Bananas and pineapples in Rio’s carnival “backyards”: ethnographic views on the production of a samba school parade at Intendente Magalhães Avenue

Abstract

The article takes questions about the creation process, management and production of the parades presented by the samba schools in Intendente Magalhaes Avenue, North Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Far away from the great event that is annually made in “Samba Strip” (the Sambadrome - Marques de Sapucai Avenue, in the downtown area, where paraded, in 2016, 26 schools - 14 in the Access Group A and 12 in the Special Group), occure the “carnival of the people”, brings together about 60 associations, a fact that awakes a paradox: despite concentrate the largest number of samba schools, the carnival of the Intendente Magalhães Avenue remains invisible and placed in a very different productive logic in spite of that observed in the vicinity of Sapucai (which is interesting from the ethnographic point of view). From the report of a specific case, the carnival from 2015 presented by Gremio Recreativo Escola de Samba Acadêmicos do Sossego, from Largo da Batalha neighborhood, Niteroi, we intended to discuss about that universe, redirecting the light of cultural studies to the “backyards” of Rio’s carnival.