Publisher's Synopsis
Every year at Carnival season each of Rio's "favelas" - the shanty-town slums in the hills surrounding the city - sends a samba school of thousands of costumed dancers, musicians and floats to compete in the carnival parade. The author, a dancer by training and a journalist, spent one such season with the samba school of Mangueira, not only learning the art of this dazzlingly complex dance, but also exploring the world of samba - the excesses and enthusiasms, the poverty and danger behind the glossy images of travel brochures and TV spectaculars.
