 Get to know the significance of Carnival as well as how the dates are really calculated.
If you are like everybody else, you have probably asked yourself - before taking part of Rio Carnival or any other Carnival festivals in Brazil - what's the significance of Carnival?
Carnival backgrounds come from Christianity. Carnaval marked the last opportunity to celebrate and make use of special foods before Lent, a six-week period where no parties or other celebrations were accepted, with people refraining from eating rich foods, recalling the biblical account of the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. Lent serves to mark an annual time of turning to God and religious discipline.
Carnival was then exported to Brazil by the Portuguese, who organized masquerade balls, held by members of the elite, while processions with decorated carriages in allegorical themes took over the streets, in the mid nineteenth century. That was the begining of the today famous Samba Parade at the Sambodromo.
Music specially made for the Rio Carnival emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century by composers like Chiquinha Gonzaga and others. It was not before 1930 that the competition between different samba schools became institutionalized. In 1932, the samba school Mangueira won the first price for its performance in the Rio Carnival Parade.
Curiosity
How do you calculate the carnival date?
One of the most frequent questions we get from friends and clients is "what is the date of Carnaval this year?". Well, this is not an easy question to answer. It takes someone to be part astrologer, part mathematician, and part priest! Here is how you calculate the carnival date:
50-47 days before the first Sunday after the first full moon after Vernal Equinox, or in layman's terms, Ash Wednesday is calculated as 46 days before Easter Sunday, and carnaval falls on the 4 days before Ash Wednesday. Complicated, no?
Carnaval Dates for the next 3 years
2011 - March 5-8
2012 - February 18-21
2013 -
March 09-12
2014 - March 1-4
2015 - Feburary 14-17
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