Carnaval San Francisco
Encyclopedia
Carnaval San Francisco is an annual street parade and festival in San Francisco, California
on the last weekend in May.
The San Francisco Bay Area Carnaval season begins in February as the great Western hemisphere Carnaval celebrations are concluding. The four Carnaval Cities with the greatest influence and presence in the San Francisco Carnaval are the Brazilian
cities of Rio de Janeiro
and Salvador as well as Port of Spain
, Havana
, Cuba
, Trinidad and Oruro, Bolivia
. The Mission District, San Francisco, California
since the 1950s, has been a metro center for the many different Spanish speaking populations of Latin America and these groups will often enter a group or Carnaval contingent in the parade
.
Carnaval
or Mardi Gras
is best seen as a spring festival celebrating the rebirth of life and thus it is a universal festival celebrated by all cultures as well as the first festival. Besides the strong American hemisphere presence in the parade there are generally Carnaval groups from the Philippines
, India
, China
, Middle East
and Africa
.
. Since 1979, the Carnaval has been the central event for many thousands of artists who spend hundreds of hours each year getting ready for the Sunday parade.
Since 2003, the Carnaval Grand Parade has run from 24th Street at Bryant to the 24th Street BART station and then down the Mission Miracle Mile to turn on 17th Street towards the Harrison Street Carnaval San Francisco Music Festival between 16th and 24th Streets. Carnaval San Francisco is produced by Mission Neighborhood Centers Inc. (MNC) as a fund raiser for their many youth, children, family and senior programs. The Cultural Arts Committee (CAC) of MNC together with the Carnaval Advisory Committee oversee the administration of the parade and festival which contracts with long-time Mission District activist Roberto Hernandez to run and grow the event. For the 2009 Carnaval the production of the parade and festival was turned over to the veteran event production company, Rita Barela & Associates while the CAC produced the other official events including the King and Queen Competition which saw the election of Queen Rebeca de Souza and King Rodson de Jesus.
.
, to a wide audience. Under the direction of Jose Lorenzo and Jacque Barnes, the Bay Area-based Batucaje became a magnet for dancers and musicians interested in learning authentic samba. The ranks of Batucaje swelled, and by 1983, alumni broke off to start their own samba schools, most notably Escola Nova ('New School'), directed by Chalo Eduardo and Josephine Morada. By the mid 1980s, Carnaval San Francisco had several rival samba schools competing in the parade. Dennis Broughton, another Batucaje alumni, founded the annual Brazil Music Camp held each summer at the Cazadero Performing Arts Camp
. The camp hosts visiting Brazilian folkloric masters and devoted California samba students.
The success of batucada
(Carnaval street samba) in the San Francisco Bay Area
led to the establishment of samba schools throughout the state, including Carnaval Spirit in Sebastopol
, Dance of Brazil in Santa Cruz
, the Santa Barbara
Samba School, Aquarela Samba School in Berkeley
, Samba Mundial in San Jose
, the Super Sonic Samba School in San Diego, and Escola Samba do Norte, SambanaChuva Humboldt, SambaAmore, Bloco Firmeza, and Samba da Alegria in Arcata. Additionally, there are the samba schools: Samba Like It Hot! of Ashland, OR, Samba Ja of Eugene, OR, Lions of Batucada of Portland, OR, and Batucada Yemanjá of Seattle, WA. After Carnaval San Francisco's parade, the North Country Fair Samba Parade in Arcata is the longest running annual samba parade on the West Coast of the United States
.
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
on the last weekend in May.
The San Francisco Bay Area Carnaval season begins in February as the great Western hemisphere Carnaval celebrations are concluding. The four Carnaval Cities with the greatest influence and presence in the San Francisco Carnaval are the Brazilian
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
cities of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
and Salvador as well as Port of Spain
Port of Spain
Port of Spain, also written as Port-of-Spain, is the capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the country's third-largest municipality, after San Fernando and Chaguanas. The city has a municipal population of 49,031 , a metropolitan population of 128,026 and a transient daily population...
, Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, Trinidad and Oruro, Bolivia
Oruro, Bolivia
Oruro is a city in Bolivia with a population of 235,393 , located about equidistant between La Paz and Sucre at approximately 3710 meters above sea level. It is the capital of the department of Oruro....
. The Mission District, San Francisco, California
Mission District, San Francisco, California
The Mission District, also commonly called "The Mission", is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, USA, originally known as "the Mission lands" meaning the lands belonging to the sixth Alta California mission, Mission San Francisco de Asis...
since the 1950s, has been a metro center for the many different Spanish speaking populations of Latin America and these groups will often enter a group or Carnaval contingent in the parade
Parade
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...
.
Carnaval
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
or Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras
The terms "Mardi Gras" , "Mardi Gras season", and "Carnival season", in English, refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, beginning on or after Epiphany and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday...
is best seen as a spring festival celebrating the rebirth of life and thus it is a universal festival celebrated by all cultures as well as the first festival. Besides the strong American hemisphere presence in the parade there are generally Carnaval groups from the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
.
Style
As a parade, Carnaval San Francisco is most recognized for its spectacular choreographed dancers and scantily clad beautiful women. The Inner Mission District with two BART stations supports the Bay Area's highest concentration of dance studios and instructors. Many of these dance instructors have been pillars of the Carnaval parade instilling the sublime sense of uniting with the Carnaval spirit though movement and song into their students during the peak moments best experienced in the parade.History
Carnaval San Francisco was founded by a large group of visionary artists brought together by percussionist Marcus Gordon, dancer Adela Chu, and costume designer Pam Minor in 1979 who came together in Precita Park to celebrate living a rich cultural life in tune with the rhythms of nature and the ancestors. The following year the second Carnaval San Francisco was held in the Mission District's Dolores ParkDolores Park
Mission Dolores Park is a San Francisco, California, city park located in the neighborhood of Mission Dolores, at the western edge of the Mission District, which lies to the east of the park. To the west of the park is a hillside referred to as "Dolores Heights" or considered a part of the Castro...
. Since 1979, the Carnaval has been the central event for many thousands of artists who spend hundreds of hours each year getting ready for the Sunday parade.
Since 2003, the Carnaval Grand Parade has run from 24th Street at Bryant to the 24th Street BART station and then down the Mission Miracle Mile to turn on 17th Street towards the Harrison Street Carnaval San Francisco Music Festival between 16th and 24th Streets. Carnaval San Francisco is produced by Mission Neighborhood Centers Inc. (MNC) as a fund raiser for their many youth, children, family and senior programs. The Cultural Arts Committee (CAC) of MNC together with the Carnaval Advisory Committee oversee the administration of the parade and festival which contracts with long-time Mission District activist Roberto Hernandez to run and grow the event. For the 2009 Carnaval the production of the parade and festival was turned over to the veteran event production company, Rita Barela & Associates while the CAC produced the other official events including the King and Queen Competition which saw the election of Queen Rebeca de Souza and King Rodson de Jesus.
In the Bay Area
For many years the CAC has set as goals growing the cultural festival arts programs in schools and attracting Bay Area corporate support as the one central unifying annual event to bring the three major cities, nine counties, and 99 cities of the San Francisco Bay Area together.Internationally
Carnaval San Francisco supports the growth of Carnival as an international tool for peace and harmony. Since 2000 it has been the only North American member of the world's largest organization promoting the unique civic institutions of Carnival, the Federation of European Carnival CitiesFederation of European Carnival Cities
The Federation of European Carnival Cities was founded in 1980 and has been registered in the Court of Luxembourg. Member cities, organization and individual members are engaged in producing popular celebrations or carnivals which represent an authentic masquerade or parade of a people's cultural...
.
The proliferation of samba schools and parades on the west coast
Carnaval San Francisco exposed Escola de Samba Batucaje, California's first samba schoolSamba school
A samba school is a club or dancing school. They practice and often perform in huge square-compounds devoted to practicing and exhibiting samba, an African-Brazilian dance. The schools are traditionally associated with a particular neighborhood, often shanty towns...
, to a wide audience. Under the direction of Jose Lorenzo and Jacque Barnes, the Bay Area-based Batucaje became a magnet for dancers and musicians interested in learning authentic samba. The ranks of Batucaje swelled, and by 1983, alumni broke off to start their own samba schools, most notably Escola Nova ('New School'), directed by Chalo Eduardo and Josephine Morada. By the mid 1980s, Carnaval San Francisco had several rival samba schools competing in the parade. Dennis Broughton, another Batucaje alumni, founded the annual Brazil Music Camp held each summer at the Cazadero Performing Arts Camp
Cazadero Performing Arts Camp
Cazadero Performing Arts Camp is a performing arts camp located in the Sonoma redwoods in Northern California, United States...
. The camp hosts visiting Brazilian folkloric masters and devoted California samba students.
The success of batucada
Batucada
Batucada is a substyle of samba and refers to an African influenced Brazilian percussive style, usually performed by an ensemble, known as a Bateria...
(Carnaval street samba) in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
led to the establishment of samba schools throughout the state, including Carnaval Spirit in Sebastopol
Sebastopol
Sebastopol is a former spelling and frequent variant of Sevastopol, the port on the Crimean peninsula.Sebastopol may refer to the following:Places:* Sebastopol, California, USA* Sebastopol, Mississippi, USA...
, Dance of Brazil in Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
, the Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
Samba School, Aquarela Samba School in Berkeley
Berkeley
-United Kingdom:* Berkeley, Gloucestershire** Berkeley Castle**Berkeley * Berkeley Square, London* Berkeley Square, Bristol-United States of America:*Berkeley, California, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area...
, Samba Mundial in San Jose
San José
San José, or San Jose, is the Spanish for Saint Joseph. It usually refers to one of two major cities. These are:*San José, Costa Rica, the capital of Costa Rica*San Jose, California, the tenth-most populous city in the United States...
, the Super Sonic Samba School in San Diego, and Escola Samba do Norte, SambanaChuva Humboldt, SambaAmore, Bloco Firmeza, and Samba da Alegria in Arcata. Additionally, there are the samba schools: Samba Like It Hot! of Ashland, OR, Samba Ja of Eugene, OR, Lions of Batucada of Portland, OR, and Batucada Yemanjá of Seattle, WA. After Carnaval San Francisco's parade, the North Country Fair Samba Parade in Arcata is the longest running annual samba parade on the West Coast of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
External Links
- Carnaval San Francisco @ carnaval.com based in SF Mission District
- Carnaval San Francisco Details & Dates