Rio de Janeiro, February 23 (BNA): Rio de Janeiro could not resume its normal life after the end of the Carnival celebrations until the completion of the “counting” of the scores of the parade competition and the announcement of the winner.
The Carnival parade is considered the biggest party in the world, yet hardly anyone outside of Brazil realizes that flashy floats and extravagant dancers are more than just spectacle. It has complex, ever-changing regulations and scores of judges.
In recent years, the Samba Schools Association has adopted changes to limit subjectivity, but doubts about enrollment remain — not least because of its checkered past, the AP reports.
And the hopes of entire working-class communities are pinned on the outcome. On Wednesday, they flocked to their schools to watch the televised results. A win confirms that their tireless work has been carried out to perfection, conferring honor and prestige.
“It’s a joy to do the show right and the satisfaction of taking the title home,” Maria da Conceição da Silva, 59, said Monday night before the show. She swears she will keep coming back “until God takes me, to parade there.”
Esoteric regulations dictate that schools be classified into nine categories including costume, drumming, song, harmony, plot and development which together determine the months of design, stitching, sculpting, welding and rehearsal that go into the production.
Judges with proven knowledge in each category undergo training, and then are deployed along the 700-meter (2,300-foot) parade track to watch the several thousand demonstrators pass through each school.
Rio’s samba schools began competing in the 1930s, and they were herded into the sambadrome parade grounds in the mid-1980s. 70-minute displays can cost 10 million reais (nearly $2 million), and the school that scores the lowest is relegated to the lower league. Returning to elite rank could take years.
The top six winners receive percentages of the box office revenue. Only the champion school has gone down in history, said Jorge Berlingero, president of the first division, and no one remembers the runners-up.
For more than three decades, Perlingeiro has been the voice of the carnival, announcing the judges’ scores one by one. Each bellow of “10!” – HIGHEST SCORES – With his strong Rio accent, he sent school fanatics into a frenzy on Wednesday. Some low scores elicited frustrated groans. More than half of Rio’s televisions are busted, according to Ibope, which monitors ratings.
The concert lasted about 90 minutes, with no fewer than 432 read-aloud results for 12 schools. The winning school, Imperatriz Leopoldinense, scored 269.8 two-twenty points shy of perfect. The title ends the school’s 22-year drought and cements the reputation of the carnival manager’s star. At the Sambadrome, the school’s drum captain broke down and cried when the victory was announced while a packed crowd at the school jumped for joy.
The large number of judges — 36 — is necessary for evaluating performances throughout the parade ground and prevents one bad result from blowing up a school, according to Fabio Fapato, who writes and researches carnival and Brazilian popular culture. It also helps curb corruption, he said, because it’s hard to buy too many judges.
In 1974, said Fapato, Mocidade’s samba school lost the title because a costume judge gave an incomprehensibly low 4. In 1986, Brazilian football legend Socrates was chosen to judge the drums, but he had no experience, so he ranked schools based solely on the crowd’s reaction. The samba schools were furious. The head of a school said that Socrates was too drunk to judge and demanded that his grades be cancelled.
“He (Socrates) jumped down the stairs onto the parade ground, undressed and began dancing in a pair of tight white pants. The officials objected and he was reluctantly persuaded to return to the judging station,” according to his autobiography, “Dr. Socrates.”
The count two years later led to a fierce fight between the rival schools and a 16-year-old girl was shot in the stomach, O Globo newspaper reported at the time.
David Butter, a Brazilian journalist who wrote a book about the carnival, recalled as a child watching The Count with his father, who enjoyed it more than the show.
“We were getting the paper with the blank scorecard to fill in as the count progressed. We were all excited about the results and the controversies,” said Butter. “The Count has become a spectacle in itself, just like the opera. It is an exclusive Brazilian entertainment product.”
Other competitions suffered from personal scoring. Olympic figure skating was rated from 1 to 6 until a refereeing scandal at the games in Salt Lake City led the so-called “gate skate” to adopt a sophisticated system that included a technical committee. Recently, an investigation found that several boxing matches were fixed for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
That same year, Rio police investigated alleged fraud in the Carnival Trial. The goal of greater technical and professional accuracy was to avoid conflicts and provide transparency. Referees must justify any less than perfect score with a handwritten explanation.
One judge evaluating costumes last year knocked a school out a tenth of a point because “a great deal of bridal hats were slipping or falling off,” and noted that another school promised “a variety of greens,” though lime green prevailed. The harmony judge noted “an occasional loss of inner harmony” and that “neglecting or weakening certain vocals emptied the song of its sonic mass”.
In last year’s scorecard, a judge pointed out how difficult it is to find errors when so few are making mistakes, so just a tenth of a point can seal a victory. This year’s runner-up finished tenth behind him.
If a gap appears between divisions, the school may lose points. In this year’s parade, the lighthouse atop Unidos da Tijuca’s float was knocked hard, costing it.
Starting last year, referees’ justifications are posted online within 48 hours. And cameras inside the referees’ booths record what they can see, so schools can review the footage and compare to the referees’ notes for inconsistencies. If any are found, schools can petition to remove the judge.
In interviews with two dozen protesters Monday night, about half said they believed the justices’ decisions still had some undue influence. But most admitted scoring has improved with each passing year.
“They’re trying to organize, so the competition only happens on the street, but there’s still a lot going on behind the scenes. Every samba dancer knows that,” Carol Tavares, 40, said on Monday before the performance with Unidos da Tijuca. “She is on the road to change.”
Indescribable quality, Berlingero notes, is also a factor in refereeing.
“The category that doesn’t exist, but does exist in everyone’s mind, is emotion. That happens when you see the crowd cheering and waving. The judge sees that and, in a certain way, is fascinated too,” he said. “This has an effect.”
Members of the Sambadrome’s rival schools applauded appreciatively after Perlingeiro was declared the winner. The head of Mangueira, Rio’s most popular school and fan favorite, ranked fifth on Wednesday, told the Associated Press she was glad the judges recognized her school’s hard work. When asked if their results were fair, President Guanaira Firmino demurred.
Firmino said, “With their justifications, I will analyze if it is fair or not. I can’t say that yet.”