Richard And Jo Demeester's photos with the keyword: Série Ouro

Acting like a title page, announcing the school, and setting the scene.

Performers general number between 2000 and 3000 per school. The "wings" of dancers are grouped by their costumes, and they are quite accessible for those who would like to participate. Astoundingly, the dozen or so elite dancers with lighting fast feet somehow manage to maintain an amazing output for the full length of the Sambadrone. They look like they should be collapsing after 2 minutes, the energy level is so high. Each school has to have a minimum 200 drummers, but the top schools end up with more, entering a percussion orchestra.

Each school is allocated 70-80 minutes to present a story, or a "plot". The school selects a specific topic. Examples might be a historical event, a famous Brazilian figure, a social issue, or even a mythological tale. Each float, costume, dance, and song is expected to be strongly on theme, and this is a big part of the judging criteria. In this category, the schools generally present 3 or 4 floats. The floats are meant to take the audience through the story, starting new chapters, and finally rounding up with an ending or a moral.

We were told we had "allocated seats",and I guess we could have insisted and sat exactly where our tickets indicated, but in reality, it was a bit more fluid than that. Being not overly crowded (as it was an access group parade), we were able to find an approximate spot that worked. Starting at about 10 pm, eight samba schools were scheduled to perform on the night. We did not last the distance. With a 5 or 6 am expected finish time, we knew we were not going to make it. We cheered and danced and enjoyed until around 2:30. I got the impression that "seeing sunrise from the Sambadrome" is something akin to a right of passage for Cariocas (those from Rio).