Samba School

The place was discreet, though it was the best-known dive in Shiz. It hid behind a façade of paneled-up windows. A couple of Apes roamed the street in front, bouncing troublemakers ahead of time….

The door swung open, and they went down a flight of uneven brick steps. At the bottom of the flight was a dwarf in a purple burnoose. He looked at their tickets, and said, “Where are you soft things from? Out of town?”….

They danced. The crowd was the most mixed Boq had seen in some time. There were Animals, humans, dwarfs, elves and several tik-tok things of incomplete or experimental gender. A squadron of well-built blond boys circulated with tumblers of rotgut squash wine, which the friends drank because it was free.

They were swept through the oak doors and along a slightly sloping passage whose walls were padded in red and blue velvet. A merry tune was playing farther on, a dancing ragged melody.

He felt he was knowing less and less, and it was more and more beautiful to do so. Why had he been alarmed?

--- Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

I’m not sure if it’s because I just finished reading this (slightly edited) passage in Wicked, or because I’ve been reading one too many guidebook entries about Samba, Carnaval, Favelas, etc. But, when we hopped into the cab on Saturday night to go to the Tijuca Samba School, I half-expected to arrive at a non-descript door, deep in a favela, knock a secret knock and walk in to a dark hall crowded with samba dancers.

Instead, we grabbed a cab, flew down the highway toward City Center and wound up at something more like a town fair/church festival/block party. When we arrived, the party was in full swing.

I mentioned earlier that there are roughly 14 samba schools in Rio that compete in the annual Carnaval parade. On Saturday nights, especially in the weeks leading up to Carnaval, the Samba Schools host practice parties. The parties are open to the public and as the weeks get closer and closer to Carnaval the parties get more and more crowded.

Far from being a dark, eerie hall, the Tijuca School party is held in an enormous outdoor pavilion – something you might find at a county fair back in The States. The drums were banging and the stage was full of men screaming (not singing) the school’s samba song. Everyone in the community seemed to be pitching in whether they were selling tickets, manning the bar, playing in the mob-of-a-samba-band up front or dancing in costume.

The term School is a misnomer. These are not places where you go to learn how to Samba… though Anderson did try to teach me the basics. He had as much luck as friends who have tried to teach me Two-Stepping: I understand the mechanics, but when you put it into full speed I fall apart. These are places where the community comes to celebrate their culture and prepare for Carnaval.

All night long, they sang the same songs over and over again. Mostly, they were the songs of the School... kind of like an Alma Mater. Tijuca's 2007 song can be heard if you visit their web site. It speaks of the whole world coming to see Carnival and look at the "Fantasias", or costumes. It's a catchy tune that we've been singing ever since. Check it out!

The party was so crowded and hot that we never made it to the front of the hall to see the Samba dancers. Instead, we were lucky enough that a few came out back to dance where we were. I’m assuming it was one part “show off for the tourists” and one part “there has to be some cooler air out here.”

First was a young couple – the woman dressed in a brightly colored costume, the young man in jeans and a t-shirt. Their dancing varied from a low-key tête-à-tête around each other to an all-out, frenzied rhythmic tantrum that looked as if the devil himself had possessed them both. They had clearly been dancing for hours but weren’t about to stop anytime soon.

Slowly other members of the community joined in including the shy young women who had been standing demurely at the edge of the circle and older men who looked far too old to possess the energy they demonstrated in their dancing.

Of course, it wasn’t long before they looked into the crowd for a tourist or two to join in. And, of course they went straight for me. Before I knew it, the young woman was inviting me to dance with her. It was made relatively clear by the older gentlemen that to decline would be an insult. So, into the circle I jumped and started doing the samba with her.

To say I was doing the samba “with” her isn’t quite accurate. She was going at her slower, yet wild pace. I was holding my own – but at one-tenth the speed. I felt like a Ford Fiesta pulling onto the German Autobahn and being passed by a bunch of crazed, speeding drivers in BMW’s and Mercedes Benz’.

That lasted about five minutes or so before I was able to gracefully excuse myself. A few minutes later we were back in the cab on our way home. It might not have been a real school. But, I definitely had my first, true Samba lesson.