- Title: BRAZIL: RIO'S ANNUAL CARNIVAL CONTINUES
- Date: 10th February 1997
- Summary: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (FEBRUARY 10, 1997) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. CU EXT TIGER'S MOUTH / DANCERS AT MOUTH 0.07 2. SLV VARIOUS OF DANCERS (3 SHOTS) 0.22 3. SLV PERFORMER IN WHEELCHAIR 0.29 4. SLV DANCERS ON FLOATS 0.34 5. SLV VARIOUS OF DANCERS (6 SHOTS) 1.12 6. SLV ROMAN FLOAT 1.15 7. SLV VARIOUS OF DANCERS (8 SHOTS) 1.48 8. SV TOPLESS WOMEN DANCING (2 SHOTS) 2.03 9. SLV VARIOUS OF DANCERS (10 SHOTS) 3.04 Initials S3/2 P3 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
- Embargoed: 25th February 1997 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
- City:
- Country: Brazil
- Reuters ID: LVADJRW9QK7T59PN18WSZ4BT5TU4
- Story Text: INTRO: Rio's Carnival orgy has entered the home stretch with the final eight samba schools presenting their extravagant bids to become this year's champion in the final dusk-to-dawn parade.
Mocidade Independente samba school on Monday (February 10) was favoured to repeat last year's first-place finish at the Rio carnival with a magical journey through the human body.
"None of us are to enter the avenue thinking we are the champions, but we will exit with the title in our hands," Renato Lage, the mastermind behind Mocidade's carnival fantasy, told O Globo newspaper.
In their quest for the top position, the school's 4,000 samba dancers and their giant floats are depicting the human body from cells and organs to Carnival's more traditional body parts of gyrating hips, bare breasts and g-stringed buttocks.
But Mocidade was not to be the only attraction on the final night of the parades that attract 70,000 spectators to see the "special group" schools take over the sambadrome stadium in a blaze of colour and sequin glamour.
Unidos do Viradouro promised to create a big bang with its travels through the universe, while Portela paid its respects to Brazil's northeastern colonial city of Olinda, whose frenetic street carnival has become a popular alternative to Rio's showbusiness event.
It is not only Rio that falls to the annual carnival madness, but other cities like Salvador and Recife in northeastern Brazil are equally afflicted, and even hardworking, sober Sao Paulo has caught the bug.
This year's carnival season has attracted 300,000 visitors to Rio de Janeiro alone, 15 percent more than last year, according to the Association of Brazilian Travel Agents (ABAV).
Rio's world famous four-day revelry kicked off on Friday with an opening ceremony in the city centre, followed by the first parades in the sambadrome by the lowest of the second-tier samba schools who hope to climb the ranks to the top special-group schools.
On Saturday, it was the turn of the remaining lower-rank schools as carnival built up to its climax on Sunday and Monday nights when the elite of Rio's many samba schools parade down the 530-meter (1,600-foot) long sambadrome.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None