Brazilian Samba Schools (Escolas de Samba)

The engine of the whole year is the enredo, the theme the school picks months ahead, which its composers turn into a samba-enredo through an internal song contest held in the quadra (the school's hall) across the second half of the year. Once the winning song is chosen and recorded onto the annual samba-enredo album around October, the machine assembles: a carnavalesco designs the floats and costumes, the mestre de bateria drills 250 to 300 drummers, a puxador learns to carry the song, and the comissao de frente plus the mestre-sala and porta-bandeira rehearse their choreography. Members sort into alas, the costumed blocks that each stand for a piece of the story, and the school runs technical rehearsals inside the Sambadrome itself in the weeks before Carnival. On its parade night the whole community, often 3,000 people or more, has roughly 80 minutes to cross the avenue in perfect order while judges score floats, harmony, bateria, flag couple, and the song. The verdict lands on the afternoon of Ash Wednesday, and it decides who is promoted, who is relegated, and who gets to call themselves champion.