The Carnivalized Metropolis: The Street Carnival Groups as Surrealists and Situacionists Performances in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The street carnival in Rio de Janeiro, cultural manifestation in rapid growth in the last three decades, has been the target of recent investments by the government and commercial interests. One of the consequences of this intervention was the distinction of blocos de rua (street carnival groups) between official and unofficial. This article will deal with this second type of groups, characterized by spontaneity and horizontality, taking as an exemplary case the group named Cordão do Boi Tolo. Such manifestations substantiate city experiences that impose themselves, from the aesthetic and cultural point of view, as creative experiences of performatization of bodies. From a political perspective, they are libertarian forms of occupation of public space and of redefining the uses of the city. Combining literary analysis, sociological reflection and ethnographic observation, the article intends to discuss this street carnival as an unexpected extension of the surrealist and situationist proposals for the re-enchantment of the world and the manifestation of the wonderful. It concludes that the magic that literature works in surrealism continues to be updated in the streets and crossroads of Rio de Janeiro by the blocos de rua, in their opposition to institutional powers and market control. It is in the enjoyment of the city by the revelers that the flânerie becomes creative writing of reality. It is in the streets of the carnivalized metropolis that the dérive is rooted in the oldest traditions of the square as a free space of popular creation.