SAO PAULO (AFP) - Brazil's strong Japanese community -- the biggest in the world outside Japan itself -- will be at the fore of this year's carnival, which kicks off on Friday.
In Sao Paulo, the city with the biggest concentration of the 1.5 million Japanese descendants living in the country, the carnival parade will include a 1,000-strong contingent of Japanese samba dancers -- led by a native Japanese woman, Yuka Sugiura, 36.
They will be part of the Unidos de Vila Maria samba school, whose 4,500 members are to beat drums and jig to the rhythm of a song specially written to highlight a centenary of Japanese immigration to Brazil.
Luis Paolo, the song's composer at the school, told AFP "we started celebrating the Japanese in Brazil three years ago but this year we're going all out."
He enthused that Sugiara, who moved from Nagoya, Japan to Brazil eight years to indulge her passion for samba, was "a great dancer -- and really beautiful as well."
The daily Folha de Sao Paulo featured a front-page photo of her smiling and holding a bamboo and paper fan in the colors of the Brazilian flag. She said she knew she was born to samba the first time she heard the Brazilian beat.
"My heart beat in time with the drums. It was electrifying. It woke something that was sleeping in me," she told the daily.
Brazil this year is marking the 100th anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants, who arrived on board a ship on June 18, 1908 to work on coffee plantations.
Months of celebrations are programmed, with the highlight coming in June, when Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito will visit.
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