This Carnival parade along Recife's oceanfront features some big characters (left), and some strange ones, not including, of course, Park University's Laura Lane, LaToya Williams, and Cathy Sillman.

Some video taken at the last Carnival celebration of the year in Recife, Brazil. We had some problems with the audio--sorry. Video

3/6/06

By Alan McArthur

Today we went to the carnival held three blocks from our hotel, on the street next to the beach.  It was one of the last carnivals still happening in Recife and was celebrating the “policia” and military. It was held a week after the other carnivals ended.

It was an amazing cultural experience.  Hundreds, maybe thousands of people had packed the streets and sidewalks to participate in the celebration.

It was different from the United States because in the U.S. parades are large productions where people stand on the sides and watch as the floats quickly drive by.  In Brazil, the parade was just as large of a production, but moved slowly and everyone danced and partied in the streets along with the parade.

The music was loud, very loud.  It was loud enough that when the beat hit you could feel it in your chest.  All sorts of strange people were crowded together in the middle of the street dancing and simply having fun

There were ‘interesting’ people all over the place.  There was a man elaborately dressed up as a woman (see below) and a man dressed as a priest walking around and blessing people’s fertility.  Some people in the parade had on giant heads and torsos designed to look like police officers.

All together the carnival was a really good experience to watch, and also to get involved in the culture of Recife, Brazil.