Rio Dancers Tune In the Samba at Carnival Time

The raunchy, glitzy, gorgeous spectacle called “Carnival in Rio” should never be confused with the pristine prettiness of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade.

Still, it’s safer and more orderly than it used to be, since the Passarela do Samba (also called the Sambadrome), built in 1984, took the samba school parades off the street and into a massive area holding 88,500 people.

Permanent seating is available instead of the former (and often rickety) temporary bleachers, and security is so strong that only ticket-holders can get inside.

There are private boxes, cafe-like table-and-chair areas, and grandstand seats with two sections reserved for foreign visitors.

All-Night Parades

The parades are all night long, sometimes going until noon the next day. 4,000 to 5,000 people from each of eight samba schools parade in a dazzling and intricately orchestrated procession, with each school’s presentation taking 1 1/2 hours. While they parade, their samba is played over and over and over again.

The dancers are young and old, fat and thin, with and without glasses and missing front teeth, but all are in rapture, dancing as if possessed on this once-a-year occasion that has cost each of them months of preparation and more cruzados than most could afford.

Each school first selects its theme and composes its samba-enredo (story-song). The song is played daily on radio stations from December until the carnival in February, so carnival audiences usually sing along with the music.

Parade participants are divided into groups called “wings” dominated by old women in long, full white skirts called baianas , to honor the women of Bahia who introduced the carnival to Rio in 1877.

In white satin hoop skirts trimmed with silver tinsel and wearing gigantic silver headdresses, one wing whirls, dips and glides.

Another wing is in green, gold, blue and white cascading ruffles trimmed in sequins over hoop skirts, with Carmen Miranda turbans topped with towers of plastic fruits, or Egyptian headgear in vivid turquoise and emerald peacock feathers.

Men in red-sequined Maurice Chevalier straw hats escort a Valentine candy-box float of mirrors and red hearts with six small revolving discs, each topped with a gyrating beauty wearing only a few red and silver sequins.

The bateria is a 300-member percussion section dressed alike, often in white tie and tails, banging away on tin buckets and scraping rasps, until the samba reverberates inside your head.

Glitzy Floats

Notables in elaborate costumes wave, swaying atop glitzy floats, followed by the popular passistas , mostly curvaceous young women dancers wearing almost nothing, who perform their most lascivious bumps and grinds for the TV cameras that cover this Brazilian extravaganza.

Finally come the big allegorical floats that elaborate on a samba school’s theme.

From eye level down on the street it looks like chaos, with the organizers scurrying back and forth along the line like terriers trying to keep their flocks in order. From the grandstands above, however, you can see the pattern.

Every school needs an hour or more to get its thousands of dancers organized for the parade, so there’s time between each school to get a cold drink, something to eat, or even take a short nap.

While the samba school parades are the highlight of Rio’s carnival, you also can visit street carnivals in various neighborhoods--especially Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon--during the afternoons and early evenings as they follow the bandas (musicians) along the street.

It’s also possible to buy tickets locally for some of the various costume balls around the city, most of which require either formal wear or some sort of costume.

The costume balls usually start about midnight and last until dawn, with tickets costing $25 to $100 or more.

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The two most important days of the 1989 carnival will be Sunday and Monday, Feb. 5 and 6, when the samba schools parade in the Passarela do Samba. Plan on arriving about 10 or 11 p.m. and staying till morning, as the best schools are scheduled last.

A grandstand ticket in the tourist section set aside for foreigners costs as much as $100 and should be booked well in advance.

Take cool, comfortable, cotton clothing because Rio can be extremely hot; cariocas dress very casually at the parade.

Secure Valuables

Because of the crush of crowds everywhere, exercise extreme caution with valuables. Leave passport, traveler’s checks, most cash and all jewelry locked up in a hotel safe, and take only what is essential.

Don’t expect business as usual in Rio during the carnival. Shops are closed, restaurants jammed and many cariocas don’t go to work (or sleep) for four or five days.

Varig, Brazil’s national airline, flies daily to Rio from New York City and Miami and four days a week from Los Angeles. Rio’s major hotels include the Inter-Continental Rio, the Rio Sheraton, Meridien Copacabana, Rio Palace and Caesar Park at Ipanema.

Rooms during carnival, if available, start at about $150 a night double.

One way to get a guaranteed hotel room during the jam-packed carnival days is to arrive on a cruise ship.

Seabourn Cruise Line’s Seabourn Pride also offers reserved tables near the reviewing stand for the night of Feb. 6 during its 16-day Ft. Lauderdale-Rio sailing starting Jan. 23. Fares start at $9,250.

Ocean Cruise Lines’ Ocean Princess includes grandstand tickets to the parade during two “Carnival in Rio” cruises, a 12-day Buenos Aires-to-Rio air/sea package departing the United States Jan. 25, and a 12-day Rio-to-Buenos Aires package that departs Feb. 5 from the United States. Fares start at $2,195, plus air add-on.