The sambadrome will vibrate again, two whole nights, to the rhythm of percussion, with thousands of dancers in shimmering costumes and sumptuous floats as high as multi-storey buildings.
The party was canceled in 2021, when the Covid-19 was still killing several hundred people a day in Brazil.
"It's an emotion that's been repressed for too long. We'll have to drink a lot of water to compensate for all the tears that will flow when we go on parade," Talita Batista, a dancer from Portela, one of the most traditional samba schools, told AFP. .
"It will be a very special carnival, I have the feeling of being a survivor", adds Bianca Monteiro, Queen of the Portela Battery, who will parade in front of a group of 300 percussionists.
This outstanding dancer, who lost friends and family members during the pandemic, wants to "pay tribute to the victims of Covid", which killed more than 660,000 people in Brazil.
But now, more than 75% of Brazilians have a complete vaccination schedule and the death and contamination curves have dropped sharply.
The group "Cordao Do Boitata" during a "bloco" goes to the Rio Sambadrome, in Rio de Janeiro on April 17, 2022 Mauro PIMENTEL AFP
Some 75,000 spectators will therefore be able to gather in the bays of the sambodrome, provided they present a vaccination certificate.
"I missed it, I love carnival. It's a party that represents our identity, that of the city and of a whole country," said Rio mayor Eduardo Paes recently, who likes to show himself in front of the cameras. playing the tambourine and dancing the samba, wearing a Panama hat.
Anti-racism movement
At the sambadrome, surrounded by bleachers surrounding a 700-meter-long track, 12 schools will parade one after the other - six on Friday evening and six more the next day - to try to win the coveted title of champion of the carnival.
To seduce the jurors and the public, each school will parade for more than an hour some 3,000 more or less naked dancers and half a dozen monumental floats.
The group "Cordao Do Boitata" during a "bloco" goes to the Rio Sambadrome, in Rio de Janeiro on April 17, 2022 Mauro PIMENTEL AFP
This year, eight of the 12 schools have chosen a theme linked to the fight against racism and to African roots deeply rooted in the world of samba.
Salgueiro, for example, will present on the first night his parade entitled "Resistance", inspired by the Black Lives Matter protest movement, which shook the United States after the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by a white police officer in June. 2020.
"This case has aroused great emotion around the world and it has rubbed off on samba schools," said Alex Souza, artistic director of Salgueiro.
Other schools, such as Grande Rio and Mocidade, will pay homage to deities of the Afro-Brazilian religions, Exu and Oxossi.
"Political dimension"
“Samba schools are a manifestation of Afro-Brazilian culture,” explains historian Luiz Antonio Simas, author of numerous books on carnival.
These themes had already been addressed in many parades in the past, but they have taken on a whole new relevance since the coming to power in 2019 of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
Customary of racist or homophobic excesses, it is supported by neo-Pentecostal churches which tend to demonize Afro-Brazilian rites and carnival in general.
“Under the current government, a visceral carnival, with a strong black identity, takes on a whole political dimension,” insists Mr. Simas.
La Bangay is the first samba school that defines itself as LGBT, in Rio de Janeiro on April 11, 2022 ANDRE BORGES AFP
The return of carnival festivities is also a relief for the tourism sector, which expects 85% hotel occupancy this weekend.
Rio city hall has not authorized the street carnival, whose largest processions, "the blocos", can bring together hundreds of thousands of revelers, but some smaller groups should still parade.
© 2022 AFP