50 Fun Facts About Rio Carnival

Which Brazilian architect, also the designer of Brasília's main buildings, drew up Rio's Sambadrome parade ground?

Oscar Niemeyer designed it on his return from exile, and the concrete stands went up in about four months, in time for the 1984 parades.

At the opening of Rio Carnival, what does the mayor traditionally hand to King Momo, the festival's jolly monarch?

The key to the city passes to him as if he, not the mayor, governed Rio for the days of revelry, and his arrival marks the start of the party.

Which 1959 film set during Rio Carnival won both the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award?

Black Orpheus moved the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice to a Rio favela, and songs from its soundtrack became bossa nova classics.

In which James Bond film does 007 survive an attack by the steel-toothed Jaws during Rio Carnival?

Moonraker sent a crew to Rio in early 1978 to capture real Carnival footage, a location its producer had picked after holidaying there.

The Rio Carnival street band Sargento Pimenta parades to Brazilian-rhythm versions of songs by which British group?

The Beatles are the whole repertoire of Sargento Pimenta, whose name is simply Portuguese for Sergeant Pepper.

Beija-Flor, one of the most successful samba schools in Rio Carnival, is named after which bird?

Hummingbird is beija-flor in Portuguese, and the bird is the school's symbol; the name was borrowed from an older Carnival group in the town of Valença.

The journalist Mário Filho, who staged Rio's first samba school contest in 1932, gave his name to which stadium?

The Maracanã is officially the Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho; he launched the contest as a stopgap when his sports paper lost readers between football seasons.

What did Rio's Sambadrome house beneath its concrete grandstands when the Carnival parade ground opened in 1984?

Classrooms were built under the stands so that the parade ground would double as a school for the rest of the year.

What can a visitor with no ties to any samba school buy to parade through Rio's Sambadrome at Carnival?

A costume bought from a school comes with a spot as a dancer in one of its parade groups, so outsiders can march beside lifelong members.

On which day are the judges' scores read out and the champion samba school of Rio Carnival declared?

Ash Wednesday is when the grades are gathered and a winner named, and the top schools return to the avenue that Saturday for the Parade of Champions.

Which of Rio's oldest samba schools, founded on a hillside in 1928, parades at Carnival in green and pink?

Mangueira borrowed the colours from an older Carnival group, and its full name, First Station, marks the first railway stop out of central Rio where there was samba.

In the 2011 animated film Rio, whose finale unfolds at the Carnival parade, what kind of bird is the hero Blu?

A macaw of the rare Spix's species, Blu was raised in Minnesota, and the film's smugglers use the Carnival parade as cover to move their stolen birds.

Rio Carnival is the last big blowout before which season of the Christian calendar?

Lent, the forty days of fasting before Easter, moves with Easter's date, which is why Rio Carnival falls on different dates from one year to the next.

The Tuesday that closes Rio Carnival is the same day New Orleans celebrates under which French name?

Mardi Gras and Rio's final day share a date because both are the last chance to feast before the fasting season starts the next morning.

Entrudo, the rowdy street game that grew into Rio Carnival, was brought to Brazil by colonists from which country?

Portugal's colonists brought it between the 16th and 17th centuries, and its rough street games slowly gave way to masks and fancy dress.

A 1989 Beija-Flor float at Rio Carnival paraded a replica of which landmark hidden under black plastic?

Christ the Redeemer was built as a ragged beggar for a parade about rubbish and poverty, and when the Church had the image banned it paraded shrouded instead.

Which star of Hollywood musicals was the theme of Império Serrano's winning 1972 Rio Carnival parade?

Carmen Miranda was honoured by famous women who paraded dressed as her, one opening each section, and the tribute earned the school its eighth title.

The porta-bandeira, a spinning dancer escorted by the mestre-sala, displays what to the crowd in a Rio Carnival parade?

A flag in her group's colours is hers to show off, and the judges mark the pair down for slips as small as a dropped hat.

Which grand beachfront hotel in Rio de Janeiro is famous for hosting the city's most glamorous Carnival balls?

Copacabana Palace holds its black-tie ball while samba schools are parading across town, so Rio has several Carnivals running at once.

What name, taken from an Old Tupi phrase, is given to the natives of Rio de Janeiro who fill the Carnival streets?

Carioca covers only the capital, while people from the wider state of Rio de Janeiro were traditionally called Fluminense, from the Latin for river.

Which section of a Rio samba school, an all-percussion orchestra of 250 to 300 players, sets the pace of the parade?

Bateria players follow a conductor of their own, and the faster and stronger they play, the faster the whole group moves down the avenue.

Which wing of a Rio samba school parade features older women spinning down the avenue in wide, round dresses?

Ala das baianas honours the Bahian 'aunts' who hosted Rio's earliest samba circles, and every school is still required to field the wing.

What is the title of the artistic director who devises a Rio samba school's theme and designs its floats?

Carnavalesco is a job often held by people trained in theatre, dance or the visual arts, and some lead a team of researchers to develop the story.

The comissão de frente is a small choreographed troupe with which job in a Rio samba school's Carnival show?

Opening the parade falls to ten to fifteen dancers, whose routine usually tells a short story and sets the mood for everything behind them.

The velha guarda, who parade through Rio's Sambadrome in suits and Panama-style hats, are a samba school's what?

Veteran members, often founders who no longer hold office, march in a place of honour wearing suits in their school's colours.

Which Brazilian friction drum, a staple of Rio Carnival percussion sections, shares its name with a shrill opossum?

Cuíca players rub a stick fixed inside the drum with a wet cloth while pressing the skin to bend the pitch, a squeal that earned it the nickname laughing gourd.

The agogô, a West African instrument heard in Rio Carnival percussion sections, is made of what?

Two metal bells of different pitch, shaped like cones, give it a bright ring, and the school Império Serrano is known for leaning on it.

In the paradinha, devised by Mocidade's Mestre André, what does a Rio samba school's percussion section suddenly do?

The drummers stop playing, leaving only voices and a small cavaquinho for a moment, and the risk is that the song is picked up again at the wrong point.

Which group from Rio's Estácio district, founded in 1928, is regarded as the very first samba school?

Deixa Falar lasted under five years, yet it was the first group to call itself a samba school and set out the key ideas of what one is.

Who made the Rio samba school Portela drop its earlier name, Vai como Pode, in 1935 for being too vulgar?

A police officer refused to renew the group's licence under the old name, which means 'go as you can', and suggested the new one himself.

On which day of the week does Rio Carnival officially begin, exactly 51 days before Easter Sunday?

Friday opens five days of official festivities, although street parties start warming up across Rio weeks earlier, in January.

Besides the marathon, which Olympic sport was staged on the Carnival runway of Rio's Sambadrome at the 2016 Games?

Archery came back to the same runway for the Paralympics a few weeks later, on ground normally reserved for dancers and drummers.

The 1917 Carnival hit regarded as Brazil's first recorded samba is named after which invention?

The telephone gives 'Pelo Telefone' its title, and because the tune grew out of group improvisation in a Rio backyard, several musicians claimed to have written it.

What does a Rio samba school usually choose each year through a contest among its composers?

A theme song, the samba-enredo, is picked from a field of rival entries, and the judges later mark both the song and how well the whole school sings it.

After the pandemic wiped out Rio's 2021 Carnival, the 2022 Sambadrome parades were pushed back to which month?

April was picked so the parades would coincide with the Tiradentes Day holiday, and the event went back to its usual slot in 2023.

Many Rio samba schools have long been bankrolled by bicheiros, the bosses of jogo do bicho, which is what?

An illegal lottery based on animals, the game is banned across Brazil, yet its operators came to control nearly every big school from the 1970s.

What was demolished beside Rio's Sambadrome before the 2016 Olympics so its grandstands could finally be symmetrical?

A beer factory once run by Brahma stood where the missing stands belonged, and clearing it let the builders finally complete the architect's original design.

Which creature does Portela, the Rio samba school from Madureira, always put on the first float of its parade?

An eagle with spread wings leads Portela whatever story the parade tells, a fixture for a school whose roots go back to the 1920s.

Rio de Janeiro has been twinned since 1984 with the capital of which Spanish island, home to a famous Carnival?

Tenerife's capital, Santa Cruz, stages a Carnival often ranked second only to Rio's, and that reputation is partly why the two were paired.

Which Rio bloco, founded in 1918 and the city's oldest, has drawn more than a million revellers on Carnival Saturday?

Bola Preta, in full the Cordão da Bola Preta or 'cordon of the black ball', is rivalled for size by the Galo da Madrugada in Brazil's north-east.

Which square, marked by a soaring concrete arch, lies at the far end of the parade runway in Rio's Sambadrome?

Praça da Apoteose, or Apotheosis Square, sets the stands further back so revellers can gather as they finish, and outside Carnival it hosts major concerts.

Which co-founder of a famous Rio samba school, a former bricklayer nicknamed for a hat, chose its parade colours?

Cartola means top hat, a name workmates gave the bowler he wore to keep cement out of his hair, and he was also the school's first musical director.

Which comic song style, played by brass bands of trombones and tubas, is a Rio Carnival staple alongside samba?

Marchinha means 'little march', a dig at the seriousness of military bands that suits Carnival's habit of sending up the whole of society.

King Momo, the monarch of Rio Carnival, takes his name from Momus, the Greek personification of what?

Satire and mockery got Momus thrown off Mount Olympus for his sharp tongue, a fitting patron for a festival that turns the social order upside down.

Which composer, also Brazil's first woman conductor, wrote what is regarded as the first Carnival march in 1899?

Chiquinha Gonzaga called it 'Ó Abre Alas', and she was also the first pianist of choro, with hit operettas built on Brazilian popular culture.

Which Rio square, heart of the district once called Little Africa, hosted the first samba school contest in 1932?

Praça Onze was the stage for that first contest, and the homes around it had already nurtured the earliest sambas.

Beija-Flor, a multiple champion of Rio Carnival, is based not in Rio itself but in which neighbouring municipality?

Nilópolis is a municipality in the Baixada Fluminense lowlands, where the school began on 25 December 1948 as a local bloco.

Which Estácio composer claimed to have coined the term 'samba school', inspired by a real school near his group's base?

Ismael Silva reasoned that his group, like the college next door, was full of teachers, in this case of samba, though researchers have since found the phrase in earlier use.

What is the name of the elite top division of Rio's samba schools, whose winner is crowned Carnival champion?

Special Group nights are by far the biggest draw at the Sambadrome, and the winner of the tier below is promoted to join the elite the following year.

What do Rio's leading samba schools keep at the Cidade do Samba, a purpose-built complex in the port district of Gamboa?

Float warehouses fill the complex, about fourteen of them, and a fire there in 2011 threatened thousands of outfits a month before Carnival.