As you all have probably noticed, from the excessive amounts of Brazil posters around campus, this year, Queens College is celebrating the Year of Brazil! In the honor of this event, QC Voices has decided to take part of the celebration by having special posts on Brazil. I personally love parties, celebrations, and anything festive. In Brazil, they seem to feel the same way. Every year, for five days before Ash Wednesday, they celebrate the “Carnaval” which literally translates to carnival in English. Everyone is invited to participate in this event of the year, and on the contrary to the customs in most countries, there are parts of Brazil when the poorest of the country are the ones who actually make the party.

There are many different ways of celebration, depending on which part of Brazil you are in, from the “Rio de Janeiro” to the “Bahia” to the “Pernambuco”. For the “Rio de Janeiro” style, the European methods of celebration are mimicked, but Native American and African cultures dwell through it as well. With Blocos de Rua (street carnival bands), a major part of this celebrations follows on music and dancing. Basically, anyone can form a bloco group, and they normally come up with a comical name or phrase for themselves. They can take this opportunity to meet new people, show there standard in business, and other beneficial things. Samba schools run all year long in preparation for the Carnaval. They are financed by well known and renowned businesses, but also by illegal gangs.  This is not truly considered as an opposition to the law, but has become rather a tradition of the Carnaval.

The Carnaval is really a time for people of all social statuses and standings to come together and enjoy themselves. Actually, one of the major parts of the Carnaval is come together by the poorest people in Brazil, the people from the favelas, the poorest of the neighborhoods. These people actually seem to make the festivity of the carnaval, and they look forward to it all year because they know they are welcome to enjoy this festivity as much as everyone else. Many of the participants of the samba schools are from these favelas. Another interesting detail about the festival? For the duration of the festival, along with social boundaries, all gender boundaries disappear as well. For a country not as open to homosexuality as the United States, this means a lot. The LGBT communities take a big role in the festival because they are free of all judging that they may have to face normally.

They have masquerade parades, where everyone dresses up and there are various performances on different types of music.  Believe you want to take part in this celebration? Book a ticket or learn more from http://www.rio-carnival.net/ !