All that glitters

Now that the celebrations are over, the dramas begin.

No, not the Olympic Winter Games - the annual Rio Carnival!

According to the excellent (English language) The Brazilian Report, executives of rival samba schools were already taking pot-shots at each other even before last week’s event.

And the fact that the winning samba school, Unidos do Viradouro (or to give it its full name, Gremio Recreativo Escola de Samba Unidos do Viradouro) won by a mere one-tenth of a point at 270 points, edging out archrival and 15-times winner, Beija-Flor de Nilópolis (you can guess the full name) only added fuel to the fire.

And the prize is worth fighting for – the winning samba school got BRL 3.7m (roughly USD 715k).

The Brazilian Report article explains how the scoring is done – arcane doesn’t begin to describe it.

Be it enough to say that the samba schools are judged in eight categories, including costumes (of course), ‘bateria’ (drummers), floats & props, as well as the thematic concept and what is tagged as ‘harmony’. Each category is subdivided and points awarded in each area by no fewer than 48 judges (six per category).

But there wasn’t much ‘harmony’ for samba school Acadêmicos de Niterói, who thematic concept was a homage to Brazilian President Lula da Silva. This went down not too well, and so did the samba school, coming last in the 12 first division and therefore relegated to the second division. Oh the shame!

And here’s a fun fact.

Audio delay towers are erected along the 700-meter Sambadrome runway to make sure that the sounds of each bateria reaches the crowd in sync – all adjusted automatically as the samba school progresses along the runway. (I should add that a samba school usually has several thousand (yes, thousand) participants who take a good hour to strut their stuff!)

I only wish I could have been there!