Rio's Theatro Municipal

This magnificent building has recently been given a complete make over. The restoration is a beautiful success. You can take a guided tour of the restored facility Tuesday through Saturday at several times during the day.  More info here.

Romeo and Juliet, the ballet, is coming to the theater in October.  Good seats are too expensive for our blood, but I understand there is one day a week? month? when tickets are just R$1. Can anybody tell me when that is?  I have been mining their website, but I cant find it...

I love bananas

All the varieties here are spoiling me!

New take on a standard Brazilian tune

I love me some classic Brazilian favorites - the ones everyone sings along to. Here's a different take on an old favorite - on the vibraphone, no less. Wild.

Maria Gadú and Luis Kiari - Quando fui Chuva

I could listen all day...

Cultural da Índia event report back

Wow. Wow. That was amazing.

Last night Luiz and I joined a couple friends to attend a music and dance performance by Indian artists at the Sala Baden Powell cultural space in Copacabana. It featured about 50 minutes of mind blowing music and drumming by Anuradha Pal and her group “Recharge.” And then about 40 minutes of exquisite dance by Arunima Kumar, with live musical accompaniment.

The performances were part of a cultural exchange festival sponsored by the Indian Consulate and the Brazilian Cultural Ministry, among others. The event, in Rio, started on May 19^th and will conclude May 22^nd. The event continues through June 5^th, touring through São Paulo, Brasilia, and then Belo Horizontes.  You can find the schedule and additional information here.

Check out this video of master drummer and composer Anuradha Pal.  Her website is here. She was AMAZING.

Here is a video of Arunima Kumar performing a number similar to one of the three she presented last night.  Really beautiful.

Keep in mind that tonight in Rio is a different performance than what we saw last night (so I cannot comment on its impact, but I bet it will be wonderful). To see what we saw, you would want to go May 22^nd. Oh, and if you go, sit in the balcony.  It is a small theater, so you will not be too far back.  The main floor seating is odd in that it slopes DOWNWARD away from the stage, so you cannot see the dance performer's feet, which would be best.

Maria Gadú singing "Lanterna dos Afogados"

Time for a little calming enjoyment separate from politics or the daily grind.  Close your eyes and just take it in.

Celso Fonseca - Slow Motion Bossa Nova

I first saw Celso Fonseca in Berkeley, CA, at a Japanese jazz club.  Very smooth.

Bossa Nova Classic

Come with me back to an earlier post. These many versions of "The Girl from Ipanema" are a delight. Which do you prefer? Check them out.

Click here to begin your adventure.

Sergio Mendes and the Black Eyed Peas

Turn up the sound and grab a dance partner.

Cream that egg

I'll be back with a post soon. Times are busy. In the mean time... this is fun.

School Choice and Better Opportunities: Woman Confronts Bill Ayers With Facts

H/T Breitbart 

Ana Carolina & Maria Gadú - Mais que a mim

Sweet.

Boys kissing - yes!

Ok, so I know I'm 50 years old, going on 51.  But I still get a thrill watching a popular TV show (even though it is on FOX) where two baby gays finally give in to it all and kiss.

Viva LGBT on TV!

(Sorry about the pop up chatter...)

Music for the soul

If you're not already following Meredith's blog I reccomend it.  She and her husband are moving to Brasilia.  They'll be here in July.

Her most recent post about music has some great clips.  I'm cross posting one here.  Beautiful!

Carnaval weekend

Carnaval is one of those long weekends we spend a lot of time planning for.  We don’t go anywhere, just across the bay to Rio.  Luiz has a lifetime of experience working every last bit of excitement out of the event and he still insists on a full tilt weekend.

We’re not the twenty-something party guys we once were.  Actually, we’ve held our own into our fifty-something years, but it is worth noting that things have changed.  Now we take pain relief medication and sore muscle cream in our overnight bags.

Anyway – I thought rather than a trip tick log of our weekend I would share some thoughts and impressions we had along the way, in no particular order.

-          Old haunts like Elite (a gay club open only during Carnaval) hosting a 15 person band playing classic samba tunes can still draw an over-flowing crowd.  Might I add that the crowd has aged with the club – so we felt right at home.  Luiz danced nonstop until 4 in the morning.

-          Tip: best to buy your subway ticket WAY in advance.  The line during Carnaval can take 30 minutes! (Luiz gets a free pass, including me, due to his chronic health situation.)

-          Packing your own food and drink saves a bundle.  We entered the Sambadromo with two thermal bags filled with beer/ice along with a plastic bag with our sandwiches.  Carnaval night cost us only R$8 for ice.

-          The Rio Carnaval street party scene (blocos) seems to have exploded in recent years.  Everywhere we went in Rio – if there was a public square, there was a bloco.  Everywhere.

-          Angels do exist.  Rachel and Daniel generously offered us their apartment, while they were away, to crash between all-night marathons from Saturday through Wednesday.  Mil beijos!

-          Contrary to established lore, Banda de Ipanema is no longer a gay bloco. There was a time (for many, many years) when the gays and the meticulously adorned, larger than life drag performers would crowd the Banda de Ipanema bloco.  Trust me – those days are gone.

-          This year the city government of Rio rolled out a strategy to calm the frenzied street vendors selling beer and other beverages along every curb throughout Carnaval.  Vendors had to get a license or their goods would be confiscated. (The price was minimal.)  It worked!  Things were calmer, while there were still a gazillion vendors on the street.  The city also promoted a campaign to discourage peeing on the streets (UUUURRGGHHH!!!!). It included a hundred times more chemical porta-toilets.  This also seemed to have an impact.  This was definitely a case of Rio getting caught being good.  Hurray!

-          While I have long maintained that the best kept secret among travel agents around the world is that Carnaval in Rio happens during the rainy season (and it almost ALWAYS rains during Carnaval) this year we were fortunate to view Sunday’s Parade with only a tiny bit of rain.  Monday had a downpour during Grande Rio’s performance, but otherwise was dry.  It was an unusually dry year.

-          Our friends Lilian, Zanza, Paulo and Liani ran the marathon this year.  They paraded with the “Access” group, Cubango, on Saturday, sat with us in the stands all night on Sunday to watch half of the “Special” schools parade, then returned Monday night to parade with Beija Flor, stepping off at 5:00 a.m., for the second half of the Special groups.  Can you say exhausted!?

-          Time is turned topsy turvey during Carnaval.  Day becomes night and night becomes day.  Then it takes a few days to get back on your feet.

Any Carnaval experiences/thoughts you wish to share?

Have you been to Bahia?

I was searching for a full length copy of Disney's The Three Caballeros and found this curious but cute clip.  The very end seems to be a lead in to the other film.

[Leave it to Disney to portray Bahia/Salvador as a place sans Brazilians of African decent.]

Have You Been to Bahia? from Guillaume on Vimeo.

Catch Ivete Sangalo live today on YouTube

Today at 18:30 Brasília time, get in the mood for Carnaval by tuning in to a live transmission of the Carnival rehearsal of Ivete Sangalo, one of the most popular singers in the Salvador festival. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/carnaval

Here Ivete makes her invitation.

Ivete Sangalo in concert

Yesterday was a scorching day in the sun dancing to music at a Mistura Brasileira concert in the park, featuring Ivete Sangalo.

The concert was a rare chance to see Ivete Sangalo in Niterói, and even better that it was in a relatively small venue, the Rio Cricket club (so the space is just a bit larger than a cricket pitch).

The gate opened at 2:00, so naturally we arrived just after 4:30 p.m.  Perfect timing.  The first of two warm up bands had just begun and the sun was just beginning to slope back down out of the sky. 

There was a vibrant street party going on outside the club with police trying to get folks to allow at least one lane of traffic to flow.  These scenes are mind blowing to the forever restricted and rules-following Americans.  Everyone has a beer or a cocktail in their hand.  Young men are holding liters of tequila or scotch overhead and hawking shots.  Circles of friends are pouring Red Bull and vodka for themselves, priming the pump before entering the field for the show.

It was blisteringly hot.  Once inside everyone was cramped under whatever shade they could find along the perimeter of the field.  The bands were terrific.

Occasionally the event organizers would cool the crowd down by shooting a fire hose fountain of water into the air.  People would run to stand under the refreshing “rain” to take the heat down a notch.  Oh the eye candy.

In true Brazilian style, beers were bought 10 at a time for your group.  The vendors filled a heavy plastic bag with 10 cans and a lot of crushed ice.  Instant cooler.  And you got a volume discount.

So we danced, and chatted, drank beer, met up with more friends and continued to dance waiting for Ivete.

Eventually she made her grand entrance and the place exploded.  True to her never-to-disappoint style of live performance, the energy started out at a “10” and never let up.  One song ran into the next, her 8 sidekick dancers never stopped, and she held the crowd in the palm of her hand for well over an hour.

It seemed everyone present knew every word to all her songs and sang along.  The crowd never stopped jumping up and down.

It was Brazil at its best for me.  I love being in that energy (even if I do not jump up and down for 90 minutes).  I adore music made buy a couple guitars, a saxophone and 24 drums and other percussion instruments.  And I really enjoy being in a crowd of all ages having fun together.

There was one reminder of how differently things are done here in terms of garbage.  There were no garbage cans, anywhere.  Tens of thousands of people were drinking from beer cans and using plastic cups (not to mention water bottles and soda cans) creating a mountain of trash.  The solution?  There was a small army of men and women in bright yellow shirts with stiff brooms and garbage bags wandering the site sweeping up after everyone.  Huh?  We were supposed to throw our trash on the ground because people had been hired to then pick it up.  Part of Brazil’s full employment program, I guess.  But I can’t help but believe that if there were large garbage cans set out they would be used properly.  Oh well.

Side note: Rachel recently did a post about the length of people's names here in Brazil. For the record, Ivete's full name is Ivete Maria Dias de Sangalo Nascimento.

Anyway – it was a blast.  Here is a clip of Ivete Sangalo to share the love.

Rio Carnaval tickets for sale

Thanks to the forever unexplainable ongoing good luck that is my husband (he wins everything) we were able to purchase more tickets to Rio’s Carnaval parade than we need.  In fact, within our circle of friends we had a good year and many people were able to buy tickets, so our extras are not needed among our group, which goes to the event almost every year.  Having extra tickets is not an easy feat.  Tickets sold out (for both nights) in less than 10 minutes.  Look here for more about our phone-frenzy morning the day they went on sale.

We have six tickets for sale for Sunday, March 6^th in Sector 3, the night we will be attending. They are available for R$275 each (that’s reais, not dollars).  (The trusted website many folks turn to for tickets sells the same ticket for R$375 – but they are already sold out.)

Our group of friends is a bit crazy about Carnaval.  We go to many, many pre-Carnaval samba school rehearsals.  Most everyone knows all the words to all the Schools’ sambas before the parade.  And this year four of our friends will be parading with Beja Flor on Monday night (well, actually at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, but hey…)

Sector 3 is the second section up on the left, the first is Sector 1

Sector 3 is right near the beginning of the parade.  The seats are up in the bleachers with a great “looking down from above” view of everything.  As is true for most Sectors, there are not assigned seats.  You have to arrive early and camp out to get a good spot.  We always bring sandwiches, salgadinhos, fruit and treats – along with beer and water to last us through the night.  You just can’t bring in glass containers. 

The insiders among us will tell you that Sunday has a “better” lineup than Monday.  That is, the more popular or accomplished Schools will be parading Sunday, with some exceptions.  The champion from last year, Unidos da Tijuca, will be parading then.  And the night includes Mangueira, the oldest and some would say the most popular and traditional of all the schools.  For the full schedule, look here. It promises to be one heck of a show.  Plan to spend all night.  The competition begins at 9:00 p.m. and continues until the sun rises.

Overall safety is not an issue within the Sambadromo.  Everyone brings their camera.  Food and beverages are sold by vendors throughout the night. It’s a good idea to bring a little stadium cushion to sit on!

Anyway, I will write more about how a night watching the Carnaval parade in Rio works as we get closer.  WAY too much info for one post!

Let me know if you have any questions or if you are interested in the tickets.  Bom Carnaval!

UPDATE: Two tickets have been sold. (That took 4.5 hours...)  Just four left. (Selling only in pairs.)

Tickets for Rio’s Carnaval go on sale tomorrow

Think: Ticketron and Lady Gaga or Rolling Stones.

Tomorrow, beginning moments before 9:00 a.m., everyone we know will be hitting re-dial from all their phones trying to get through to the computers that will be taking ticket orders.  All of the available tickets for both Sunday and Monday’s big event (March 6th and 7th) will sell out in less than 10 minutes.

It’s always a frantic 10 minutes.  Busy, re-dial.  Busy, re-dial.  Busy, redial.

Each sector has its own phone number.  If the computer picks up here's how it goes (something to this effect): "You have reached the ticket agency for Rio Carnaval 2011.  Listen carefully.  Have a paper and pencil handy, as well as your CPF number.  You may reserve up to four tickets for Sunday, March 6th.  Please enter the number of tickets you wish to reserve, or press zero if you do not want any tickets for Sunday's event.  Please wait... You my reserve up to 4 tickets for Monday, March 7th.  Please enter...  Please wait.  Your order is confirmed...  Your reservation number is...  To pick up your tickets you must go to the Bradesco Bank office in Centro Rio on January 13 or 14 in Centro Rio... (and pay for them).  If you do not show up, your tickets will be made available to others who wish to purchace them."

While we all try to get tickets to attend, LOTS of people are trying to get tickets because they can be sold INSTANTLY upon exiting the Bradesco office where the ticktes are purchased for up to twice their value.

It’s always a crazy morning.  I’ll let you know how it works out.

UPDATE!!!  Luiz is a super lucky man!  We used our home phone and his cell phone to try and connect.  (My cell - I forgot to re-activate my chip for January so it was a dud.)  Luiz got through once and used his CPF to get 4 tickets for both Sunday and Monday, then he got through again and used my CPF to get 4 tickets for Sunday -- by that time all tickets for Monday were sold out.

Of the six other friends who were dialing for tickets this morning 3 of them got tickets as well!  So it looks like our entire group will be going. *happy dance*