For the samba lovers responsible for what Brazilians call the greatest show on earth, it was a time of uncharacteristic seclusion and pain. Costume-makers, percussionists and composers lost their lives and loved ones as Covid-19 decimated Rio’s carnival community, and forced its rollicking annual parades to be cancelled for the first time since the 1930s.
“It was tough. Our social networks became one big obituary,” said Marquinho Marino, the carnival director at Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel, one of Rio’s top samba schools. Marino thought no group had lost more members to Covid. “I lost count at 59,” said the samba chief – who nearly joined the list himself. He fell ill in May 2020 as Brazil’s death toll soared, and ended up in intensive care, while his pregnant wife waited desperately at home for news.
“It destroys you psychologically,” the 46-year-old said of his battle with a disease that has killed more than 660,000 Brazilians and 6.1 million people worldwide. “You’re in hospital with an illness that nobody understands, people are dying all around you, and all you can think is: ‘I’m next.’”
However, Marino survived and nearly two years later, Mocidade is back and gearing up for Rio’s first parade since February 2020. On that occasion, the school clinched third place with a tribute to the late Brazilian singer Elza Soares, who like Mocidade, was born in the Vila Vintém favela in west Rio.
At around midnight on 23 April, Mocidade’s 3,500 members and five spectacular floats will set off towards the Sambódromo, a purpose-built parade venue in downtown Rio, which became a vaccination centre at the height of Brazil’s epidemic.
Marino, a Mocidade fanatic since his first parade in 1981, is desperate to win. “We want to be champions and we’re perfectly placed to achieve that,” he said, the strain of recent late nights clear from the bags under his eyes. “More than the return of carnival, it signifies the return of normal life. There’s no greater triumph than that,” said Marino, whose office was plastered with top-secret images of the school’s 2022 costumes.
Covid was not just an emotional blow to Mocidade, which was founded by a group of football enthusiasts in the mid-1950s, and has won six carnival titles. For Highor Pfaltzgraff, 25, the school’s costume and prop purchaser, it was a logistical nightmare as he struggled to source fabrics and trimmings usually imported from Asia. “So many things didn’t arrive from China because of the pandemic. So on top of everything else, we had to deal with a shortage of materials,” he said.
One of the more peculiar scarcities was of the faux ivory teeth used to decorate costumes. “We needed 9,000 but we’ve only found about 4,000,” complained Pfaltzgraff, as tailors and artisans busied themselves in their fourth-floor atelier to the sound of Lady Gaga.
For Bruna Santos, the school’s 24-year-old flag bearer, Covid was a choreographic headache, as she battled to stay fit despite government instructions to stay home. “Our bodies aren’t just machines you can turn on and off,” Santos said, remembering how lockdown had forced her to resort to online classes.
“We’ve spent nearly two years practicing now. I can’t take any more!” Santos joked as she prepared to lead one of Mocidade’s final public rehearsals through the streets of west Rio.
Moments later, the school’s drum section sprung to life around her, its members pounding bass drums stamped with the portraits of fabled percussionists such as Bira, André and Jorjão.
Percussion director Eugênio Rodrigues remembered his awe at being invited to attend his first Mocidade practice by Jorjão in the early 90s. “Those guys were truly unique … I mirrored myself on them. I thought I’ve got to be as good as them or even better.”
Rodrigues, 50, said those samba trailblazers had been notorious disciplinarians with zero tolerance for mistakes. Covid had instilled a similar doggedness in his drum section as its 276 members strove for perfection in Rio’s carnival comeback. “That’s what all this time apart has done to us. People want victory so much more.”
Rodrigues also believed Mocidade was well-placed to win a seventh top-flight title. “We’ve got a good samba. Our drum section’s really well rehearsed … Our opening troupe’s amazing. The costumes look bloody beautiful. Mocidade’s floats are enormous. We have it within our reach,” he enthused, before admitting there was no telling what might happen in the storied confines of Oscar Niemeyer’s Sambódromo.
“What happens down there is mystical,” he said, as Mocidade aficionados packed the suburban square around him for that evening’s dry run. As night fell, the group began its 700-metre procession, designed to replicate the pageant where schools will be scrutinised by 45 judges on nine different criteria, including costumes, drumming and floats.
Clutching cymbal rattles, tambourines and fluorescent green glow sticks, they danced east towards the school’s headquarters, past graffiti-covered houses and a Baptist church emblazoned with the words: “Only Jesus Christ Saves.” As they progressed, Mocidade’s members sung of a different religious figure: Oxóssi, the Afro-Brazilian god of nature and hunting, celebrated by the school’s 2022 samba.
Santos, a follower of the Umbanda faith, said she would seek spiritual protection to ward off bad energy as she spearheaded Mocidade’s quest for glory. “When parade time comes, it’s complete madness – it’s a mixture of joy and nervousness because it’s such a huge responsibility. You’re representing the dream of a whole community.”
Under the amber glow of streetlights, the athletic flag-bearer pirouetted towards the finish line, trailed by hundreds of sweat-drenched revellers and a man dressed as a bright green beaver: the symbol of the extravagant mafia boss Castor de Andrade, who sponsored Mocidade until his death in 1997. Before her stood the school’s historic nerve centre and a banner carrying some words of encouragement from Hollywood’s king of fantasy Walt Disney: “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
