Parade of samba schools Rio Carnival 1960s

The 1960s
Samba schools not only survived the demolition of the Plaza Eleven, but the 1960s will see their final ascent. The parades began to yield money and prestige for many people. Tickets began to be highly sought after. The big celebration was twisted in parades, with Debret often leading his school to the championship.

The carioca high society and the most famous artists of the time came to the honored fashion. The integration of people from more affluent social classes into the fashion parade had its beginning in the Mangueira.  Known as “Gigi’s hose, a couple belonging to a traditional family of high society, became the first dancers outside the school community.

With Salgueiro, Isabel Valencia was the first African-Brazilian citizen to compete in dance, and at the most luxurious of the city, the carnival ball of the Municipal Theater.   Competing and winning the contest of fantasies that happened during the prom in a beautiful representation of Chica da Silva, the plot of the school in 1963, was a memorable show.  The red and white revolutionized the Tijuca samba carnival with a different plot.

Contrary to what was done previously, the letter was very careful, concise and with great fidelity to historical facts.  The innovations presented in this parade, such as the marked side step of minuet dancing, were choreographer-tested by the Municipal Theater.  Mercedes Baptista, a masterpiece of artists Arlindo Rodrigues and Fernando Pamplona would be honored for years.

People forgot the history of Brazil as Zombie dos Palmares, Chico King and Dona Beija, changed the aesthetics of the plots that had exalted the official history, a great success that caused the indignation of Sambistas known as “purists”.  The purists believed that these innovations would stop the samba.

The samba schools co-operated in a way to integrate the various social classes in the years following.  The schools left the exclusivity of their communities and opened spaces for people from outside, which would be a factor in subsequent years leading to the super show carnival would become.