Unidos do Mundo
| Unidos do Mundo | |
|---|---|
 The colors of Unidos do Mundo represent the earth with blue (ocean), green (forests), and red (the people). | |
| Group type | Traditional samba school |
| Website | http://www.unidosdomundo.com |
| Date founded | 1999 |
| Current membership | 500 |
| Country | Brazil |
| State | Rio de Janeiro |
| City | Rio de Janeiro |
Unidos do Mundo is a samba school which periodically forms in Rio de Janeiro in order to parade members from samba schools from around the world. The first parade was in 2000 taking place in the Sambadrome as the opening for the Parade of Champions in Rio celebrating the millennium.
History
The project was started by David de Hilster in 1998 while running the website [1], he started contacting samba schools around the world about meeting in the year 2000 in Rio de Janeiro. In the beginning, there were no plans as to what would happen in Rio. After a failed attempt in 1998 with carnaval people in Rio, de Hilster contacted the webmaster of the official wesbite for LIESA (the League of Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro) about the foreign samba school's desire to meet in Rio. The webmaster Alessandra Pirotelli liked the idea and thus, Unidos do Mundo was born.
Alessandra prepared a project to be presented to Brazil's cultural department in the country's capital Brasilia about forming an international samba school and parading in the Sambadrome as the opening for the day of the champions in Rio's famed Sambadrome and the project was not only funded, it was the only millennial cultural project to be given a standing ovation.
2000
From 1998 until early March of 2000, preparations were made designing costumes, floats, and the all important samba theme song. The international samba schools picked Martinho da Vila to write the samba theme song (samba enredo) for Unidos do Mundo. Organizing through the internet, the members bought their plane tickets, paid a fee to help with costume expenses, and weeks before the parade, starting arriving in Rio.
Fundição Progresso, a large cultural space in downtown Rio served as the practice space (quadra) for the school where both gringos and Brazilians gathered to create the first ever international samba school in Brazil.
Celebrity Participation
Numerous samba celebrities voluntarily participated in the project including Neiguinho da Beija-Flor, Beth Carvalho, Carlinhos de Jesus, and Martinha da Vila to name a few. Beija-Flor Samba School also lent its bateria directors and quadra in Nilopolis as a practice space for Unidos do Mundo.
2001
2020
David de Hilster is spearheading the third edition of Unidos do Mundo for a twenty year reunion. The plans will be announced in the summer of 2017.
Links
- Official homepage: www.unidosdomundo.com
- YouTube videos: youtube.unidosdomundo.com
- Facebook page: [2]
