Today I'm a fairy

It's 'Ceu na Terra' today - a massive 'bloco de carnaval' that goes around the streets of Santa Teresa playing carnival tunes, followed by thousands of jumping carnival lovers. And I'm going... flying!

Ode to Rio

Last night was a big night. I didn't think it would be. I went to Manu Chao's show thinking it would be fun to jump to music I used to listen to 10 years ago, but nothing more. The show was impressive. 'Manu Chao and Radio Bamba' have their formula - a clever mix of catchy rythms, punctuated by uber classic reggae beats and hectic brazilian drums - it works every time. But this time they added hectic electric guitars and beautiful spanish-style acoustic guitar, and the result was brilliant, full of energy. They left the audience absolutely exhausted, after a 3-hour long show, but rejoyced.

I hadn't realised at the time - ten years ago! - that Minha galera is in fact an ode to Rio and Brazil, but Manu Chao style, i.e simplistic and repetitive:

[...]

Minha torcida,
Minha querida,
Minha galera,
Minha cachoeira,
Minha menina,
Minha flamenga,
Minha capoeira,
Ó minha menina,
Minha querida,
Minha galera,
...

but of course Cariocas love it...

It's carnival!

It's nearly Carnival and soon I'll be parading on the Avenida, dressed as a mummy... in a reenactment of the first performance of Aida at the Teatro Municipal, here in Rio, in 1910. The parade of Vila Isabel, the school I'm parading for, is themed around the Teatro Municipal, Rio's main theatre, because this year is the 100th anniversary of the monument. The show is a huge enterprise. There will be 8 cars parading down the avenue of the Sambodromo, with around 5000 dancers! One car will be a miniature version of the Teatro,
which was inspired by the Opéra of Paris; there'll
also be a massive swan (after Swan Lake) and an egyptian temple (that's my car, it's the setting of Aida). I am very impressed with the amount of energy and resources that were put into setting up these Carnival parades. So many people were involved: choreographers, designers, costume-makers, theatre people, and of course, musicians and carnival specialists - the carnavalescos. Carioca are usually really disorganised and unprofessional, but when it comes to Carnival.... it's another story!

that's me, not as a mummy but with my Carmen Miranda headgear on

Museu do Mar

This is my new project: the 'Museum of the sea'. Well it's one of the things I'll be working on this year. The idea is great: we want to create a hands-on science centre for kids from poor communities around the university. The kids will learn about boats, about the sea and about the environment. All very hands-on: they'll get to learn how to build miniature boats, how to sail, they'll observe stuff under a microscope and will get to do some real science out in the mangrove around the centre. The area is very beautiful, but very polluted too. It's in the Guanabara Bay and like the rest of the bay it has been badly affected by pollution - everyone dumps absolutely everything in the bay, and has been for years. Sewage, chemicals, rubbish, it all ends up there. So the idea is, of course, to raise awareness among the kids by showing from close what is happening to their local environment, and teaching them that there are alternatives to dumping everything in the sea...