Costumes, floats take over Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Hundreds of shirtless men wheeled massive floats Sunday in the direction of the Sambadrome, the site of this year's Carnival showdown between Brazil's top samba groups.\nFor the next two nights, the massive concrete stadium will be the site of a dance competition between Rio's 14 top-tier samba groups, each battling for the right to be declared this year's champion.\nThe distinction brings little more than bragging rights, but one could easily miss that, given the intensity carnival groups devote to their parades.\n"Samba is what I eat, what I drink, it's what I live," said Fabia Borges, a featured dancer with the Unidos de Tijuca group.\nThe Sambadrome performances, which will be televised live across this nation of 175 million people, will feature some 4,000 lavishly costumed dancers and drummers.\nThe performers come from 14 top samba "schools" -- actually neighborhood groups, mainly from poor communities -- that have spent the year preparing for their moment of glory.\nOn the city's poor north side, entire apartments are turned into costume workshops for months before the parade.\nChildren covered in glitter banged away on tambourines while mothers sat at sewing machines assembling the elaborate sequin and feather costumes that dancers will wear for a single night.\nIn the huge sweltering warehouses lining the city's port districts, workers were still busy adding last-minute touches to the enormous floats depicting everything from giant teddy bears -- for a parade honoring the kiddie show host Xuxa -- to scenes from the Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian book of sexual wisdom.\nTickets for the Sambadrome celebration, the highlight of carnival, are too pricey for many Brazilians. Each group has 80 minutes to parade dancers, singers and drummers down the 766-yard-long stadium in an effort to win over the crowd and judges.\nThe groups are judged on criteria that include music, costumes, originality, floats, percussion and even enthusiasm.\nThe carnavalescos, or parade designers, draw upon everything from Greek mythology to Amazon Indian legends for the themes of their extravaganzas.\nMany here complain that the strict judging stifles innovation and that the festival has become a moribund spectacle. Such criticism may seem especially apt this year, since carnival organizers have encouraged groups to revive past hits for this year's parade.\nBut only four groups have done so, mostly because of the difficulty in attracting lucrative sponsorships with old songs.\nAdvertising is strictly prohibited on parade floats and costumes, but because the two-day parade is broadcast live, sponsors are willing to pay large sums to determine what the groups sing about.