Portela Samba School to Lead Rio’s 2017 Carnival Champions Parade

By Ciara Long, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The leading samba schools from this year’s Carnival competition will perform again this Saturday in the Sambódromo. The evening will start from 10PM, beginning with the lowest-scoring groups of the six Grupo Especial (Special Group) schools and ending with this year’s champion, Portela.

The samba schools will repeat their performances from this year’s Carnival, parading once more along the 700m Sambódromo avenue. Beija-Flor, who came sixth, will be the first to perform.

They will be followed by Acadêmicos do Grande Rio, Mangueira, Salgueiro and Mocidade Independente. The competition’s final scores were close, with Portela beating Mocidade Independente by a fraction of just 0.1 points in the competition.

Portela, who won their first title in 33 years in 2017’s Carnival, will be the last performance of the evening. Led by Carnavalesco (Carnival designer) Paulo Barros, the school’s enredo (plot) tells the story of humanity’s historical relationship with rivers, parading in the school’s signature colours of blue and white.

Among the elements displayed by the winning school were the water goddess Iara, legendary Brazilian water serpent Boiúna and the Amazonian pink dolphin. The school also paid homage to some of the world’s most famous rivers, including the Mississippi and the Nile, as well as the 2015 Rio Doce environmental disaster.

Tickets are available to watch the parade in the Sambódromo from the venue’s box office, located on Rua da Alfândega, 25, between 10AM and 4PM. Limited ticket sales will also take place from 10AM to 11PM on the day of the parade, Saturday March 4th, with tickets priced between R$140 and R$300.

Those buying tickets must present their CPF number, with sales limited to four tickets per CPF. The parade will also be broadcast live via TV Brasil from 9.30 PM, with talks from carnavalescos, samba school directors and guest commentators.