Members of the Weyburn Rotary Club had a cultural lesson when Brazilian exchange student Giovanna Palhares explained what the famous Carnival is all about, recently celebrated in her home country.
Giovanna is from Sao Paulo, and is in Weyburn for the year attending the Weyburn Comp School.
She explained that Carnival is a huge celebration in Brazil with five days of holidays, and noted the larger celebrations from the big cities are broadcast on national TV. “It’s a holiday that is very important for us,” she said.
Carnival is held as a competition between the different groups, with each group or team called a school. Each team or school has the opportunity to perform their parade with many elaborate costumes and dancing to live samba music, and each team is then evaluated and scored to earn the prestigious trophies at the end.
There are definite rules in place that the teams have to abide by, explained Giovanna. Each parade presentation needs to be between 65 and 82 minutes long, and performed in a space that is 500 metres long by 14 metres wide, set in front of a large paying audience, all cheering and watching the parade processions.
Each school or team is huge, anywhere from 2,500 to 4,500 in size with a team of 250 people as behind-the-scenes support, such as those needed to push the floats and so on.
The first round begins late on the Friday night, around 11 p.m., and runs until about 7 a.m. Saturday.
“It’s really cool,” said Giovanna, as she described the requirements each parade procession has to meet for the evaluation.
There are requirements for each group to have a theme, to have costumes and dances related to that theme with allegories and props, structured floats, the way people dance (such as if they’re well choreographed and synchronized in their dancing), and the portrayal of a plot in the dancing and costumes.
There are some special positions in the parade procession, such as an emcee and flag bearer, and the Queen of Drums. “Everyone can go. There’s so much for you to watch,” said Giovanna.
There will be a fundraiser supper with dishes from Brazil on Thursday, March 24 at Calvary Baptist Church. The event will raise funds to pay for a special Western Canada trip that Giovanna will take with other Rotary exchange students.
