Liesa decides to postpone parades in the samba schools of Rio de Janeiro in 2021 | Rio de Janeiro

There is no date for the parade yet, the schools only defined that the parades will not be held in February. According to the president of Liesa, Jorge Castanheira, any evaluation of a new date depends on the programming of a vaccination campaign.

“Because of all this insecurity, this instability in relation to science, not knowing if we will have the vaccine in February or not, we come to the conclusion that this process must be postponed. We cannot do it in February – schools will no longer have time nor financial and organizational conditions to make it viable until February ”, says Castanheira.

“We are in permanent meeting here. We are discussing today not the cancellation, but the possibility of a postponement, an alternative solution, something that will come at a time to contribute safely to the city of Rio de Janeiro,” he added.

“We will continue fighting, looking for alternatives to find a project of ours that allows samba schools to carry out an alternative process to the parades that take place in February, so as not to damage the carnival of 2022. Then, we will try to find it in the next moment, in the next months, a solution that is on another date. Our priority is to respect the security issue, “said Castanheira.

Possibility of a smaller carnival

“We are waiting the next few months for us to have a definition on the vaccine and when we will have this immunization. Today, with the different news that we have, we are not sure to set a date. So we are standing in a meeting to bring alternative projects also to the traditional model of the parade. The traditional model of the parade requires much more time to prepare. All this is being seen so that we do not have to cancel the show, “said Castanheira.

“Our expectation is that, at some point, it allows people who are depending on leisure and the economic and cultural part of the show not to be left without that answer,” said the president of Liesa.

“We are here waiting for the evaluation of some studies that were presented here so that we can give conditions. The schools are working on their plots, they have the possibility of working alternately on the choices of sambas plots. Everything is being evaluated to proceed with the elaboration of a show for the future, either in the traditional format or an alternative to this model of our show ”, he concluded.

Difficulties for schools

With the restrictions on movement and the rules of social distance caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, work has not yet started on the barracks of the samba schools in Rio de Janeiro.

All the presidents agree that holding the carnival on the usual date, in February, would be a great challenge in terms of time and logistics.

In early September, RJ2 showed that Cidade do Samba, which would normally be in full swing for parades at the time, looked like a ghost town.

For those who depend on carnival, the lack of foresight brings even more pessimism. Most of the people who help raise the party are single-handed, experiencing difficulties, and enlisting the help of friends to survive.