 I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey and what a journey this is. It is just so wonderful. We are going this Mardi Gras, Carnival, Fat Tuesday, and all of those wonderful things and we're going to do it with my dear friend Adela Xu. Hi Marcia. And there she is. That's Adela's music. It's an original piece and I just wanted you to hear it. What to do, Trove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Carnival, and Mardi Gras. Adela is the absolute best person that I know to talk about all of those. Adela, she created, tell me if I get it right, created Carnival in San Francisco. Is that correct? That's correct. I did. 1979, Preseta Park. Yes, that is such a great idea. And now we, in Hawaii, we had Mardi Gras on Fat Tuesday of course because the Portuguese and do the Malacitos. Everybody does Malacitos on Fat Tuesday. So tell us what is Trove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday. The Catholics College Trove Tuesday because that was from the French. And so now what, what happens? What is that day? Okay, it's the day before Ash Wednesday and the right before the beginning of Lent. And you know, we all know that in when you have Lent, you have to forget the body, all the carnal things. So Carnival means to the leaving of the flesh. So it's the day before you have to give everything up. And so you, the idea is you better party hearty because tomorrow, you know, you won't be able to. So that's the read. That's the word, you know, Fat Tuesday. So you, you get fat on Tuesday because you're going to get real things through your Lent. So it's something that has been adopted by the Catholic Church and that's very much in, has very much of a presence in all the Catholic countries in Latin America. And, but in reality, it's something that began way before that. It's actually an old and pagan celebration. During the time of Bacchus, when they were doing the grapes, you know, and they would get down and squash the grapes and stuff and everybody would get drunk. They would have these bacchanales at the end of the time when they harvested the grapes. And and your small during the time of the Greeks, the ancient Greeks was considered the God of mirth. And that was carnival time, too. So it goes way, way, way back. But what happened was as we became Christianized, the Catholic Church kind of adapted it as one of its its festivities, because it had no choice, because people were so into it that they wouldn't give it up. So it became a Catholic, it became a next to a Catholic idea, which which is the leaving of the flesh. Yeah, back to the day. So now week, every, every place that we know of calls it something different. For instance, everybody thinks of Mardi Gras as New Orleans. You know, that's when you and so that what is it different in every, not every city, but most cities, it's different. Well, Mardi Gras is the French word. Mardi means Tuesday. And it means fat. So it's the same as Fat Tuesday. It's just in French. Yeah. And then the bacchanale is something that in the Caribbean, they refer to it all the time as bacchanale. And in reality, in Cuba, they actually do that right after the harvest. So they cut the sugar cane and then they celebrate. But there they do it for 12 days instead of four. They just go off, you know, 12 days of partying and music and dancing and parades in the street. Well, yeah, after working so hard to harvest the sugar cane. And for anybody that's listening that's lived here long enough, you remember what harvesting the cane was like, with all the smoke and all over. Oh, it was a myth. But yeah, I can imagine. Now you're from Panama. So what's your life in Panama? Well, it depends on where you were born in Panama because there are certain traditions that are the same and certain ones that are different. Like mine, I have a memory of there being diablitos, which are little devils. It means diablitos means little devils. And these little devils would come out at carnival time. And you would have to give them money or they would whip you. Oh, yes. And they would actually come to your house and knock on the door. And there were two different kinds of devils. There were also the devils that were these grown men and they were tall. And they carried very, very large drums that were called atabakis. And they belonged to a club, an African club. And they were part of and they dressed in skirts. And the skirts had mirrors on them. And these were the ones I was really afraid of because if I didn't need anything wrong that they would take me away. And they would play their music really loud at night. And so you could hear them coming down the street. So that is one of the traditions of carnival is the diablitos. And the ones that there are different colored diablitos as well. There's some of them are blue. They're all dressed, not dressed, but they're painted, their skins blue. Those are more the little boys. Yeah. Where I live in Panama now. I don't live there all the time, but we have a house. It's a place called Los Santos and it's in the interior. And it's an amazing place because the carnivals they have there are famous. And they have a tradition of having two queens, one from Calla Riva and one from Calla Lajo. And Calla Riva is the queen from kind of the upper society. And Calla Lajo is more kind of like every man's queen, you know, from the people's queen. But every carnival they vote for a queen and they picked the prettiest girl and she becomes queen and she has a float all to herself with her attendance. And then there's the Murga, which is a huge truck that can hold maybe 35 musicians. And it's like a solid wall of sound going down the street. It's all trumpets and trombones and saxophones and with a really hearty percussion section. And they just go around the park very slowly and behind the queen come her you know, her followers. And they're all singing a song that's been chosen to honor her. And the one, the group that is the loudest is considered the one that wins. But it'll go around the park maybe three or four times. And this starts at about 11 o'clock at night. And everybody's out there watching it. And it's really an amazing sight because the floats are very much larger than life. And then once the first queen goes by, then she retires. And then the second group comes out and does the same thing. And then this will go on to like four o'clock in the morning. But that's what I remember about New Orleans. It just went on and on and on with the huge floats. And the, what do they call the club? What is it called in French? I guess it is. It's like a parade? The parade. But there's each one, each float belongs to a group, a club, or... Yes, they have a certain name. And that's what's so interesting because each group in each place has a different name for it. Like in Panama, we call it Comparsas. Comparsas are the groups of people. And they have like a theme in common and they have their dress a certain way. And you can identify them. Some of the places where you go, like if you were in Brazil, for instance, it's an amazingly, it's very refined what they do. Like for instance, there might be a thousand people in one a la. And the a la is the name of the group of people. There'll be several a la's in one contingent. And let's say the idea is spring. And there'll be the queen of spring. And then there'll be different things. Like for instance, maybe people will be flowers. And maybe there'll be gardeners. And maybe they'll be, you know, and always the same colors and the same song, a song that unites them and musicians. And in Brazil, sometimes there'll be like a hundred drummers all doing the same rhythm together. And so it's like that. Well, now, let's tell us about how you created Carnival in San Francisco. Well, I had been to Brazil and I had seen two carnivals while I was gone. So the first one was in Bahia. And it was a street carnival. And it was wonderful. And people were all jumping behind something they call a trio electrical, which was a group of guitar players on a kind of a truck. And everybody would was pulling, jumping behind them down the street. And it was very exciting. And it went on for four days. And when I first went to Brazil, I went because I was invited by one of my students. And she said to me, Carnival going to be the end of this this month. So you can come anytime because me, my friends, the sun, the sands, and yeah, Manja, who's the goddess of the ocean, are all here waiting for you. And she put at the bottom. Yes, came quickly. Everybody waiting. So I couldn't resist the temptation. So I went to Brazil. And when I first got there, I arrived in Rio, but it was too chaotic. And I couldn't speak the language at the time. So I got on another plane and went to Bahia, which is more than the interior. And I spent my first carnival in Bahia. And I was fortunate enough to be in Brazil for the second carnival, because, you know, the way that the data is not exactly the same, it has to do with the the Catholic calendar, right? So I was able right before I left Brazil to see the carnival in Rio. And that was a whole different thing that doesn't happen in the streets. It happens in what's called the Samba Dome. And it's this huge kind of arena. And there were like so many amazing performers. And each one of those escolas, they call them escolas, had thousands of people in them. Mangueira. And Mangueira for me was one of the biggest ones. And their colors are very bright, green, and kind of a hot pink. And Sao Guido. Sao Guido is blue and white. And in Bahia, Flor was used to be used to be a smaller group. But when I was there, it won. It won that year. So every group has a theme and represents the theme through writing a song. And then everybody has to sing the song. If you're in it, you're dancing, but you're also singing the song. And there are unbelievable amounts of really good musicians. And then a lot of famous people will attach themselves on the floats and sing along. And it's something that goes on and on and on day and night, literally. I mean, you buy a ticket and you can sit there and watch it day and night for four days. So that's the level that's the level of intensity that we're talking about. Well, now what I remember all along the coast from New Orleans across Louisiana and Mississippi, all along there, Mardi Gras was big, big, big parades and all of the bangles that they would throw out. And the food, of course, was always food, lots and lots of food. And it was just absolutely, you know, for those of us that this that was new, it was wonderful. It was exciting to watch the people dance and sing and what have you. It was a crew. That's the word I was thinking of crew. Yeah, crew. They say crew. Crew, yeah. And that was just fabulous to watch and feel like you were part of something. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So now tell me about you in San Francisco. I'll say that again. San Francisco when you in the carnival in San Francisco. Oh yeah. So I came back to San Francisco and they didn't have a carnival. And I said, this is crazy. A city like this doesn't have a carnival. And I said to my students, well, we're gonna have to have a carnival or I'm gonna leave. I can't live in a place that doesn't have one. And so I ended up because my students said, okay, well, we'll make a carnival. And they we started immediately to put one together. And so this was in September. And we started learning songs and the way that I did my first carnival was I had a lot, a lot of students and I put them into different comparsas. And I did different choreographies for each group. And each group was kind of at a different level, develop developmentally. So my most advanced group, I call the triple dos carajás. And they were amazing from they're like the Indians of the Amazon, they had these little circles on their cheeks. And they had a they were just in red. And they had a dance that involved bows and arrows and stuff. And they went with the song, Martinian Davila's song of the triple dos carajás, Amazon, Amazon Indians. And then I had a group called the Susubabae that was the bird of the dawn. Susubabae is the first bird that you hear in the morning that wakes you up in the morning. And so you have to imagine what that bird looks like and make a costume for that bird. And then dance in it. And so we had Susubabae. Susubabae. We had that as our theme song. And then there was another group that was the actually wasn't the biggest group. The biggest group of all was just the rainbow conparza. They came out of all the people that all my friends that lived on 24th Avenue in San Francisco. They got dressed up with colors of the rainbow and participated. And then there was another group called the Yamanja conparza because Yamanja is the goddess of the ocean. So people dressed up like different things that come out of the ocean like squid or like dolphins or all kinds. And then of course Yamanja is cheese of mermaid. So some people came as mermaids. Some people came as starfish. People came as all different kinds of beings that come out of the sea, but they had to dress in blue and silver and white. So I was joined by a group of people that were wonderful musicians. Marcus Gordon was an amazing musician who also happened to be a Paedo Santo or he was within a religion, a Yoruban religion. And he invited all the best drummers from the mission to participate. So Jose Flores came and his group was all dressed like dandies and they had a top hat and they had tails. And then instead of playing on drums, they played on frying pans. So they carried their frying pans and played their music like this. And there was another group by a girl who was, she put together the money conparza. And so they were all dressed in green and with lots of jingly shiny coins and kind of like a they're dancing kind of like a belly dancing. So this was the group of people that found their way to Presita Park because I wasn't sure if we were going to get a permit from the city to be able to do this. And so I sent my friend, I sent my friend who had just gotten a permit. She had gotten the permit to return the sun, to bring back the sun. And it was just a whole bunch of people walking down the street. And so when the people saw her, her name was Pam Minor, and she wanted another permit, they just gave it to her. They didn't even stop to think that it was for a carnival. So we were able to get the permit, but it was for Presita Park, which is a little park in kind of in the mission. And so we ended up doing three times around the park. We paraded around the park. And when we started off, we had about a thousand people watching us. And there was actually about 400 people that were actually in the parade and about a thousand people watching. But by the end of the parade, I turned around, I looked and there was nobody watching. And I was a little disappointed until I looked back and I realized that everybody had joined the parade. So we ended the parade with a thousand and four hundred people. Well now here, you were in the parade and Mardi Gras here, in Chinatown. And that was, yeah, that was a lot of fun. Not quite as grand as San Francisco or any place else, but it was a lot of fun. Yeah, you know what I also did? I also did something called First Night. And First Night had parades every year. For seven years, we did parades in the form of like a samba parade. Yeah. And so we started on that one for years. Yes. Yes. It was wonderful. It was. It was. We have a song, one of your songs. Hopefully we can play it. If you sing a song. That was a Martin Luther King parade. Fun. Yes. It was a lot of fun. Everybody in the world on your float singing. So that was the song I wrote. I know. For peace. Yes. And I'm glad you said that because we have to, I, before YouTube gets food about using other people's music. And so I'm glad you said it was yours. Yes. Yes. It seems, now, what are you doing now playing? Where? Well, we saw you last year. We're with COVID, but our group is still together. Our group is, the name of it is Espíritu Libre. And Espíritu Libre means free spirits. And we play a mix of Latin jazz and sambas and salsa. And we were playing before at a Mexican restaurant. They're telling me we're out of time. Okay. We'll have to do this again. Yes. Thank you so much for spending your time with us. Oh, it was fun. We'll see you again.