The Carnival of São Paulo () is a major
Brazilian Carnival
The Carnival of Brazil (, ) is an annual festival held the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally ...
. It features a parade of
Samba school
A samba school () is a dancing, marching, and drumming (Samba Enredo) club. They practice and often perform in a huge square-Compound (enclosure), compounds ("quadras de samba") and are devoted to practicing and exhibiting samba, an Afro-Brazili ...
s and takes place in the
Anhembi Sambadrome of
São Paulo
São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
on the Friday and Saturday night of the week of
Carnival
Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.
Carnival typi ...
.
It is currently considered one of Brazil's biggest and most important popular events.
History
The origins of Carnival stem from a game from the 15th century in which people would throw water and other liquids at each other.
/ref> Since then, it has evolved and taken different forms in the various places it has spread to. São Paulo was heavily influenced by the people who migrated from the countryside to the city, as well as by the context of the coffee sector crisis. Brazilian coffee cycle, 3 Therefore, the population of São Paulo was the result of the rural exodus caused by the coffee crisis that triggered the beginning of the São Paulo Carnival.
The Carnival celebrations and the samba itself in São Paulo are slightly different from the Carnival in the city of Rio de Janeiro, though there is a clear difference in the rhythm of the sound - in other words, the speed and tempo of the music. Samba artists from São Paulo were accustomed to difficult lives on the coffee plantations and migrated to the city in search of labour work. The São Paulo author and journalist Plínio Marcos
Plínio Marcos de Barros (29 September 1935 — 19 November 1999) was a Brazilian writer, actor, journalist and playwright, author of several stage plays adapted into film. Called a "Poète maudit" by some, his work features the life and strugg ...
called São Paulo's samba "the samba of work, hardship, drawn to the drumming", which contrasted greatly with the lyricism and cadence of carioca samba from Rio de Janeiro.
Queens of Carnival
References
External links
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São Paulo Carnival
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