Rio de Janeiro, which sits at the entrance to Guanabara Bay on the Brazilian coast, is a historically multiethnic city. Founded by Portuguese colonizers, the city served as a major hub for the Atlantic slave trade and later attracted migrants from other parts of the world. During Carnival, a season of celebration preceding Lent—a time of penitence, fasting, and sacrifice in the Christian liturgical calendar that culminates in Easter—millions of revelers from Brazil and abroad flock to Rio to join locals eating, drinking, and dancing in festivities where samba, both a musical genre and a dance style with African roots, predominates. While events and celebrations fill every available public space, the Sambódromo, or Sambadrome, stands as the epicenter of Carnival’s most structured expression: the samba parades.
