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A member of the Porto da Pedra samba school
© AFP/File Antonio Scorza RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) - But they are in fact an anthology of carefully crafted stories, with each samba school presenting an allegorical essay about a chosen subject and setting it to an original score and lyrics.
Take the Porto da Pedra group's entry late Monday, for instance. This school -- one of 12 competing in Rio's two nights of parades -- adopted the theme of Japanese immigration to Brazil, a phenomenon that is now a century old and which has given rise to the biggest Japanese community in the world outside Japan itself.
It was probably an astute move, given that all of Brazil is commemorating that anniversary this year, and Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito is scheduled to visit as part of the celebrations in June.
But the school also spent up to two million dollars in bringing the theme alive -- and giving it to a samba soundtrack.
Thus the performers paid vocal tribute to "the Maru crossing the ocean, traveling on luck" as a float in the form of a large ship glided along with a topless beauty on top.
(That referred to the 781 Japanese who made landfall in Brazil on June 18, 1908, on board the ship Kasato Maru. The semi-nude siren was a historical liberty.)
Members of the Porto da Pedra samba school
© AFP/File Antonio Scorza It was followed by what looked to be hobbits with coffee beans on their heads. (A pointer to the initial immigrants heading to Brazil's coffee plantations to work.)
Ranks of cabbage patch men and tomatoes and potato-heads moving with fancy footwork succeeded them (showing the widening agricultural influence of the Japanese in Brazil).
A stunning female "butterfly" with ostentatious tan marks and a g-stringed coterie followed, along with a forest of jigging bonsai tree costumes (all suggesting the immigrants were feeling at home in the South American land at this point in the narrative).
Another giant float, this one with an oversized baby spinning around in a bathtub while Japanese street vendors rocked underneath underlined the integration of the community into Brazilian society.
And then came scenes showing Brazilian society's adoption of Japanese life, in the form of armies of spinning Japanese tea sets and sushi trays, which can be found today in restaurants from Sao Paulo to Brasilia.
A litter of Hello Kitties gave way to somewhat sexier pussycat dolls wearing lingerie (this being a carnival parade in Brazil, after all).
And then came the futuristic finale: a float of a rocket boy in Japanese anime tradition, followed by manga page-boys -- and then the final float that had towering robots spinning around a computer console.
"The rising sun shines in every one of us," the lyrics went.
©AFP