school of samba
December 31, 2006
one of the recommended "sights" of rio sounds a bit more interesting than climbing on another hill or dodging bullets in a favela, visiting a school of samba during one of their parties/events
which is not actually a school where they teach you samba (which proves impossible anyway, but more of that later) but is basically their presentation of different carnival songs/dances/etc and a big party at the same time... different schools organize such events, we visited the one of salguiero which is located near tijuca & the maracana stadium
the location is surprising at first, from the outside it looks like a big gym or small stadium but on the inside its a big hall with loads of shops to buy food, drinks (at reasonable prices) and 'fan-tshirts'
arriving just before 11 we entered while the samba band was playing their warmup songs on the main stage and the hall was slowly filling up... an hour later is was packed with people
than the show began, first, around 30 percussion musicians standing on a small balcony vis-a-vis of the main stage started to lay the typical samba percussion beats over the songs of the band and the locals went crazy... feet moving faster than your eyes can follow!
the tons of tourists there went crazy as well... unfortunately with full bright lights on during the whole night, the sight of those dancing-moves was rather silly and kinda stopped me from moving myself
anyway, after the dancers went on stage in their costumes i left soon after, it was great to see, but lacking any skills in samba dancing, i wont become a regular visitor
apropos laughing about tourists; this is a picture of me in a samba costume while visiting the sambadrome earlier this week
which is not actually a school where they teach you samba (which proves impossible anyway, but more of that later) but is basically their presentation of different carnival songs/dances/etc and a big party at the same time... different schools organize such events, we visited the one of salguiero which is located near tijuca & the maracana stadium
the location is surprising at first, from the outside it looks like a big gym or small stadium but on the inside its a big hall with loads of shops to buy food, drinks (at reasonable prices) and 'fan-tshirts'
arriving just before 11 we entered while the samba band was playing their warmup songs on the main stage and the hall was slowly filling up... an hour later is was packed with people
than the show began, first, around 30 percussion musicians standing on a small balcony vis-a-vis of the main stage started to lay the typical samba percussion beats over the songs of the band and the locals went crazy... feet moving faster than your eyes can follow!
the tons of tourists there went crazy as well... unfortunately with full bright lights on during the whole night, the sight of those dancing-moves was rather silly and kinda stopped me from moving myself
anyway, after the dancers went on stage in their costumes i left soon after, it was great to see, but lacking any skills in samba dancing, i wont become a regular visitor
apropos laughing about tourists; this is a picture of me in a samba costume while visiting the sambadrome earlier this week
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