Virtual carnaval

Virtual samba schools parading online in the virtual carnival, yes, really! This has been an online event for a decade, always timed for July. There's two organisations of Virtual samba schools online, Virtuafolia and LIESV. Firtuafolia's special group schools paraded last Saturday and Sunday nights. But theres more to come in the next fortnight.

You can only see these parades live, once each school has finished its parade disappears from the net.

Agenda:

Sat 23rd july from 7pm, Virrtuafolia grupo Acesso
Sun 24th July LIESV grupo acesso
Sat 30th July LIESV grupo especial
Sun 31st July LIESV grupo especial

To watch the virtuafolia parades go to www.virtuafolia.com.br
For the LIESV parades go to http://www.liesv.com.br/

These virtual samba schools show Brazilians at their very best, inventive, hard working and extremely funny. People use these virtual parades to present themes and costumes that could never happen in real life. The first samba school to parade on Sunday had the theme of 'Shit' And it wasnt very subtle about it either. This isn't the norm; the next school to parade had the theme of 'Cursed Mondays' and explored late nights, hangovers, Monday morning traffic jams and resolutions to behave better in the future with great wit and elan.

The virtual samba schools announce their themes months ahead of  carnival. Each school has a samba enredo competition, with entrants posting up their sambas on youtube for people to hear. The league produces a CD of the winning sambas.

On the night, each samba school struts its stuff for about 20 minutes. The recording of the samba enredo is played, and there is a hilarious live commentary, had us creased up laughing, though I only understood some of the Portuguese. You can go watch the carnival parades in the company of other fans, sitting in the virtual arquibancadas (chat rooms to you and me)

This is beginning to be a breeding ground for new talent, too. Last year a virtual carnival designer was taken on by one of the big Rio samba schools, Estacio de Sa, to design their carnival in real life.