Trio-elétrico

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Trio elétrico (meaning literally 'electric trio') is a kind of truck equipped with sound devices creating a kind of moving stage on top of which the artists perform. It was created in Bahia specifically for Carnival and it is now used in similar events in other districts and countries.

[edit] History

The origins of the trio elétrico come from the "electric pair", friends Adolfo Antônio Nascimento (known as Dodô) and Osmar Álvares de Macêdo, who decided to fix an old Ford Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie and the Flivver). On that same year's Carnival, they drove through the streets playing music amplified by speaker boxes. The performance took place at the city centre at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and a huge crowd followed them.

The name "trio elétrico" came up in 1951 when, for the first time, the electric partners invited a fellow musician to perform with them, the architect Temístocles Aragão. They played through Salvador in a Chrysler pick-up car. That is how the electric pair became the electric trio. Though the name was created for the band, it ended up being the name of their invention.

Another invention from Bahia, the micaretas (some kind of Carnival out of season) began using the trios. Today, there is a huge industry for the production, maintenance and rent of trios. Many new artists are discovered on trios.

In the year of 1983, a trio built in Italy was inaugurated in Piazza Navona in the presence of 80 thousand people who danced to the electric sound of Dodô, Osmar and Armandinho. That was the first time a trio was featured out of Brazil.

In 1985, invited by students of the University of Toulouse, in France, Armandinho, Dodô and Osmar travelled once more to Europe to take some of Carnival to more than 100 thousand people in Toulouse.

The trio is known worldwide as one of the symbols of Brazilian culture, its music, its Carnival and its partying.