BRAZILIAN CARNIVAL

The Carnival of Brazil is an annual festival held during the friday to the tuesday before ash wednesday, which marks the beginning of lent, the forty day period before easter. The word carnival comes from the fact that some catholics and christians don’t eat meat for a few days.

The costumes altern from one region to another in Brazil. In the south-eastern cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Vitória, there are huge parades organized by the samba schools. The official parades are to be viewed by the public; while little importance parades allowing public participation can be found in other cities. The north-eastern cities of Salvador, Porto Seguro and Recife have organized groups parading through the streets, and the audience participates with them.

It is a festival of six day where a crowd follows the parade through the city streets, dancing and singing. At the same time, in the north-east, Olinda carnival features unique characteristics, strongly influenced by local cultural and folklore events, as frevo and maracatu.

The typical generes of music of Brazilian carnival are, samba enredo, bloco of samba of the Embalo samba and the marchinha, in Pernambuco and Bahia, the frevo, the maracatu, the samba reggae and Axé music.