The carnival helps to reconquer public space in Latin America

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Gisele Ribeiro and Karina Cruz are on a red float next to the São Paulo sambadrome, a half-kilometer avenue between two rows of concrete stands designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer in the mid-eighties to host samba school parades. .

It's Wednesday, February 7 and there are just a few days left until the party officially begins.

“We came straight from work to the last rehearsal,” they say, already somewhat tired.

It is eleven at night and they have been following the instructions of the coordinators of Acadêmicos de Tucuruvi for three hours, one of the 12 schools of the “Special Group” of Sao Paulo, the first division.

They wait patiently while a crane lifts those on the top of the float two by two, about eight meters high.

The 2,100 people who will parade this year at the school will have to sing and dance in coordination and with energy.

“It's the first time I'm parading and I'm very excited, although I didn't know it took so much effort to prepare,” says Bruna Badolato, who has come from the other side of the megalopolis for the last rehearsal.

This year, the theme of the Tucuruvi Acadêmicos parade is Ifá, a religion of African origin.

It is the first time that the school proposes an afro tangle, a theme that is increasingly common in the parades in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

“We asked for authorization from the matrix of religion in Nigeria to do it respectfully,” explains Rodrigo del Duque, who supervises the trial.

He is vice president and carnival director at Acadêmicos de Tucuruvi, the school in his neighborhood in the northern part of Sao Paulo.

He has been doing this since 1992 and knows well the famous Rio carnival, which he goes to whenever he can.

“In Rio you live more, they defend it with more fervor, although, in technical quality, the Sao Paulo carnival has nothing to envy.

Many people also participate here, but being a huge and culturally diverse metropolis, the party is diluted,” he acknowledges.

He believes that it should be extended more to the street: “In Rio, if you don't go into the sambadrome, you also have fun in the surrounding area because the carnival is something deeply rooted in the culture.”

And the city that was the capital of Brazil between 1763 and 1960, was one of the largest slave ports in America.

There, samba emerged and strengthened, a musical style with African influences that immediately prevailed in the carnival, until then celebrated with music of European origin such as polkas and waltzes.

In Rio and Sao Paulo, some groups of people occupied the streets to celebrate the carnival and, at the beginning of the 20th century, these associations were the seeds of the samba schools that today parade in their sambadromes.

“In Brazil there are two types of carnival: the spectacle, in the sambadrome, and the participation, in the streets,” explains Guilherme Varella, lawyer and cultural manager, in a phone call.

He is a professor at the Federal University of Bahia and has just published the book

Direito a Folia

(Right to Party), an essay on the right to carnival and the public policy of the street carnival in Sao Paulo.

“It tries to be an orderly, standardized city, and there is little room for spontaneity,” he says.

It wasn't always like this.

The first bloco (street troupes) in Sao Paulo dates back to 1914, in the Barra Funda neighborhood, but in the mid-twentieth century the street carnival remained something residual, until recently.

“Starting in 2010, with movements demanding the right to the city that emerged globally, culture was assimilated as an important vector to vindicate the recreational use of the street.

So that the city is a place for partying, joy or games, for fraternizing and not just for working and sleeping,” he says.

Sao Paulo is an example of this fight to reconquer public space during carnival.

“In 2013 there were about 40 blocos and today there are more than 600,” he analyzes.

The São Paulo street carnival is governed by rules that he believes can be improved, such as the one that requires it to end at seven in the afternoon.

“It would be necessary to study it by area, for example, at night the city center is deserted and the street carnival could activate the region, improving coexistence and security,” he maintains.

A group of dancers in the carnival parade at the sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).Paula López Barba

“What connects most with Candombe is parading in public spaces”

Although they are not the only important carnivals in Latin America - there is also, for example, the one in Barranquilla, in Colombia, which floods the streets with music, party and color - those in Brazil are a world reference, with some especially famous in Rio, Recife, Olinda and Salvador.

From other Latin American countries, they follow the televised parades of the samba schools of Rio and Sao Paulo, which some imitate.

Like the Encarnación carnival, in Paraguay, where they built a sambadrome in 2014 to host parades inspired by Brazilians.

“The carnival has been celebrated here for 104 years, initially in the street, until the sambadrome was built,” explains Stella Ferreira, a Paraguayan doctor who has lived in Encarnación for 25 years and has followed the carnival as an audience ever since.

She is eagerly preparing for Saturday, when she will attend the last parade of this year.

“It is the best carnival in the country,” she concludes.

In Paraguay, there are few festive celebrations in public spaces, compared to some neighboring countries, such as Brazil or Argentina.

Natalia Tambutti was born in Buenos Aires 33 years ago, she is a personal trainer and dancer.

At the end of her day, she spends Thursday afternoon preparing costumes to parade in the street during the Argentine carnival, in the province of San Luis.

She and her companions dance Candombe, a drum rhythm that emerged in the 18th century in the Río de la Plata region as a means of expression for enslaved people brought from Africa.

It is very popular in Uruguay and is recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

“What connects most with Candombe is parading in public spaces, what is popular.

I think that this type of street demonstrations, like the carnival, should have more support from the institutions.

Everything that is culture, preserving rituals and promoting tourism in Argentina is good,” he says over a video call and explains that there are several types of carnival in the country.

Those from Gualeguaychú stand out.

“It is close to Buenos Aires and looks like Rio,” and especially those in the north of the country, in Salta and Jujuy, where Pachamama (mother earth) and the sun and rain that fertilize the seeds in the arid soil are honored. region of.

“It has an important tradition, it is a completely different carnival than that of Brazil, Buenos Aires or Uruguay,” he concludes.

Latin American diversity

Latin American carnivals are very diverse.

In the Andean region, there are several popular expressions, some internationally recognized, such as that of Oruro (Bolivia), declared intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO.

Otty Grima Breña Fernández is a Peruvian architect and has experienced some carnivals in her country, such as the one in Ayacucho, where there are parades, but the public only observes.

This year she has been invited to spend her first carnival in Jauja.

“It is more participatory, the men cut a eucalyptus tree and it is planted on the main day of the carnival in squares, parks or free spaces in the neighborhoods.

There are orchestras and people are dressed in very beautiful clothes, from the area.

Afterwards, what is called the “clipping” is done, the neighborhood dances around the tree and they cut it down with an axe.

Whoever knocks it down becomes the godfather of the following year and people come to collect the gifts,” she explains.

In Mexico, they are accustomed to large festivities that occupy public space and fill it with colors, such as the Day of the Dead.

The street carnival is very established.

“They are popular festivals that have been going on for many years, normally there is a religious celebration and then a pagan one, where allegories and mockery are made, even of the Spanish colonizers, as in Oaxaca,” explains Leonardo Escobar Heredia, an urban planner from Mexico City.

“In the capital's carnivals, very varied troupes participate, in which everyone is dressed in costumes and masks made by artisans.

In general, they are satires of popular groups towards power groups such as politicians or landowners,” he highlights.

Carnival is a pagan festival in which people express themselves, play and criticize in a playful way.

When celebrated in the street, it transforms the urban landscape and can be a tool to reflect on our relationship with public space, mobility, green areas, tourism or security, urgent issues in many Latin American cities.