Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2001 - 45

took Rosa to Vienna to see the palaces there. It was the
centenary of the Hapsburgs.
TR: Was that the year she won the competition?
FP: Yes. The other schools saw the possibilities of slot machine themes and started to propose themes to those
who could pay. So everything is marketing.
My last parade in 1978 for Salgueiro, I needed
to finish the work. I called people from Salgueiro and
they asked how much will we earn for that. The
people from Salgueiro wanted money to finish the
work. Instead, people from the Southern Zone went
there to work for nothing to have the thing ready-
rich people came to do the parade for free. They
didn't ask for money. So I quit carnival design. I went
to television as a commentator.
José Henrique Moreira: I have always heard your comments on television, so I am going to ask a question.
I'm asking about the Baianas. The Baianas have a
traditional costume and now they have become these
space costumes.
FP: I am not a traditionalist. All my life I've tried to make
something new and to do new things. I had an award in
the São Paulo biennial [a major art exhibition]. I have
many awards for set designs for theatre, painting, for
new things. I made the first abstract, modern sets for the
opera house here. But some things must remain traditional. The master of ceremonies and standard bearer
must always be costumed as master of ceremonies and
standard bearer. The Baiana section is traditional-the
schools must have the Baiana section because of a tradition. I always complained as a commentator about
changing the traditional Baiana costume because that is
a traditional part of the samba school. Nobody can renew anything without knowing the past and respecting
the past. There is no spontaneous generation-there is
nothing created by itself. The law of LaVoisier, the
French biologist-in nature nothing stays, everything
keeps changing. The first time I thought a space Baiana
was okay as a commentator was when Fernando Pinto, a
carnival designer, now deceased, made the theme
Carnaval in 2001. So his Baianas were 2001 Baianas.
The theme justified 2001 Baianas. He was clever, a great
artist. Others who were not great artists or intelligent
tried to follow him, imitate him, and they didn't succeed.
It happens everywhere in every art.
TR: Will the next big change come in terms of the
technology-more and more special effects?
Will they motorize the cars?
FP: Technology is going ahead in everything. You can't fight
against the progress of technology. To use the technology
you have to be conscious, to be an artist with creativity. I
am not a fortune teller to tell the future of Carnaval.
Just as now, we as youngsters created everything we
could. Now we are old, we have to make way for the
young people we were once. I may condemn what aesthetically I don't accept, but I cannot condemn the
young point of view about new phenomenon. ❖
44

W I N T E R

2 0 0 1

TD & T

Between each float are hundreds of dancers, each wearing costumes in keeping with the idea of that float. Also interspersed throughout the parade are the other
traditional sections: the drum section, ballroom master and flag bearer, the special
samba dancers (passistas), and towards the end, the music car with the main
samba singer (puxador) and the rest of the musicians. The drum section in the
Special Group schools usually has well over two hundred drummers. Cabaçu, a
Group A school, has two hundred drummers; Tuiuti from Group B has one hundred
fifty and Beija-Flor has three hundred. The parade rules require a minimum of
eighty Baianas, older women from Bahia, the northeast state in Brazil, but most
schools had over one hundred. They samba as they move down the parade route and
then suddenly they all start twirling to show off the costumes of large hooped skirts,
fancy headdresses and hand props. The ballroom master and flag bearer carry the flag
of the school and must be very good dancers. The special samba dancers have the most
elaborate-and often skimpiest-costumes, although total nudity is not allowed.
This short, factual description doesn't express the feel and the excitement of
the parade. The drumming is incredible, defying anyone to sit still through it. Visually, the parade is difficult to absorb with the masses of color, thousands of swirling
costumes and detailed set pieces on the floats. Every time a new school would come
into view, my whole section of the stands would rise and start dancing and dance
until the parade left the Sambôdromo.

Other Parades
Along with the fourteen schools in the Special Group, six other groups of schools,
lettered A through F, have parades during the week. Paulo, designer for Tuiuti, estimated that there are approximately sixty schools in all. Groups A and B also parade
in the Sambôdromo, but the others parade throughout the city, down various avenues decorated for the parade.

Opposite Top: Three Carmen
Miranda Banda members before
the parade.
Above: Grande Rio's Cyber-Float
in the parade.
Left: The Cyber-Float in
construction.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2001