By Pau Ramirez
RIO DE JANEIRO Nike VaporMax Mens UK Sale , Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Rio de Janeiro's iconic Sambadrome was the epicenter of Brazil's annual carnival celebrations late Sunday as competing samba schools danced and drummed their way through the open-air venue.
The first of two nights of parading dancers and drummers, and wildly elaborate floats, featured six samba schools that paid homage to the upcoming 2016 Olympic Games, to be hosted by Rio, and to Brazilian soccer star Neymar da Silva.
Some 72,500 revelers filled the stands lining both sides of the 720-meter-long Sambadrome, cheering on the schools until nearly dawn on Monday.
The samba parade continues Monday night with the final six schools Nike VaporMax Womens UK Sale , each hoping its hundreds of drummers, thousands of dancers, some dressed in feathered Las Vegas-style costumes, and gargantuan floats will be crowned the carnival winners.
Each school, featuring anywhere from 3,200 to 5,000 dancers Nike Vapormax CS UK Sale , elects a particular theme and spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to recreate it for carnival.
On Sunday, the first school, Estacio de Sa, paid tribute to the Summer Games taking place from Aug. 5 to 21, sending out mascots Vinicius and Tom, followed by a small float carrying an Olympic flame.
The theme of Estacio de Sa, which only recently joined the ranks of Rio's elite samba schools Nike Vapormax Laceless UK Sale , was the legend of Saint George, the city's patron saint, and the dragon, so the float was built in the shape of the mythical creature.
The dragon was imposing, but not as much as the school had originally proposed, because the fire department nixed the idea of building a dragon that could breathe fire.
Samba school Uniao da Ilha also tipped its hat to the Olympics, with dancers dressed as athletes and a special guest: Brazilian marathon runner Vanderlei Cordeiro Nike Vapormax Flyknit UK Sale , who was awarded the True Spirit of Sportsmanship medal at the 2004 Athens games.
The long-distance runner was attacked by a spectator during competition and lost his lead, but continued and ended up placing third for the bronze.
Cordeiro, carrying the Olympic torch, was welcomed with a warm round of applause.
The Grande Rio school paid tribute to the port city of Santos, in southeast Sao Paulo state, and the two famed footballers most associated with it: Pele, who played there almost his entire career Nike VaporMax Black UK Sale , and Neymar da Silva, who was a local hero before joining Spanish club Barcelona.
The reigning champion of carnival, Beija-Flor, adorned its float to tell the story of the Marquis of Sapucai, the Brazilian noble and writer whose name is on the avenue the Sambadrome sits on.
Mocidade, the next to last school parading, dedicated its float to Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes Nike Nike Vapormax Off White UK Sale , author of Don Quixote de la Mancha. This year marks the 400th anniversary of his death.
Unidos da Tijuca closed the parade, with floats and costumes dedicated to the state of Mato Grosso and its agricultural staples, corn and soy.
A 40-member panel of judges will announce on Wednesday which of the 12 schools is the winner of Rio's carnival.
A Servant of Two Masters was the last of the six plays I saw during the opening season of Theatre Above in Shanghai, the first theater of US-born Taiwanese auteur Stan Lai, who is one of the leading Chinese practitioners of the craft.
From the end of December to the end of February, Lai is selecting six of his Performance Workshop's famed plays to stage at Theatre Above.
All of them are delivered in Chinese with English subtitles. They included Sand on a Distant Star, which featured popular Hong Kong actress Cheng Pei-pei; A Blurry Kind of Love www.nikevapormaxuk.com , with Taiwanese heartthrob singer Chen Chia-hwa; and Crosstalk Travelers, with Chinese TV host and actor Dai Jun.
These three shows sold tickets quickly thanks to those big names, but failed to receive commensurate reviews.
Big names
Sand on a Distant Star tells the romantic story of the fantasies people have when they are frustrated in life.
It offers up some profound thoughts amid slapstick, but unfortunately this production lost its beauty and flow due to the actors repeatedly making mistakes in the delivery of their lines.
A blend of the 18th century French comedy The Game of Love and Chance and Chinese TV and film romances of the late 20th Century, A Blurry Kind of Love aroused constant lighthearted laughter from the audience with its exaggerated performances.
It touched upon common relationship anxieties, but offered few surprises in its storytelling.
Crosstalk Travelers offered a mirror for audience to examine themselves through two Chinese travelers' endless complaints about their compatriots' bad behavior when outside of their home country.
It's admirable to see the director daring to directly criticize Chinese travelers, so that the audience can reflect on their own behavior while traveling and even in their daily lives.
Yet Nike Vapormax Shoes UK Sale , the play did seem too preachy, and became dreary because of it.
In comparison, the other three plays offer more in the way of surprise. A Servant of Two Masters, which featured a new cast of actors Lai specifically recruited for Theatre Above, filled the audience with constant laughter and applause.
The 135-minute show resembled a lively Spring Festival gala, which offered not only fun but also touching material and bonus performances such as acrobatics.
Adapted from the namesake comedy written by Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni in the 18th century, Lai's A Servant of Two Masters has localized its content for Chinese society and has some dialogue in Shanghai dialect especially for local audience.
Zong Juntao played the role of Truffaldino Nike Vapormax UK Sale , a servant who covertly found himself two masters and struggled to satisfy each while not getting caught by either of them.
He delivered vividly the covetous grass-roots role, and unexpectedly plucked on my heart string a"
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