Bianca Monteiro, from Portela, defeats Paolla Oliveira and is elected best drum queen of Carnival 2024

With her naked body, painted black with golden details representing Oxum, Bianca Monteiro conquered Sapucaí and the hearts of the magazine’s readers. F5. Portela’s drum queen defeated celebrities such as Paolla Oliveira, Sabrina Sato and Viviane Araújo and won the poll carried out with readers, being chosen the best queen of the 2024 Rio Carnival.

“It means that the job was well done”, says Bianca, who this Saturday (17) will represent her school, which came in fifth place, in the champions’ parade. “Of course, we always want to be the Carnival champion,” she says. “But for us, who make a living from samba, having an entire year’s work judged in just one day is not an easy process.”

Unlike her famous colleagues, Bianca breathes Carnival all year round. Created by Madureira, she started parading at the age of 14, as a passista, then as a princess, until in 2017 she received the invitation to go in front of the drums, says she, who also plays the tambourine. “We don’t look for fame, but recognition. I don’t belittle anyone’s work, but today people praise the samba player more. Samba is who I am, it’s my essence, my roots, my history. It has no greater value than I want to be recognized for what I do.”

For three years, she has run the social project Oficina de Arte Paulo da Portela, where the community receives classes in literature, samba, singing, makeup and all types of activities linked to Carnival. “All the teachers are from Portela and the idea is to bring knowledge so that people know that the samba dancer’s work is much more than just samba”, she says.

“We live in a time where there is no longer room for lack of knowledge and lack of study,” says Bianca. Everything I had difficulty with, I try to do differently for this new generation.” In the art workshop, she and the literature students did an annotated reading for six months of the book “Um Defeito de Cor”, which was based on the samba-plot of the school this year.

Oxum divided waters

Initiated into Candomblé and daughter of Iansã, Bianca felt proud to represent the orixá Oxum. “Oxum was the watershed: it divided opinions on the internet”, she laughs, as she was afraid to enter the avenue completely naked, wearing only body paint and a codpiece.

“During these seven years as drum queen, I had never caused so much movement in relation to a costume”, she says. “It’s very powerful to represent an orixá in such an intense plot, about our fight for equality and against prejudice.”

Bianca says she was afraid of parading naked and displeasing the community. “Portela is a school in which 80% of its members are elderly,” she explains. “I have always been very careful with my community. We female samba dancers fight a lot for this issue, because unfortunately we live in a country that is prejudiced against women’s bodies,” she says.

“But when I looked at the finished painting, with my head, with the mirror, I was impacted by the final result”, she says, who maintained her entire routine of pleasing the orixás to ensure that everything went well on the avenue.

In São Paulo, the winner of the poll was Viviane Araújo, queen of Mancha Verde, who paraded the plot “From Our Soil to the World”. With a theme that paid homage to agriculture, Viviane entered wearing the school colors, a cowboy hat and high boots.