The Sounds of Brazil

Article:Mika Kaurismäki Introduces His Spiritual Home
We are lucky in the United States to hear music similar to the lusty latino beats when we turn on the television around the last week of February. Catching the end of a news report on Marde Gras. When you are in Brazil you live Marde Gras for 2 weeks straight.
This article is about a Finnish filmmaker and his fixation on Brazil. It began when he was only fifteen years old and he's been claiming it to be his spiritual home ever since. For the last ten years he has been living, on and off, between Helsinki and Rio. He was implored by a French channel called 'Arte', he agreed to make a documentary film on Brazilian music. Namely, the most popular of Brazilian music, The Samba. He explored the samba and its connection to people all over Brazil. He found that the Samba meant something different to all parts of Brazil. To the folks in northeast Bahia the Samba serves as a connection to the Brazilian people that lived there before African and European explorers came to their country. For the black people in Bahia it serves the purpose of connecting them to their ancestors ceremonies. For persons in bigger cities like Rio, Sao Paulo, and Pernambuco it shows that the woes of poverty are beaten down and danced away in celebration.
The article goes on to tell about how this Finnish man opened a club for the musicians he met, but chose to continue being a filmmaker.
The Samba ties itself to Marde Gras to the umpth most degree. When I said earlier that you live 2 weeks of Marde Gras, you literaly get up, breathe, eat and shower in Samba. Their are parades all the time displaying beautiful floats with tons of dancers surrounding them. Each one of the floats and group of dancers represents the different dance schools that are around the area. In smaller towns the parades are little, but in the bigger ones, like Rio, the parades last for hours. At the end of the parade they schools are judged on presentation and they either win or doesn't win.

But other than this 2 weeks a year the Samba has fixed itself firmly in Brazilian culture. When I was in Brazil I had the opportunity to travel all over Northeast Brazil. Watching them dance Samba struck me interested.
They danced with a different and deeper passion than the samba dancers in Sao Paulo. Now I know that the persons in Bahia are dancing to celebrate their ancestors ceremony. This wasn't a dance that they learned in school, they were actually brought up learning this dance as a ritual. Like saying a prayer before you go to bed. The people around the state of Sao Paulo get drunk and dance Samba. It is a celebration over poverty.
This article cued me in to some interesting concepts.
Other Link to Samba History