Zhejiang Opera Troup in Brazilian Carnival

The spring of 2010 saw Zhejiang Wuju Opera go on a visiting mission to Brazil， sent by the Ministry of Culture. The 22-artist delegation spent 14 days in Brazil， staging shows and taking part in the carnival parade at Port Alegre. As a journalist tagging along， I witnessed the splendor and revel of the annual gala that makes Brazil famous all over the world. I also witnessed Brazilian people’s friendship， their strong curiosity about and interest in the Chinese culture.

On February 6， 2010， a temporary stage was set up in front of St. Paul Cathedral in Sao Paulo， the largest city in Brazil. In addition to the show by the troupe from Zhejiang， a dozen Brazilian kungfu students from a kungfu club organized by two overseas Chinese practiced their kungfu stunts on the stage in accompaniment of Chinese drums and gongs. They were dressed in the Chinese costume.

On the other side of the square were Chinese booths where a local Chinese association sponsored exhibitions of Chinese calligraphy， acupuncture， painting and kungfu. Two booths were extremely popular. At one booth， local residents got a chance to dress themselves up in traditional Chinese costumes and get photographed free of charge. Directed by the photographer， the local Brazilians posed as Chinese personalities and everyone enjoyed the fun. Another big attraction was Liu Shude， a prominent Chinese calligrapher living in Brazil. He wrote couplets and gave them away as gifts to audience. Local people watched him writing and queued to get the free couplets. Some people queued again to get their second free couplet. They didn’t understand what inscriptions on couplets meant， but they said they liked the Chinese characters which looked like pretty paintings. Some young people in Brazil have Chinese characters tattooed on their bodies.

Zhejiang Wuju Opera Troup brought to Brazil many gifts specially made for this Brazilian visit， including t-shirts， ceramic cups， and cartoon tigers. These gifts were popular with Brazilians.

A big part of our Brazilian mission was to take part in the carnival parade in Port Alegre， capital of Rio Grande do Sul state in southeastern Brazil. Three days before our appearance at the local carnival pageant， the troupe was interviewed by RBS， the largest television network in the state， and Zero Time， the largest newspaper in the state. An official of a samba school came all the way from Rio de Janeiro to watch the troupe’s pageant in Port Alegre. And a director of Restinga samba school also came to see us. They were present at the interview. The television crew hoped to make some preliminary shots of the troupe’s parade show. The two artists of the Wuju Opera Troupe painted a formula facial makeup for the two officials of the samba schools on the spot， attracting a large audience to watch raptly. The Zhejiang artists chose the “Hua Lian” facial makeup， a male character in traditional Chinese operas. The two Brazilians were quite satisfied with the exotic painted faces they got. They looked at their new faces in the mirror raptly， smiling and their thumbs up.

In order to express their appreciation of their new faces， the two samba masters taught the Wuju opera artists how to dance samba. The opera artists soon learned some basics. Everyone laughed and applauded. In the afternoon， RBS screened the coverage. The Wuju opera artists proudly showed their samba stunts to their friends back home after they returned to China. It was another big moment.

In Port Alegre， Restinga， a local samba school， chose China as its parade plot for the 2010 carnival. That means all the performers from the school would use the theme for the parade.

On February 12， a day before the carnival day， Restinga Samba School held a dressed rehearsal. Thousands of people gathered. The Chinese artists showed their face-changing stunt and dragon dancing. The Brazilian audience gave the Chinese artists the loudest applause. When the musical instrumentalists from the school began to perform， Chinese artists joined them. Under the guidance of the Brazilian professionals， the Chinese soon learned how to follow the rhythm and music and how to play the bells and small drums.

The carnival parade in Port Alegre occurred on February 13， which happened to be the eve of the 2010 Chinese Spring Festival， a night when the 1.3 billion Chinese celebrated the Spring Festival.

Children in the Restinga parade wore panda-shaped costumes; other actors wore dresses with images of dragons and Chinese characters; some even wore the armors of the terra-cotta warriors; some wore Chinese mandarin jackets and bamboo hats. The large-scale television screens on carnival floats show Chinese landmarks such as the Great Wall， the Forbidden City， the Bird’s Nest， and the Water Cubic. Also screened on these huge screens were photographs of Zhejiang Wuju Opera Troupe in Brazil.

Restinga was the last and the most important show of the 14 samba schools that night in Port Alegre. The school staged five carnival floats， all in the theme of China. The thousands of Restinga samba dancers had a theme song that night featuring China and its five-thousand-year glory and marvel.

Though the artists from Zhejiang had watched television shows of carnival parades in Brazil， it was completely different when they danced together with samba dancers in gorgeous costumes in the real parade. They were totally intoxicated by the “greatest show on Earth”.

A Brazilian young man named Jonas was a member of the reception group. He led the Chinese dragon dance at the carnival parade. After seeing the painted faces of two samba masters， Jonas asked the troupe to give him a painted face for the parade night. He got a painted face of “Xiao Sheng”， the handsomest young male character in Chinese opera tradition. Jonas was overjoyed with his new image and his girlfriend was very pleased. After the show， Jonas was most reluctant to remove the painted face， saying that he felt like a star with the Chinese face. Many people came up to him and posed with him for a picture. □