Brazil keeps up frenetic Carnival pace, heads into final night of samba school parades

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil’s Carnival is maintaining its frenetic pace, with hundreds of roving parties taking over Rio de Janeiro’s streets and famed samba school parades heading into their final night.

At the Sambadromo parade grounds, designed by the late Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, six remaining top-tier schools will hit the pavement Monday night. Each presentation includes 2,500 people or more, all singing the same song and dancing out a furious samba step.

Nanny Kammura is a 35-year-old kindergarten teacher by day. But she turns into a sultry Carnival queen each year for the big party, participating as a samba dance specialist, a “passista,” for the Vila Isabel school.

She says that “samba is the root that binds Brazilian culture.” She agrees Carnival is a big party, but one that honours Brazilians’ history and ensures samba will never die.

Carnival wraps up Tuesday as Rio collapses in exhaustion ahead of Ash Wednesday.