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Published: April 6th 2009
Eu Quero Frevo!
FREEEEEEVVOOOOO!!!The rain began to pour down but the band played on.
Reaching up into the sky with palms skyward, we embraced the cold drops thundering down, streams running through our hair, dripping down our noses, around the curves of our grinning mouths, and soaking what - if anything - remained of our costumes. Our feet stomped wildly in ankle-deep puddles in the cobblestone streets, and all around us, people shouted at the top of their lungs "Eu quero Frevo!" (I want Frevo music!).
A few kilometres away on a sailboat, hastily left with a hatch wide open, a cabin began to fill up with rainwater, soaking its interior, saturating the bedding and destroying a book lying beside the pillow.
Trapped - albeit voluntarily - by thousands of wet bodies in all directions, embracing, dancing, kissing and singing, I smiled at the futility of worrying about it. One can only stomp their feet, raise their arms and celebrate life with strangers and friends alike and listen.. as the band played on.
We have come north to the eastern tip of Brazil for one of the largest street parties in the world to dance to the Frevo. This is
Dressed for Success
Clive, Zach, Cody, Sam Carnaval in Recife, Brazil.
To explain about Recife's Carnaval, I'll just cut and paste from the Associated Press:
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Jelly-limbed dancers with tiny multicolored umbrellas, frolicking to frenetic frevo rhythms, make carnival in Recife unique and for residents second to none. Recife's frevo music, which is accompanied by a frantic tip-toe dance in which participants leap into midair splits and fold themselves like contortionists as they land, forms a carnival tradition distinct from the better-known samba.
While Rio de Janeiro's famed Samba parade is broadcast to millions of adoring fans, Recife's bash is perhaps Brazil's best kept secret. In recent years, revelers turned off by Rio's commercialism and tired of being confined to the stands have begun looking elsewhere to cities like Salvador da Bahia. Those in search of a more intimate carnival have been heading to Recife and the neighboring colonial hilltop town of Olinda.
Here, the vibrantly colored costumes and huge puppets may be dwarfed by the Rio's gargantuan floats and armies of uniformed dancers, but the lack of pomp is compensated for by the proximity. Recife also offers up a potpourri of rhythms with names that seem to flow from poetry, like
Midnight Rooster
Let the onslaught of double entendres begin! "maracatu," ''cabolco," ''coco" and "ciranda."
In Rio's there's just one, Samba," explains Alceu Valenca, a Brazilian popular musician and fixture of Olinda's carnival. That may be so, but in Recife one carnival rhythm stands above all the others and that is frevo.
On Saturday, an estimated 1.5 million revelers turned out for the "Galo de Madrugada," or Midnight Rooster, in Recife's city center where a procession of frevo bands wow the crowds with the fast-paced marching band music that recalls Dixieland jazz.
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Onward North back to the Caribbean... stay tuned!
Photo credits: Kim - aka Capt Spicy - and the Californicators, and our good friend Donna H. Thanks!!
Be sure to visit the 2nd pqge for the NIGHTTIME photos... mooooahaha!
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peter evans
non-member comment
Brasil finally!
So, SOme proper fiestas in Brasil it sems?! I love the Colors!! The trip keep culminating fantastically! its been great watching the blogs bro---- wheres your end point, and where are you goin to do waht after this adventure? write a book? guide tours? keep travelin? holler back, and stop and see me and the great Northwest sometime here in POrtland, OR! its Peter from Sacred Suenos)