In a dusty, stifling warehouse near this city’s old port, glitterychunks of mirror are glued onto platforms that will hold dancers,colorful leg bands go on statues of scandalously clad women, a finalcoat of spray paint settles onto a float.
Workers are putting the final touches on five floats that tell the story of Rio de Janeiro’s oldest samba school, Estacio de Sa.The samba schools — organizations with loyal followings often based inpoor neighborhoods — are at the heart of Rio's Carnaval.
Each year, the schools concoct original samba songs and buildelaborate floats. School members, some in elaborate costume, parade forjudges at the city's packed samba stadium for four nights duringCarnaval. Select samba schools compete for the top prize.
Next year, Estacio de Sa hopes to be part of that elite group, knownas the “Grupo Especial.” But they'll have to earn it Saturday, whenthey parade as part of the second-tier “Grupo de Accesso,” or AccessGroup.
The competition among samba schools is fierce. The teams (which arecalled schools, but are really teams) that win each league (which arecalled groups, but are really leagues) switch places with the losers ofthe higher group for the following year. From the Special Group, itgoes to the Access Group, and then Group A, B, C and so forth.
The Estacio de Sa school has a storied past, founded in 1928 asDeixa Falar about the time modern samba came into being. The school hassince gone through mergers and name changes and as Estacio de Sa — thename of the neighborhood where the school is located — it won theoverall championship in 1992. Early this decade it fell into the AccessGroup. It triumphantly returned to the Special Group in 2006, but wasquickly demoted the next year.
“We went to the moon, and then were sent back to earth again,” saidClaudio Luis Rodrigues Paulino, who was one of the many sweat-drenchedcommunity members working in the warehouse on Thursday.
For members and fans of the school, the 2007 loss stung badly. In the neighborhood, lachrymose glands went into overdrive.
“I saw it on television,” said Andre Pereira, 39, a lifetime fan ofthe school. “I started to cry. We dedicate ourselves to the school. Wegive ourselves over to the school, with all our soul.”
Pereira was preparing ribbons for a float that depicted the SaoCarlos favela, with its shacks rendered in the deep blue shadows ofnighttime. He lives in the community, and during most of the year hesells children’s clothes door to door there. But come Carnaval, heplays a dual role.
He has been working 12 hours a day as head of the “aderecistas,” theteam that adds the minutely detailed decorations and flourishes to thefloats. And come tonight, he’ll be at the top of one of them, samba-ingin a ring of kites in an elaborate costume.
“I think there’s a chance we’ll get to the top group,” he said. “We’re doing everything possible.”
It’s also a special year because the artist responsible foroverseeing the whole process is Chico Spinosa, the wildly gray-haired“carnavalesco,” as his role is known. He last led Estacio when it wonin 1992 before moving on to other schools and eventually leading one ofSao Paulo’s legendary schools, Vai-Vai, to several victories in thebetter-funded but less legendary Carnaval in Brazil’s financialcapital. Now he is back in Rio.
Estacio's theme this year is the history of the school, depictedover five floats. Spinosa’s design starts in Africa, where a largepercentage of the school’s members, not to mention samba itself, haveroots.
A glittering gold lion roars out of the first float, trailed bymammoth, hauntingly gorgeous heads of an African man and woman. Onefloat shows the founder of the school, who is a hero of the early daysof samba, Ismael Silva. Another displays famous musicians who grew upin the favela, such as Gonzaguinha and Dominguinhos do Estacio. Yetanother float is an homage to the modern art theme that won the 1992Carnaval, and includes six black women with their, er, ample behindsextended out from the float at a gravity defying, libido-inspiringangle — representing the work of 20th-century naturalized Brazilianartist Lasar Segall.
Any wide-eyed first-time Carnaval visitor seeing the glorious floatsmight be tricked into thinking victory was assured, but in otherwarehouses around the city, equally motivated schools undoubtedlywork on similarly stunning floats.
Balance, said Spinosa, is the key to success with the judges.“Success comes from the totality: the synchronization of the music, thedancers and the aesthetic,” said Spinosa. “When one outdoes the other,it doesn’t work.”
There is more at stake than glory.
“Going into the Grupo Especial [the school] becomes better known,more profitable, and brings more opportunities to the community,” saidSueli Flor Santos, who has served in various leadership roles over theyears, and whose family’s devotion to Estacio de Sa goes back to hergrandmother. “The school is not just about samba, it’s also aboutsocial projects. For those of us who are part of the school, Carnavalis the culmination of everything we do during the year.“
In a back corner of the warehouse, a wiry, balding 53-year-old named Gil Cardozo Mota swept up the sawdust and styrofoam cups the otherworkers have left behind. He is also from the community and a lifetimesupporter of the school. He thinks Estacio de Sa is bound to win.
“With this kind of beauty,” he said, gesturing to the floats, “we’ll only lose if we are robbed again.”
But Cardozo Mota had a surprise admission: in all his yearssupporting the school, he has never been among the thousands who dancealong with the float. That’s because he does not know how to samba andin his youth preferred to dance American style.
“I’m not going to lieabout it,” he said. “Michael Jackson is my idol. James Brown too.”
