Expatriates’ Exuberance Flavors L.A.’s Carnaval

Not even the Brazilians know how many Brazilians are in Los Angeles. Ten thousand is the most common estimate, but nobody’s counting.

Nobody’s counting because, presumably, the Brazilians are too busy getting on with the business of enjoying life. Lawrence Christon, in his Times review of the musical “Oba Oba,” lyrically (and accurately) limns the Brazilian nature as “full of style and grace, humor and opulence of spirit. . . .”

Even among the L.A. expatriates, the rhythm of the Brazilian life style beats its own tempo throughout the year--reaching a crescendo on Carnaval. On Carnaval (Mardi Gras, to some), an indulgent explosion of the senses traditionally precedes the self-imposed deprivation of Lent. It is during Carnaval that the innate exuberance of the Brazilian comes to full flower--in Los Angeles an exuberance that is tempered by an inevitable twinge of homesickness.

Whatever their numbers, the Brazilians bring with them not only an elan unique to their country but also a large measure of saudade, which, according to expatriate Maria Lucien, is an untranslatable Portuguese word roughly meaning a feeling of “longing, missing, nostalgia and melancholy”-- saudade for Brazil, of course.

“The best definition I have heard,” Lucien says, “was from a Japanese man, who said that saudade was the ‘presence of the absence.’ ”

Beginning at 9 tonight at the Hollywood Palladium (6215 Hollywood Blvd.), Brazilians feeling saudade will wallow in sentimental misery at the annual Carnaval fete. A $25 or $30 ticket buys admittance to a colorful celebration that’s traditional in the South American country.

While Catholics all over the world hold Carnaval/Mardi Gras events, festivities in Rio de Janeiro seem to be a high-water mark by which all others are measured. And for the last six years, the Palladium bash has offered a mini-version of the Rio spectacle.

Embrasamba, a local community group mostly of Brazilians, will provide nonstop (the key to a successful samba) music along with Viva Brasil, a fusion band from San Francisco. The star of the night is Martinho da Vila, the lead singer for the samba school Vila Isabel, which won last year’s Carnaval competition.

Experience Not Required

Luckily, samba savvy is not a prerequisite to having a great time. It’s an evening where everyone gets out on the floor: parents with toddlers held at face level, costume-contest hopefuls in Vegas-showgirl get-ups, yuppies in sedate cruise wear. Conga lines snake through the crowd. Everyone moves to the beat.

Those who can’t get tonight’s samba beat out of their bodies will continue the revelry Sunday night at Spice, 7070 Hollywood Blvd., where there will be a Hawaiian feast, typical of Carnaval in Rio.

Brazilian influence is more than a once-a-year experience in Los Angeles. Music and art, brought by expatriates to soothe their saudade, have found a wide Los Angeles audience.

“When I started my radio show 10 years ago, very few people were listening,” says Sergio Mielniczenko, who works for the cultural department of the Brazilian consulate here and broadcasts weekends over KXLU. He has added a second show on the station (now Saturdays and Sundays at 10 a.m.) and another program on KPFK, Thursdays at 9:30 a.m., which is syndicated.

During radio-pledge weeks, 98% of the Mielniczenko pledges are from non-Brazilians. “That’s a good indication of who is listening to a show,” he says.

Three Categories

According to Mielniczenko, there are three broad categories of Brazilian music: jazz, samba and M.P.B. (popular Brazilian vocals with rich, poetic lyrics). Major record companies, such as CBS, recently have released new Brazilian jazz albums, part of what Mielniczenko sees as a groundswell of interest in the Brazilian sound.

And the samba sounds are now becoming a staple of L.A. night life.

Under the umbrella name, Samba E Saudade, Lucien has organized samba nights at clubs around the city, as well as co-sponsoring tonight’s party.

“Brazilian Nights,” Saturdays at the Cover Girl in Culver City, 9300 W. Jefferson Blvd., are a lively introduction to Brazilian culture: a floor show of beautiful, scantily clad dancers, capoeira (choreographed foot-kicking) demonstration, fedjoiada (the national dish of Brazil, which features black beans, pork and manioc flour) and Brazilian rum drinks.

Cafe Connection, 9171 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, offers Brazilian nights three times a week, which serve as unofficial meetings for local Brazilians as well as others who want to recapture the Brazil thrill of a vacation there. A few years ago, owner Gustavo Li was cooking Brazilian dishes for himself and homesick friends, who encouraged him to “go public.” Now, Thursday through Saturday evenings, the deli-by-day turns into a Brazilian bistro with more than half a dozen Brazilian entrees and Brazilian beer. There is live bossa nova music on Fridays and Saturdays.

Next Saturday, the California Afro-American Museum in Exposition Park opens “Introspectives: Contemporary Art by American and Brazilian Artists of African Decent” (through Sept. 30), co-sponsored by the L.A.-based Sociedade Cultural Arte Brasile, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of Brazilian art and artists and funded mainly by the Brazilian government.

Film Series

In conjunction with the exhibit, there will be a film series that focuses on the black culture of Brazil. It begins on Feb. 17 with “Creation of the World: A Samba Opera” (a 1978 documentary) and the 1959 classic “Black Orpheus,” which recounts the Orpheus legend during Carnaval in Rio. This program will be repeated on Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. The series will continue, on Sunday afternoons, with films such as “Xica da Silva,” “Amulet of Ogum” and “Ganga Zumba.”

For an ongoing fix of Braziliana, there’s a new fast-food restaurant, Brazil Up, at 8276 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, and Brazilian jazz nights at several L.A. clubs (Wednesday-Saturday at LeVeLee in Studio City, and occasionally at At My Place in Santa Monica and Le Cafe in Sherman Oaks).