Carnival is an annual celebration held shortly before Lent. Lent is a religious season observed in the spring by most Christians. The best-known carnival takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Rio Carnival (Carnaval in Portuguese) starts the Friday before Ash Wednesday—the holiday marking the start of Lent—and continues through Tuesday. Carnival marks a time for people to celebrate before fasting for the 40 days leading to Easter. As with Mardi Gras, the exact date of the festivities changes with the timing of Easter.
The Rio Carnival has complex roots. Portuguese colonizers brought the festival of Entrudo to Brazil in the 1500’s. This celebration involved throwing water, flour, and sometimes objects such as wax lemons. The Portuguese-style Entrudo was banned in 1855, but Brazilians still found ways to celebrate Carnival. By the mid-1800’s, Carnival had evolved to center around a procession of themed carriages, similar to a modern-day parade with floats. As Brazil’s population grew, its Carnival customs came to include traditions from other cultures. In the northeast, Entrudo grew to include the Maracatu, a royal court procession with African roots. Alongside the royal court marched cordões—masked characters dressed as Death, bats, old men and women, and clowns. Festivities in the south included the rancho carnavalesco—originally a Bible story set to music and paraded through town. Later, the songs came to include modern subjects.
Rio’s modern Carnival started to take shape following the rise of samba schools in the 1920’s. The samba schools are performing arts clubs that teach and perform samba, a dance style with roots in Africa. For Carnival, the samba schools combined the rancho carnavalesco with the rhythmic dance of samba. Each samba school formed a block (section) of the procession. The blocks were distinct from one another, with each block following a theme. By the 1960’s, the samba schools had become popular with Brazilians of all social classes. Carnival was traditionally celebrated in the city streets. By 1984, however, Rio’s Carnival had become so popular that the city built the Sambadrome. The Sambadrome is a specially built 700-meter (2,300-foot) section of street lined with bleachers for viewing Carnival. It can hold more than 90,000 spectators.
Despite its popularity, Carnival has its share of critics. Some see the revealing costumes and dancing as immoral or contrary to religious faith. In 2017, the Evangelical mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Crivella, threatened to cut funding to the samba schools. Crivella announced that he wanted to use the funds for education instead. The samba schools protested, noting the positive economic impact of Carnival on the city as well as its appeal with tourists. Crivella also revised the process for approving samba schools to perform in the Sambadrome, making it more difficult. In 2021, the Rio Carnival was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
