Brazilians take several days off of work for every February Carnaval, a massive parade celebration complete with detailed costumes, samba music and dancing. Sophomore Sophie MacArthur, whose mother is from São Paulo, said that Carnaval manifests itself differently depending on the location.
She said that in São Paulo, intricately adorned costumes play an integral role in Carnaval. “There’s a lot of large feathery things … scantily clad women, people in masks,” she said.
MacArthur said that samba music and dancing is also a significant part of the celebration.
“[Samba] is pretty unique to Brazil. It has a lot of drumming, percussion instruments mixed with singing. There’s also a dance called samba, so it’s music and dancing,” she said. “The drums are really fast, and when people dance to it they move their feet really fast and move their hips really fast.”
According to MacArthur’s mother, Silvana MacArthur-Sawaya, Carnaval provides many opportunities for joyous expressions like these.
“Usually everybody is very happy because people just break out in dance and song,” she said. “You talk to other people you’ve never met before, and everybody is just sort of wanting to party and dance and be happy.”
According to Silvana, Carnaval yields thousands of visitors. “When I was little they used to have it just in a large avenue, but nowadays they have a special place called sambadrome where they have bleachers,” she said.
She said that Carnaval has become a tradition for Brazilians, although it has strong roots in African culture.
“Brazil is a big melting pot of many cultures coming together; Carnaval is just like that too,” she said.
