Colorful and creative costumes are typically worn during the various Carnival celebrations. While the diverse costumes add an attractive, aesthetic appeal to the festival, they also serve a symbolic purpose in the ritual: the wearing of costumes represents and commemorates the ability for man to transform just as nature and the earth transforms in the springtime. Usually the colors and designs of the decorative costumes worn each year revolve around the particular theme of that year's festival, but common formulas for costumes include painted designs on the skin, extravagant masks on the face and creative clothing attire adorned with colorful feathers.
A significant tradition of the Carnival celebration is the many Carnival balls, which are large parties usually held at hotels and other Rio facilities. The balls include loud samba music, drinking and dancing. Most balls charge a fee for entrance, and while costumes are not required, they are always encouraged to help enhance the experience.
Samba music, a genre originated in Brazil, is the primary style of music played during the four-day Carnival celebration. Numerous samba bands play at the balls, street festivals, and other parties. However, the biggest event for the many Brazilian samba bands and samba schools is the Sambadrone Parade in Rio De Janeiro. Most Brazil neighborhoods produce their own samba school, and each school decides and announces their theme or storyline for Carnival a year prior to the parade. The storylines usually involve famous people, historical events, political issues or other significant events. Once a samba group chooses a theme, they spend the entire year developing costumes, writing songs and lyrics that incorporate the storyline of the performance, and practicing to prepare for the Carnival.
Various festivals are held on the streets of Rio. Local bands play on the streets both to entertain the crowd and to prepare for the parade, and the music is generally accompanied by heavy drinking and wild dancing.
The Muses are a vital aspect of Carnival celebrations. The muses are made up of beautiful women specially trained in dancing, and they wear sexually appealing costumes while dancing to samba music at many of the street festivals and parades during Carnival. These women represent the muses, who were the Greek goddesses of creative inspiration. Just as the mythological muses were capable of inducing people into hypnotic trances and spells, jthe dancing "muses" induce the audience into hypnotic trances through the dramatic beauty and precise elegance of their dancing.
The pinnacle of all the Carnival festivities is the Sambadrome Parade, an enormous parade that is broadcast worldwide and often receives over 1 billion viewers. The Sambadrome Parade occurs on the final two days of the celebrations--usually on Sunday and Monday-- and the parade features the "special group," which is a group of elite Rio-based samba schools. In addition to samba music performed by the special group, the parade also includes a specific storyline or theme, and the various songs, costumes, dancers, floats, cars and decorations correspond with the given storyline.
