The Rio Carnival
Vocabulary
| mile | shimmy | impossible |
| samba | forward | under way |
| prize | explain | put your best foot forward |
| defect | foot/feet | put/put/put |
| chest | sequence | good/better/best |
| legend | compete | feel/felt/felt (2) |
| burst | time (2) | excitement |
| theme | practice | enthusiasm |
| cashew | prepare | bring/brought/brought |
| tribute | emotion | write/wrote/written |
| slave | trade (2) | neighborhood |
| chance | root for | win/won/won |
| parade | root (3) | surrounding |
| create | costume | hand-made |
| legend | complex | make/made/made |
| crowd | win over | choreography |
| judge | hopefully |
Video: The Rio Carnival
Transcript
Miles of sequence and shimmying. Rio de Janeiro’s world famous carnival is well under way. And the city’s top samba schools are putting their best feet forward.
Competing to win the top prize.
Carnival Performer, one: “A love for samba is impossible to explain — it is an emotion I’ve never felt before! This my first time competing here. I’m doing it with the legends of my school.
This 2024 Carnival will be ours!”
Carnival Performer, one: “My chest is bursting with excitement. There’s so much enthusiasm here.”
Each school brings a different theme to life, from the legends surrounding the cashew fruit in northeastern Brazil. . . to a tribute to the book, A Color Defect by Brazilian writer Ana-Maria Gonçalves about the African slave trade to Brazil.
Twelve samba schools from the city’s different neighborhoods are part of the two-day competition.
Each community is rooting for their school to win. And be given the chance to parade again on Saturday.
They have prepared for months for the parade, creating hand-made costumes, and practicing complex choreography to win over the crowds — and hopefully the carnival judges too.
Questions
Samba. The Carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro is five hundred meters long. True or false?
Salsa, Cumbia. Is the carnival a festival, a competition or both?
Disco Do the performers feel like it’s all hard work, a grueling drudgery?
Break dance. The themes of the Carnival have to be religious in nature. The Carnival themes must be religious. Is this right or wrong?
Hip-Hop. Do anyone and everyone participates in the Carnival parade? Who participates in the Carnival parade?
Waltz, Tango. Are the dances and moves impromptu and off-the-cuff, or well-rehearsed?
Ballroom, Foxtrot, Cha-Cha. The Carnival performers wore traditional folk costumes. Is this correct or incorrect?
Mexican Hat Dance. I have visited the Rio de Janeiro Carnival. Yes or no? What do you associate with the Rio Carnival? Have you been to carnival festivals in Venice, Italy; Montreal, Canada, the UK or New Orleans, US; ?
Flamenco. Are there carnival festivals and celebrations in your town, city, region and country? What happens? Describe them.
Belly Dance, Oriental Dance. My city has many dance schools, studios and clubs.
Bollywood Dance. What might happen in the future?
Cossack Dance, Hopak. My friends and I wish we were a fabulous dancers.
Thai Dance. What could or should people do? Should every town and city have parades, festivals and celebrations?
