Another carnival is coming to an end in brazil, and from the Sambadromo Stadium in Rio, to the seafront in Salvador to the winding streets of Olinda. Millions of revelers are looking back fondly on the last few days, and looking forwards to 2024. teleSUR
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00:00 Carnival officially ended at midnight tonight in Brazil.
00:03 Here's a look back at it with our correspondent, Maya Mir.
00:06 - Another carnival has come into an end in Brazil.
00:11 And from the Sambadromo Stadium in Rio,
00:14 to the seafront in Salvador,
00:16 to the winding streets of Olinda,
00:18 millions of revelers are looking back fondly
00:20 on the last few days and looking forwards to 2024,
00:24 which everyone in Brazil knows doesn't really start
00:26 until after the January holiday season
00:28 and the end of carnival.
00:29 (speaking in foreign language)
00:30 - I've been dancing in this carnival
00:32 since I was a little girl.
00:34 In the old days, we were freer in carnival.
00:36 We felt more protected.
00:38 These days, we have to be careful
00:40 about who is dancing next to us,
00:42 because there is a lot of evil in the world today,
00:44 but we don't ever stop dancing.
00:46 - On Sunday and Monday night,
00:49 tens of millions of people around the world
00:51 tune their television sets into the greatest show on earth,
00:54 Rio de Janeiro's Carnival Stadium Parades,
00:56 in which 12 samba schools,
00:58 each representing a different favela or poor neighborhood,
01:01 compete for the title of champion
01:02 in an event that normally doesn't end
01:04 until the sun has risen.
01:06 - My heart rate is beating 1,000
01:08 with anxiety, emotions, and happiness.
01:10 It is a unique opportunity.
01:11 It's my first time in the top level of competition,
01:14 so it's very important to me.
01:15 - Recife and its sister city of Olinda
01:18 saw an estimated 2.7 million people come out to the streets
01:21 to dance behind the traditional carnival blocos
01:23 in one of Brazil's most democratic carnivals.
01:26 On Saturday in Recife, over two million people
01:29 came out to see the Rousseau of Dawn,
01:30 which is known as being the world's largest carnival bloco.
01:33 - Our hopes for carnival are always the same,
01:37 lots of emotion and lots of positive vibration,
01:40 and today marks my 46th anniversary leading the rooster,
01:43 and I'm going to keep moving forward
01:45 with this carnival life as long as God allows it.
01:48 - In Salvador Bahia,
01:51 which is nicknamed the most African city outside of Africa
01:53 due to the incredible work done
01:55 by the local population in preserving Yoruba culinary
01:58 and religious traditions
01:59 during hundreds of years of oppression,
02:01 outside of the pop bands
02:02 parading down the seafront for tourists,
02:04 the locals celebrated traditional Afoxé blocos
02:07 as a sign of commitment to their spirituality.
02:10 - Our bloco honors Mahatma Gandhi,
02:13 but it celebrates an African god
02:15 and its origins and history.
02:20 It is something that's been passed down
02:22 from parents to children
02:23 and it's based on Candomblé religious mysticism.
02:28 - There've been several times
02:32 over the course of the past two centuries
02:34 in different locations across Brazil
02:36 in which local authorities tried to ban carnival parades.
02:39 Violence against practitioners
02:41 of traditional Afro-Brazilian religions,
02:43 egged on by unscrupulous evangelical Christian preachers,
02:46 has been on the rise again for the past decade,
02:48 but nobody has ever been able to stop carnival,
02:51 and for 200 years,
02:52 it's been a space of poor and working class resistance
02:55 against oppression.
02:56 - The Caboclo de Lança, from what I understand,
02:59 comes from indigenous culture.
03:01 It has been passed down from grandfathers to fathers,
03:05 to sons, and we're keeping the tradition alive.
03:09 - From small towns to the biggest cities,
03:12 carnival generates billions of dollars for the economy
03:15 and tens of thousands of temporary jobs,
03:17 but more importantly, it's a time of year
03:19 when everyone can forget about their problems
03:21 for a few days.
03:22 As the poet Vinicius do Moraes wrote,
03:25 "The happiness of the poor
03:26 "is like the great illusion of carnival.
03:28 "We work the whole year for a moment of dreaming,
03:31 "to wear the costume of a king or a pirate or a gardener,
03:34 "and everything ends on Wednesday."
03:36 (speaking in foreign language)
03:39 - It is a culture we love.
03:40 Only people who like it and respect it join in,
03:44 and I don't know, but it's such a great feeling.
03:47 It is the happiest day in the world for me
03:49 when I arrive here to play.
03:51 I have my friends who play with me.
03:53 It is warm, it is emotional to see everyone together,
03:56 and I think this is what life is all about.
03:59 (speaking in foreign language)
04:03 - Brian Mier, Telesur, Recife.
04:06 - We have come to the end of this news brief.
04:09 You can find these and many other stories
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04:18 We're Telesur English, and we are Bear Tomatoes.
04:21 Thank you for watching.