Queens of Mangueira and Parque Curicica, the sisters Evelyn and Emelyn Bastos reflect on passistas from the favela in the most coveted position of the carnival

Four years ago, Mangueira received a proposal of half a million reais for the position of battery queen to be sold to a media personality. The amount, not inconsiderable, would pay for the two terms of office of the queen on occasion. There was not even a negotiation. The position, one of the most coveted in the carnival, continued to be occupied by Evelyn Bastos. Bred from the community and heir to the typhoons on Tânia Bisteca’s hip, she reigns supreme for a decade at the head of the Verde e Rosa drum set.

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“I received a legacy of wonderful dancers, who I looked up to in everything. In the absence of a black reference, they were my heroines, the role model I wanted to follow. Today, I see that I am also a model for many girls in the community. And that’s part of making a queen. It’s not just close-up, face and fame. Behind all this there is a woman who was shaped by these women here on the wall”, assesses Evelyn, citing the paintings by Dona Neuma and Dona Zica, hanging at the entrance to the school court.

As she speaks, Evelyn is closely watched and admired by Emelyn Bastos, her 17-year-old sister, who, like her eldest, started at Mangueira do Amanhã, went to the dancers’ wing and is now debuting as drum queen at Parque Curicica , which parades in Intendente Magalhães, on Sunday, 26.

At 17, she knows that comparisons with her sister will be inevitable. “Of course, everyone wants to know if I’m like her, if we look alike. I am very inspired by Evelyn, but each one has their own way of reigning. I remember it like it was today, I was little, when she was invited to be queen, we were in the room. I felt like crying right away,” she recalls.

While Evelyn found her superheroines on the school playground, Emelyn watched her grow up at home. This is because the two are daughters of Valéria Bastos, who held the position between 1987 and 1989. “If it was difficult for me to have a reference, imagine for my mother and our ancestry….”, he reflects: “I had no princess from Disney, no. I had those wonderful women, with their heels full of adhesive tape on the soles, that I didn’t even know why, but I copied them, there was Bisteca (former drummer queen of Mangueira), who arrived on the court with long hair, all glittery, of Chinese. But there at the door she would change into a heel and pass like the queen she was. Nobody took their eyes off her, I didn’t and I just thought: ‘I want to be that woman’”.

The same happens with Evelyn when she appears in the First Station rehearsals. If in 2016, when Mangueira was champion with the plot about Maria Bethânia, few people knew who she was, today, like Viviane Araújo, at Salgueiro, and Raíssa Oliveira, who stayed at Beija-Flor for 20 years, Evelyn is a reference. She could sit on her throne and just reign. She, however, wants to empower many other “Evelyns” in the community like her and now her sister.

“I say: without study there is no reign. I studied in a public school my whole life, I graduated in Physical Education at UERJ, a public university too, today I try to finish History, which has always been my dream, at a private college. It was the study that opened my mind, the doors of thought. If today I deal so much with feminist agendas linked to samba, it is because this was also part of my trajectory as queen. There is this persona. But there is Evelyn who has dreams and projects”, she justifies.

Emelyn follows in the footsteps not only in the swing. Psychology begins this year, also at UERJ, practically in the backyard: “Someone has to take care of the head of this family”, she jokes, still very shy with her crown, being watched by her older sister, who is still a little incredulous when she sees the poses and photos of the youngest for this article: “Look at her!” .

Next Sunday, Evelyn and Emelyn will be defending the colors of Mangueira. One ahead of the percussionists, with all the spotlights on her. Another in the wing of passistas, place of