By LICIO MONTEIRO*

There on the avenue, Beija Flor created a moment to finally say goodbye to Laíla in a dignified way and with the gratitude she deserved. While the other schools were telling a story, Beija Flor was parading its own story.

A samba school parade is a connector of times. Events, images, memories and feelings overlap and mix. In 2025, champion Beija Flor provided an example of how this is possible.

The result of the winning school in the Rio de Janeiro Special Group Carnival is an expected revelation, like opening an Oscar envelope – but the count is much more exciting, with its shower of 10 and 9-point-something scores and a table with sums and discards. Sometimes, the winner is identified by everyone as soon as they pass by. In 2019, 2022 and 2024, there was little doubt about Mangueira, Grande Rio and Viradouro. The results do not always confirm this impression.

There are years when you really don't know who won. There are years when more than one school wins. In 2025, Beija Flor came out on top, but perhaps this certainty wasn't so great, due to Imperatriz and Grande Rio. Compared to the two, however, only Beija Flor seemed to have its own plot beyond the plot, or perhaps a meta-plot that culminated in a historic night. This plot had a name: Laíla.

Beija Flor emerged as a school twenty years after the first competitions. First as a bloco in 1948, it became a samba school in 1953 and only established itself in the first group, after the rise and fall of the 1960s, starting in 1974. In that short time, it earned the reputation of a white-label school, due to the sequence of three plots that exalted the military regime. But its success story began later.

The Beija Flor revolution (it only became “the” Beija Flor later, in 1981) would come in the following years, when the family of Anísio Abraão David, a bookmaker from Nilópolis, took over the school in the early 1970s. And 50 years ago, Beija Flor’s first title began to take shape – with elements that are also present in this latest title, recently won in 2025.

With a lot of money in his pocket and an ambitious idea in his head, the patron of Beija Flor hired Joãosinho Trinta, a two-time champion carnival designer at Salgueiro, to lead the Nilópolis school. The carnival designer, in turn, asked for the director of harmony at Salgueiro, Laíla, to also come, which only came to fruition the following year, to guarantee Beija Flor's second championship, soon followed by the third in 1978.

But in 1976, Laíla was already helping: he was the one who gave the seal of approval for the samba of the year, made by a certain Neguinho da Vala, who would take over as samba lead singer in his first year and become Neguinho da Beija Flor – the same one who completed his last of 50 years on the avenue leading the famous “look at Beija Flor there, people!” on Sunday morning, March 9, 2025.

Laíla was raised in the Salgueiro favela – and at school too. A champion throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, she saw the emergence of the first wave of university carnival designers who revolutionized the visual arts and carnival themes. The name Joãosinho Trinta became almost the archetype of the carnival designer as an individual genius, which was consolidated at that same time. Laíla, somewhat in the shadow of Joãosinho Trinta, had a very different personality, which would later become known to everyone.

There were years of aesthetic and political clashes in the world of samba. Beija Flor carried the banner of luxury and verticalization of the parades. The LPs of the samba schools, which began to be released in 1969, were becoming successful in recordings – Laíla would later become the musical director responsible for the recordings. The TV broadcast put the event on another level of visibility. While Beija Flor won its third championship, symbolizing the new era, traditional samba dancers discussed the future of the samba schools.

A hallmark of this movement was the founding of the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra and Escola de Samba Quilombo, led by Candeia, in 1975. In the following decade, Império Serrano sang “super samba schools SA”, criticizing the gigantic nature of the parades, the greatest example of which was Beija Flor.

Beija Flor would go on to win in 1980, still with Joãosinho Trinta and Laíla, and in 1983, with João, but without Laíla. In 1989, the duo would return with the acclaimed parade “Ratos e Urubus… Larguem minha fantasia!”, which ended up becoming the most celebrated runner-up in the history of Carnival.

Paradoxically, this parade is an expression of the power of inversion that Carnival promotes. Joãosinho Trinta, known for his luxury – including the maxim “poor people like luxury, those who like poverty are intellectuals” – is consecrated in a parade marked by trashy floats and costumes. At the end, the emblematic Christ the Beggar, covered in black bags, had the words “even though it is forbidden, look after us”, an image that became perhaps the most iconic of Rio’s Carnival.

This episode made it clear how the collective authorship of a samba school was concentrated in the figure of the carnival genius. The idea of ​​the “beggar Christ” at the end of the parade had been Laíla’s. But Joãosinho Trinta presented it to the group as if it were his own. After the censorship, the idea of ​​keeping the Christ and covering him with a black sack and adding the phrase was also Laíla’s. And once again Joãosinho Trinta presented it as his own. He gained fame for his boldness. In 1989, Joãosinho Trinta was a celebrity and Laíla was a figure hardly recognized beyond the specialized world of Carnival.

If this were a movie script, this episode would certainly be a memorable scene. The carnival designer was defeated but praised by critics and the public, while the creative director was only seen backstage. The situation caused a rift in the relationship between the two, Laíla herself admitted this, but the extent is unknown. A few years later, in 1992, the couple separated, each going their own way.

After working for two years at Grande Rio and helping to make the school one of the emerging first group, Laíla returned to Beija Flor as director in 1994, now without Joãosinho Trinta. But it was only for the 1998 carnival that her idea of ​​forming a carnival committee to replace the individual carnival genius was put into practice – the last would be Milton Cunha, who stayed at the school between 1994 and 1997. Still as director of harmony, Laíla saw her idea bear fruit with the Beija Flor championship, ending a 14-year drought. The following year, Laíla became a member of the carnival committee, which won four consecutive runner-up titles (1999-2002), a three-time championship (2003-2005), followed by a two-time championship (2007-2008) and also the titles in 2011, 2015 and 2018.

Laíla's achievement surpassed that of Joãosinho Trinta in terms of results. But Laíla never cultivated the aura of a carnival genius, despite all the innovations she managed to bring to the art of Carnival in practically all its segments. The Beija Flor of the 2000s and 2010s, known as the “steamroller”, was the school that did not make mistakes and shone with a community that carried the parade with song and determination.

The idea of ​​a carnival committee, intrinsically collective, as the center of creation, embraced by an entire community that assumed the leading role in the achievements, may have been the great work of Laíla's individual carnival genius. A work that is realized with the erasure of her own signature, the shared authorship, the prevalence of the Multiple over the One.

After seeing academic figures gain centrality in schools in the 1960s, and after almost two decades of being overshadowed by the most brilliant of carnival artists, the self-taught Laíla gradually assumed her place as an author, but in a different way. Perhaps an example of what Walter Benjamin called the author as producer, in the sense of revolutionizing the very way of making the show, beyond the content or the discourse.

Laíla occupies a position of power to empty this place of individual carnival genius that appropriates collective knowledge. He restores a collective dimension that is inherent to the samba school as an art. In this case, his genius goes beyond his own individual success, in comparison with other Carnival geniuses. Because what he demonstrated was the primacy of the collective in the intellectual production of the work of art “samba school parade”, a principle that is at its origin. A collective that does not nullify individualities, but that ties them to a commitment to give more than take.

Not that one could suggest that this was a meticulously crafted plan to restore the intellectual dispossession he had suffered himself, by building the brand of an antithesis of the individual carnivalesque genius. But if it were the script for a film, it would make a great scene.

Laíla has occupied every possible position within a samba school – percussionist, composer, performer, harmony director, carnival director, carnival designer, moving from musical to visual and organizational domains, with a high level of excellence in all of them. Perhaps that is why she was able to understand the collective meaning of the samba school better than anyone else and see the proliferation of subjects and knowledge contained in the functioning of the parade. I can only imagine the number of times when, knowing herself to be the greatest expert on the subject, she had to deal with the vanity of experts inflated with self-esteem.

Laíla's world was populated by humans – and non-humans – in permanent exchanges, which her brilliant mind magnetized in the creative process. Perhaps this was also one of the reasons for the absence of personalism. She experienced the greatness of being lesser, below the supernatural forces of all the saints and all the sambas, as in the plot. Hence, her religiosity and her devotion to samba became a peculiar aspect of her personality, which served as the guiding thread of the plot of her life in Beija Flor de 2025.

Laíla's world was more extensive than the visible, it went beyond the living and brought together all the spiritual entities that mobilized in her collective of agents. Genius and hard work, lit candles, guides hanging around her neck. Her art was anchored in indispensable rituals of faith. This is how her story was told on the avenue, with the orixás and entities present from the beginning to the end of the parade, in the floats and costumes, in the song and dance.

The last floats returned to meet Laíla and Joãosinho Trinta, praising the duo, but with Laíla restored to a place as high as that of Joãosinho Trinta. Two very distinct personalities – and yet complementary for the success of the school. On the 2025 float, the sculpture of Laíla appears in the front, serious, strong and fixed, and facing back is Joãosinho Trinta dressed as a street cleaner, as in 1989, with his head moving as if greeting the public.

Likewise, two highlights dressed as the two characters came on the ground reproducing their postures. There the antithesis was evident, João smiling and taking the spotlight, Laíla walking firmly, with few gestures. The genius of the rats and vultures would no longer be exclusive to Joãosinho Trinta. But the wisdom of another carnival João, the current champion João Vitor Araújo, knew how to reinforce the presence of the two together, not the possible rivalry. And the samba said “Call João to kill the longing / Come command your community / Oh Jakutá, the black Christ made me who I am / Receive all the gratitude, Obá / From this Nagô nation”.

This reunion did indeed happen. Joãosinho Trinta had been away from Beija Flor since 1992. Already in poor health, he was invited to the 60th anniversary party at the school's playground in 2008. Welcomed by Laíla, from whom he had been estranged in the 16 years between the end of their partnership and that moment, Joãosinho Trinta was acclaimed by the community, in a moment of reconciliation. A few years later, the carnival designer passed away in 2011.

Laíla's end at Beija Flor was different. After her last title at Beija Flor, in 2018, Laíla ended her cycle at the school, in the year that young Gabriel David took over as head of the school – the same one who this year celebrated his first Carnival as president of Liesa. Laíla moved to Unidos da Tijuca in 2019, and in 2020, she led her last parade, this time at União da Ilha, which was relegated. Her departure from Beija Flor was turbulent. The “modernizer” Gabriel David had broken a cycle of more than 20 years, in a year of Carnival immersed in low budget and political confrontations.

In 2021, without Carnival due to the pandemic, Laíla passed away due to complications with Covid in July. She died without a deserved farewell that could bring the world of samba together in her memory. And without a reconciliation meeting with her Beija Flor.

Coincidentally, Beija Flor's results after Laíla left were not good at all and the school seemed to have lost the vigor and confidence that marked the previous decades. In the air, there was a feeling that something needed to be resolved, a settling of accounts with the unresolved situation. If Laíla was no longer in this plan, only something beyond could restore the school's spiritual peace.

The Beija Flor parade in 2025 produced one of the most incredible plots in the history of Carnival. If we put all the pieces of this 50-year story together, not even a movie would be able to tell something so grandiose; only a samba school could do it. And only Beija Flor.

What the community sang and danced on the avenue was the evocation of Laíla’s presence and authorship, in an episode of collective reconciliation between work and author, in a unique way. An entire community shouting in unison in a long pause: “I will continue without forgetting our journey / Excited, the Baixada in redemption / Call João to ease the longing / Come and lead your community / Oh Jakutá / The black Christ made me who I am / Receive all gratitude, Obá / From this Nagô nation / From the house of Ogum, Xangô guides me / From the house of Ogum, Xangô guides me / The drums of the Beija Flor quilombo sound / Terreiro de Laíla, my griô”.

The black Christ was in the samba about his life and in the last float, just like the 1989 samba sung in the warm-up. A banner replaced the original, saying “Do Orun, olhar por nós” (From Orun, look after us). But this recognition did not need to deny João, on the contrary, it called João in the samba and in the penultimate float, with the orange uniform he paraded in 1989.

In Laíla's collective, Joãosinho Trinta should be there, overcome and exalted – just as Laíla did when she welcomed João in 2008. The school wanted to tell its story, without resentment or rivalry, but with justice. The school, in its 50 years of greatness, exalted Laíla's legacy without diminishing João. And sung by another icon of its history, Neguinho da Beija Flor, in his farewell.

It was as if the work of art took on a life of its own and spoke to its author – transforming him into the only plot that he could not create and that the school created without him, for him and, finally, in the end, with him. A samba in which the lyrical self is assumed by the school, speaking to its honoree, directly, as if he were alive – and he was alive in the voices that sang and in the bodies that vibrated on the avenue: “Kaô, my old man / Come back and give me the paths / Guide my destiny again / Bring the winds of Oyá / Agô, my master / Your presence is still here / Even without seeing, I can feel / Make Nilópolis sing”.

And based on Laíla's premise, which recognized that living beings go beyond the human, there was no truer way to reach the honoree. It was a clear demonstration that his presence was there – a school that sings, captivates and wins the Carnival.

There on the avenue, Beija Flor created a moment to finally say goodbye to Laíla in a dignified manner and with the gratitude she deserved. While the other schools were telling a story, Beija Flor was parading its own story, being the story itself, in those moments when fact and narrative meet, when history is made and history is told at the same time. An event like this does not happen every day; it may take another 50 years for it to happen.

And so the atabaques of the Beija Flor quilombo doubled. Laíla, your presence is still here – said the samba.

*Licio Caetano do Rego Monteiro is a professor at the Geography Department of UFRJ.

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