Festive Brazil
Think of Brazilian festivals and the images that spring to mind are of fantastic street parades featuring dancers in fantastic costumes gyrating to samba rhythms. This is of course the annual Carnival. Carnival starts on a Saturday and officially runs for four days, ending on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras). The actual date depends on Easter and so varies between February and March.
Carnival
Carnival celebrations occur in every city in Brazil but the real extravaganza happens in Rio. Here it’s the samba schools that put on the big show. Each samba school chooses its theme for the parade and prepares the elaborate floats and flamboyant costumes that define Carnival.
Carnival has its origins in long-ago pagan celebration held in Greece or Rome. The grand balls that evolved from these rituals arrived in Brazil from Italy at the end of the 19th century. Decades later, they achieved legendary status for their splendour and the celebrities who attended them at the Copacabana Palace Hotel. The actual Samba Parade that is the heart of Carnival dates from the 1930s.
Sao Paulo Art Festival
Another major event on the Brazilian calendar is the Sao Paulo art festival held biannually in October on even years. The São Paulo Bienal as it’s known locally, features both Brazilian and international art. It’s the biggest arts event in Latin America and showcases art, theater, music, and architecture.
Taking the Venice Biennial as its model, the São Paulo Art Biennial was founded in 1951 by the Italian-Brazilian industrialist Ciccillo Matarazzo. The original aim of the festival was to make international modern art better known in Brazil, to promote the works