It's time to start over

The Arsenale della Speranza has been the Sermig in Brazil for 27 years. And Brazil is also the carnival, this is well known, even if in reality very little is known of the importance, of the profound value that the energy of the carnival has in this country.
Over the years we have understood that peace, hope, hospitality could also pass through the carnival, why not?
 

So we said to ourselves: let's do our show! Carnival in Brazil is a bit like ice hockey in Canada, you have to be born Canadian to understand what it is. For us, who are Italians, it takes a good dose of courage to start celebrating carnival in Brazil. But by now Sermig is Brazilian and therefore using the carnival meant, after all, putting the daily parade of the Arsenale on the street. The Arsenale is a house that meets everyone, the Arsenale is a house that wants to meet everyone. Having a carnival parade is inviting everyone, one by one, to do what they do best. Maybe someone knows how to play, maybe someone knows how to draw a dress, maybe someone knows how to put colors together, maybe someone knows how to involve children...

And so we prepared, one by one, some pieces which we then put together on 11 February in this great rhythmic parade, batucada, which is precisely the rhythm, the samba, which through the drums involves all those who want to get involved and perhaps even those who don't really feel like it, but then feel the saudade of the beauty of being together.

This year we did the Batuca-Bresser – the fashion show that we have been organizing in our neighborhood (Bresser) since 2014 – after a two-year break due to the pandemic, with the theme It's time to start over. It's time to start loving again, embracing, building together, rebuilding what we've lost.
Parading was also a moment of liberation because it meant being together again after so much suffering. And bring this suffering inside too, because being together doesn't mean putting together only our strengths, but also our weaknesses. Together we can give new color, once again feel that the dormant hope is alive. From this we will continue to build.

If we had calculated our forces we were not ready to do this event. But when are we ever ready! We did it and we are already here thinking about the next one and then about the next one again because the lights have come back on in the people we met also through this event.
It's time to start over: a message that, we hope, will bring good results in 2023, will bear fruit with the help of God and providence. This is Batuca-Bresser and carnival, if it is loved like this, is a serious matter.

Simone Bernardi
NP March 2023