André Luiz Porfiro

"The Carnival Parade of the Beija-Flor de Nilópolis Samba School in 2001: A Historical Carnival Performance"

The proposal of the article is to analyse and describe the Carnival Parade of the Beija-Flor de Nilópolis Samba School in 2001. The perspective of a historical carnival performance, telling the story of an African priestess who came to Brazil as a slave. The mystical journey through the Atlantic Ocean and her responsability of founding and keeping her magical knowledge in the new land. I´ve used as a resource for this research and also to describe the parade a video tape of the Beija-Flor Samba School parade in 2001, with the interaction of the audience and the abridgement of the plot.
For the performance analysis i´ve used the articles of the sociologist Edson Farias, about carnival and the popular culture and texts from the course Inventing Brazil, taught by Professor Dr. Zeca Ligiéro about performance. The text Party at the Arrival: The Traffic and Trade of Slaves in Rio de Janeiro by Jaime Rodrigues, photos and newspaper articles about carnival in Rio de Janeiro in 2001, were also used as a resource.
The topic was chosen due to the fact of creating the possibility to connect the field of studies performance with contemporary characteristics to a historic study about the XIX century and as well to a cultural study - the parade of the samba schools in Rio de Janeiro. At last, stablish the multidisciplinar character of the performance.