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Once a pagan celebration in ancient Rome, Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is now considered one of the greatest shows on Earth. The famous carnival parade has been going on since the 1930s. The parade starts Sunday evening and continues into early morning Monday of the celebration.
In 1984 the parade finally found its permanent home, the Sambadrome. The Sambadrome is a large structure that was built in the downtown area, which includes several buildings that make a circular open area in the middle. In the off season, the buildings of the Sambadrome are used as classrooms for the local public schools. The carnival parade is filled with people and floats from various samba schools. A samba school can either be an actual school or just a collaboration of local neighbors that want to attend carnival. The purpose of carnival is for samba schools to compete with fellow rival schools, it is the climax of the whole carnival festival. The samba schools work to build the best floats and costumes to represent their themes, and to include the best music they can from their band called the bateria. Before the samba gained the percussive style, it was played with flutes and string instruments because percussion was looked upon as corrupt. It was in 1930 that the shift came to allow for percussion instruments. There is an ensemble of drum and percussion players that are led by a man that plays an apito, a whistle used to control the music. The apito has three tones but is not very loud, so many leaders prefer to use referee whistles instead. Every year thousands of tourists from all around the world visit carnival in Rio. It`s all about fun... ...and fine ladis...
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