Carnival celebrations originated from Catholic festivals held before Lent. The word "carnival" comes from the Italian "carnevale" meaning to put away meat before Lent. Carnival traditions spread from Europe to their colonies and incorporated influences from African dance, music, costumes, and parades. Rio's Carnival is famous for elaborate samba school parades featuring colorful costumes, feathers, masks and music accompanied by samba dancing in the streets.

1. Carnival
Dance 1 Cultural Project

2. Where did the word
“carnival” come from?
•
Hundred and hundreds of years ago, the
followers of the Catholic religion in Italy
started the tradition of holding a wild
costume festival right before the first day
of Lent. Because Catholics are not
supposed to eat meat during Lent, they
called their festival, carnevale — which
means “to put away the meat.” As time
passed, carnivals in Italy became quite
famous; and in fact the practice spread to
France, Spain, and all the Catholic
countries in Europe. Then as the French,
Spanish, and Portuguese began to take
control of the Americas and other parts
of the world, they brought with them
their tradition of celebrating carnival.

3. History of Carnival
• Carnival celebrations are believed to have roots in the pagan festival of Saturnalia, which,
adapted to Christianity, became a farewell to bad things in a season of religious discipline
to practice repentance and prepare for Christ's death and resurrection.
• The dance and music of samba history entered Rio with refugee slaves coming from
Africa, the origin of samba. The slave trading focus point in Brazil was the Bahia and
Salvador. But the holding of slaves was prohibited in 1888; many went south to the
Capitol of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro.

4. African Influences
African traditions of parading and moving in circles through villages in costumes and masks.
Circling villages was believed to bring good fortune, to heal problems, and chill out angry
relatives who had died and passed into the next world. Carnival traditions also borrow from
the African tradition of putting together natural objects (bones, grasses, beads, shells, fabric)
to create a piece of sculpture, a mask, or costume — with each object or combination of objects
representing a certain idea or spiritual force.
Feathers were frequently used by Africans in their motherland on masks and headdresses as a
symbol of our ability as humans to rise above problems, pains, heartbreaks, illness — to travel to
another world to be reborn and to grow spiritually. Today, we see feathers used in many, many
forms in creating carnival costumes.
African dance and music traditions transformed the early carnival celebrations in the Americas,
as African drum rhythms, large puppets, stick fighters, and stilt dancers began to make their
appearances in the carnival festivities.
In many parts of the world, where Catholic Europeans set up colonies and entered into the slave
trade, carnival took root. Brazil, once a Portuguese colony, is famous for its carnival, as is Mardi
Gras in Louisiana (where African-Americans mixed with French settlers and Native Americans).
Carnival celebrations are now found throughout the Caribbean in Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada,
Dominica, Haiti, Cuba, St. Thomas, St. Marten; in Central and South America in Belize, Panama,
Brazil; and in large cities in Canada and the U.S. where Caribbean people have settled, including
Brooklyn, Miami, and Toronto.

5. ABOUT CARNIVAL
• Carnival is held before lent every year, and it usually is continues on for four days. Was
first celebrated in many places around the world, but the Carnival capital is in Rio.
• It officially starts on Saturday and finishes on Fat Tuesday with the beginning of Lent on
Ash Wednesday after which one is supposed to abstain from all bodily pleasures
• Carnival is equivalent to Mardi Gras Celebrated in New Orleans, Louisiana.

6. Pictures

7. Costuming
• The costuming is suppose to go
along with the float and music
each samba school creates.
• The costumes deals a lot with
feathers, glitter, bright colors,
sequins ,masks, wings, hats,
very over the top.
•

8. Music
Almost all of the music played during Rio
Carnival is samba. It is a uniquely
Brazilian music originating from Rio, a
dance form that was invented by the poor
Afro-Brazilians.
The musical styles are different at each
carnival; in Bahia there are many rhythms,
including samba, samba-reggae, etc.
And AXE is not exactly about a style or musical
movement, but rather about a brand name
given to artists from Salvador who made music
upon northeastern Brazilian, Caribbean and
African rhythms with a pop-rock twist, which
helped them take over the Brazilian hit
parades since 1992.

9. Dancing
• Samba is a lively, rhythmical dance of Brazilian origin in
2/4 time danced under the Samba music. However, there
are three steps to every bar, making the Samba feel like
a 3/4 timed dance.
• Samba no pé is a solo dance that is most often danced
when samba music is played. The movement involves a
straight body and a bending of one knee at a time. The
feet move very slightly - only a few inches at a time. The
rhythm is 2/4, with 3 steps per measure. It can be
thought of as a step-ball-change.It can be described
calling it and-a-one, and-a-two, then back to one. The
basic movement is the same to either side, where one
foot moves to the outside lifting up just before the first
beat (i.e. the right leg moves slightly to the right) and
leg is kept straight as a . The other foot moves slightly
towards the front, and closer to the first foot. The second
leg bends lightly at the knee so that the left side of the
hip lowers and the right side appears to move higher.
The weight is shifted to this inside foot briefly for the
next "and-a", then shifted back to the outside foot on the
"two", and the same series of actions is repeated towards
the other side.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoLIwao1Z_Q
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1U47zwkljk