Portela samba school celebrates its 100th jubilee on Rio’s Sambódromo

The second parade night on Marquês de Sapucaí avenue, this Monday (Feb. 20), will bring real and imagined stories as themes of the samba schools of the Special Group, with delirious fables, historiography and cases that are hard to believe.

Six schools will perform in today's parade in Rio de Janeiro: Paraíso do Tuiuti, Portela, Vila Isabel, Imperatriz, Beija-Flor, and Viradouro.

The 2023 parade marks the centennial year of Portela, the school with most champion titles in the history of Rio de Janeiro's carnival. During its performance this year, the blue and white school from Madureira neighborhood will tell the spectators its own story, bringing back five outstanding figures, who in carnival receive the title of bastions: historic samba composer Paulo da Portela; the flag-bearer aunt Dodô; patron Natal da Portela, and singers and composers David Corrêa and Monarco.

Paulo da Portela’s role will be played on the avenue by actor Ícaro Silva, who considered the invitation a great honor because of the historical importance of the samba composer.

"He’s helped take samba out of marginality, he invented samba-enredo – a subgenre of samba used to lead the parade of samba schools in Carnival - and brought to our popular culture the carnival parade as we know it today. So, it is a great honor not only for me as a samba school lover, but as a black artist, and a Brazilian, to represent this man who did so much for our people and for the tradition of the Afro-Brazilian culture," the actor said.