Brazilian samba school pays homage to African women

omotolani

February 19, 2018 12:12 PM

In the 1920s, Afro-Brazilians living in favelas created the samba school carnival groups that celebrated samba.

In a spectacular display of creativity, the Acadêmicos de Salgueiro Samba School paid homage to African women during the

Origin of Samba schools

In the 1920s, Afro-Brazilians living in favelas created the samba school carnival groups that celebrated samba. While not technically schools, many do offer classes in samba dance and music. Over time these carnival groups developed into highly organized community groups that competed for the title of the best samba school every carnival.

Salgueiro and the African themed parade

Salgueiro was created by black Brazilian members of two samba schools in Rio's Salgueiro favela and has won nine championships.

To bring the theme to life during the parade, creative director Alex da Souza created floats and costumes that represented some of the most powerful black women in Africa and Brazil. In one of the floats, about the queens of North Africa, a large sculpture represented the fertility goddess, Isis, nursing her son, Horus.

He represented the opulence of Egypt in another float, which brought to life Kemet, the black land of Egypt. Black women who were warriors in history in the struggle against Portuguese imperialism were represented in another float, 'The eternal struggle'.

The parade ended with a homage to the common woman, a float carried a black woman with her son in her arms, symbolizing the suffering of mothers who lost their children in urban violence. The Baianas are usually older women and are always represented in the Carnival school parade. They were dressed as the first mothers who crossed the African savanna millions of years ago, creating the entire human race. The Queen of the drum section wore a costume called Hatshepsut, a queen in the 18th Egyptian dynasty.

Creation

To create the parade, which always consists of floats, costumes, dancers and a drum section, the school contracted two Afro-Brazilian women researchers, Kaka Portilho and Marina Miranda, who studied the works of academics like Cheik Anta Diop, Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Frantz Fanon, Bell Hooks, and Amilcar Cabral among others.

"The real work was interdisciplinary, spiritual and arduous. We risk and dare every minute of the intense hours of study and writing, demystifying and re-centring every concept invented to fix us in the place of primitive, a-historical and dependent people," Marina Miranda said on Facebook.

"We are black women, warriors in the intellectual camp but also warriors in the day to day," Kaka Portilho said on Facebook.

But all these wasn't enough to win the championship, which went to the Beija Flor Samba school. The Beija Flor school put on a parade that highlighted Brazil's social problems and included groups of drug traffickers, corrupt politicians, intolerant religious leaders, prisons, and even children who missed school because of violence.

omotolani