2010: http://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/search/label/Carnival

I posted it one year to the day before the fire.

This year, Carnival begins on Friday, the 4th of March. We'll be up all night throughout the weekend, watching the desfiles (parades) on television.

Leighton - Monday

The Greatest Show on Earth

Not the Ringling Brothers Circus.

The parade of the great samba schools during Rio de Janeiro’s annual carnival.

Six schools perform each night; it takes place on the Saturday and Sunday before the beginning of lent, from about ten at night until long after dawn. This year it will be on the coming weekend.

Spectators and participants alike take the Metro (underground/subway) to get to the sambodrome. It’s part of the fun. You can count on the cars being packed with people in full costume. If you go, I recommend that you plan a year or so in advance, get together with three other people and take one of the tables that front on the barrier. They’re only an arm’s length away from the action.

If you’re like my wife, you’re going to arrive in costume and, when the time comes, you’ll join your samba school. 

Anyone can participate. You send them money, and they’ll make you a costume. They’ll also send you the music and the lyrics. You’re expected to attend at least one rehearsal, but you’ll want to do that anyway, because it’s a lot of fun..

If you’re positioned anywhere near the front of the school, you’ll be back at your table before the last participants go by.

Even moving at a pretty good clip, it will take them an hour and twenty minutes to cover the ground.

Exactly an hour and twenty minutes, no more and no less.

If it’s less, you lose impact.

If it’s more you lose points.

And the points are important because in addition to being a show, the parades are a deadly serious competition. Each year, one of the twelve schools of the first category is demoted and one of a lesser category is raised. Schools are judged on many parameters including music, rhythm section, floats, costumes, the performance of the Porta Bandeira (the lady who carries the school’s colors) and even the degree of enthusiasm of the participants.

You want to win, of course. But, most of all, you want to avoid the disgrace of having your school expelled from the first group.

My wife’s school (oh, yes, there are loyalties here, just as there are in futebol) is Salgueiro, or more properly (as below) G.R.E.S. Acadêmicos do Salgueiro.

Their colors are red and white.

As they’re about ready to kick off, she’ll be down there amid the massed ambulances and medical personnel (a number of heart attacks are suffered each year) surrounded by a lot of very nervous people.

And I’ll be sipping a beer and waiting for the red and white skyrockets to go off. Then, over the loudspeaker system that lines the Avenue Marquês de Sapucai, there’s a shout from the guy charged with singing the samba. “Here comes Salgueiro.”

And they come indeed, all 5,000 of them. Click on the link to get a hint of how Salgueiro sounded last year. But it’s only a hint. There is no way to capture the sound of 5,000 people in motion singing to a battery of 500 rhythm instruments.

http://tinyurl.com/Salgueiro2009

By the way, they won!

Leighton - Monday