Carnival revellers from the Imperio Serrano samba school parade during the first of two nights of competition between the premier league of schools in Rio de Janeiro February 18

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP):

Rio's oldest samba group opened this year's carnival parade on Sunday night in a fusillade of fireworks, sending 4,200 dancers and a cavalcade of opulent floats into the Sambadromo stadium.

Estacio da Sa led off its parade with a troupe of Aztec-inspired dancers before a shimmering, golden float crowned with a lion's head, its jaws in motion and a huge golden paw sweeping from side to side.

The parades go on 'til dawn on Monday, featuring women in impossibly-high heels and glittery body paint, samba dancing alongside bare-chested Adonises. Thousands of elaborately-costumed dancers and hundreds of drummers escort the floats, keeping up an ear-splitting rhythm.

The spectacle is more than a party; it is a hard fought competition.

Groups spend upward of a million dollars to mount 80-minute-long shows featuring hundreds of dancers, preening for a panel of judges made up of folklorists, musicologists and carnival scholars.

Distraction from reality

The 13 competing dance groups come from the city's shantytowns, and their showdown is a welcome distraction from the gunfights between drug traffickers, militias and police that have left at least 15 dead over the last week alone in the hills around downtown Rio.

The featured dancers, especially the female flag bearers and their male counterparts, practice all year to perfect their steps, which are closer to minuet than traditional samba.

"Being a flag bearer is almost like being a ballet dancer, it's not just samba, not everyone can do it. For me it's a way of life," said Selma Sorriso, flag bearer for the Beija Flor carnival group.