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Carnival is a traditional event which is believed to have originated from the Italian words, “carne vale,” meaning farewell to meat.

The Brazilian celebration is held the weekend before Lent, a time for fasting and prayer.

The Brazilian Carnival starts on Saturday and ends on Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras. The actual dates change every year.

Carnival Sunday is seven weeks before Easter Sunday.

This year, the activities will take place from Feb. 25-28.

The Brazil Carnival is a four-day celebration held throughout all of the cities in Brazil, with the most famous carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador.

The Rio Carnival is a time for parades, dancing, drinking, dressing-up, samba competitions and a time to celebrate life and rejuvenation. This four-day party continues 24 hours of the day! It’s said to be the most exotic exhibitionist spectacle in the world.

The origins of the Carnival are unclear, but most agree that it started as a pagan celebration in ancient Rome or Greece.

It is believed that its origins were by a kind of carnival called, “Introito” (Latin for entrance). The entrudo, as it was known in Brazil, could have been characterized mainly as a joke: to throw water (and later, other things) at other people, to “purify the body” before Lent. The entrudo was prohibited, without success, in middle of the 19th Century, as it was considered violent by the upper classes.

In the late 19th Century, the cordões (literally, “laces” in Portuguese) were introduced in Rio de Janeiro, which consisted of groups of people who would walk on the streets playing music and dancing. The cordões were ancestors of the modern samba schools.

Carnival balls were imported from Italy in the late 19th century and had their golden era in the 1930s, with legendary balls at the Copacabana Palace, and the Municipal Theater.

The Samba Parade began in the ‘30s— first timidly at Praça XI, and later on Av. Presidente Vargas. It found a permanent home in 1984 at the Sambodrome, in the Rio de Janeiro downtown area.

Today, the event is broadcasted to dozens of countries, and all Brazilian states. Many people think of it as the greatest show on earth.

Some samba schools march on Carnival Sunday, and others on Carnival Monday.

Each samba school picks a particular theme. They display it to the audience in the format of a tropical mini-opera. A school has from 60-75 minutes to perform, with 3,000 to 5,000 participants. They are distributed in alas or wings, with six to eight floats for each school.

Banda de Ipanema is one of the most traditional ones, attracting as many as 8,000 people.

There’s much more to Carnival than the Samba Parade, though.

Street Carnival is loads of fun, free and it happens all over the city.

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Today’s Lesson

1)  Carnival comes from Italian words __________, meaning_______________

2)  On what dates will Brazilian Carnival take place this year?

3)  What were cordões?

4)  Where is the Brazilian Samba Parade performed nowadays?

5)  _______________ is one of the most traditional bands participating in the Samba Parade.

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Answers

1)  Carne vale. Farewell to meat

2)  February 25 to February 28.

3)  Groups of people who would walk on the streets playing music and dancing.

4)  It is performed on Sambodrome, in the Rio de janeiro Downtown area.

5)  Ipanema.