In the middle of the night, dozens of masked figures burst on to a street in a blaze of colour, each clutching a stick from which hangs a rubber ball. As they prance through a crowd of raucous onlookers, they repeatedly slam the balls against the ground with a dull thud that gets lost in the crackle of fireworks overhead.
These are Rio de Janeiro’s bate-bolas, or ball-slammers. In the working-class suburbs, a world away from the glitzy Sambadrome parades and beachside street parties, it is these clown-like figures who reign over the pre-Lenten revelry, delighting and frightening in equal measure with their mesmerising costumes and playful antics.
“It’s our escape valve … When you slam the ball, you let out this cry, you release this energy, you let everything out,” said Bruno Nicolau Agnelo, 39, who 20 years ago founded a bate-bola group in Nilópolis, a satellite city north-west of Rio.
“Bate-bola culture helps us create bonds of friendship, brotherhood. We consider ourselves a family,” Agnelo added of his group of 140 men who roam the streets during carnival to the sound of favela funk music, clad head to toe in voluminous outfits and feathered masks – part of a tradition whose roots date back to medieval Celtic rituals in Portugal, researchers believe.
Some groups carry ornate parasols instead of a ball, and a growing number of women are also getting involved in what was originally a male pastime. Agnelo’s band, named Bombardeio do Paiol (Bombardment from Paiol) after their neighbourhood’s old gunpowder factory, has a sister group called the Bombardettes.
“It’s a culture that ends up mixing and combining different elements, and adapting over time,” said Gustavo Lacerda, a cultural producer who has studied Rio’s bate-bolas. “Today, the bate-bolas [exist] in multiple forms … but they are united in their extravagance.”
Brightly coloured feathers, gigantic puffed sleeves, intricate glittery detail, patterned tights and brand-new trainers with the label still on are all elements of bate-bolas’ themed outfits, which the groups spend months making by hand and can set each member back more than the monthly minimum wage (about £215).
The Lion King, the Buddha and Pablo Escobar were some of the characters adorning bate-bola costumes on the streets of Nilópolis this year. The Bombardeios picked anti-racism as their theme with a tribute to footballer Vinícius Júnior.
“It’s a necessary theme,” said Michel Eduardo, 24, while decorating the group’s flagpoles a couple of weeks before carnival. “We’re all Black dudes here. Our families too,” added Alex de Jesus, 36, as he threaded elastic band through dozens of rompers.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of bate-bola groups of varying size across Rio and in 2012 they were recognised as part of the city’s cultural heritage, but they remain largely unknown to Cariocas from the wealthier south zone – or they are dismissed as hooligans.
“It’s prejudice,” said Lacerda, explaining that mainstream media always focused negatively on fights between rival groups, rather than on the year-round work and discipline that goes into this cultural tradition.
“It’s a bit of fun, a game. No one should say that bate-bolas are thugs. I think they’re beautiful,” said Antônio Fernando, 67, Vinícius Júnior’s grandfather and a Nilópolis local who came out on carnival Saturday to see his grandson’s glittery likeness on the Bombardeio costumes.
The atmosphere was feverish as the group prepared for their climactic exit in their local neighbourhood. After 40-odd children in miniature bate-bola outfits ran out at midnight for the kids’ version, nearly 150 men packed into a sports court to don their elaborate, bulky costume and spray themselves with a sickly-sweet perfume made for the occasion. The thud of slamming balls was replaced by an almost reverent silence as Agnelo, who is known as Bruno Bombardeio, drew in his “family” for a pep talk.
Minutes later, the year-long anticipation was over. “It’s surreal, a thrill that’s out of the ordinary,” said Lucas Silva, 25, of the moment a bate-bola bounds on to the street. “Only those who experience it know.”
