Today we will be inaugurating a new blog category within the Belavista-Rio Carnival Blog, Legendary Drum Queens in the Brazilian Carnival. It will be devoted to a series of Brazilian muses that participated as drum queens for major samba schools in Brazil. In these series of posts, we will present the muse small biography and a summary of their parade participation within the Rio and Sao Paulo samba schools. The first personality we will post will be actress Juliana Paes.




Short Biography: Actress, former model. Juliana Paes is the typical Carioca Girl. Cover girl for several Brazilian magazines, she is considered the top sex symbol in Brazil. Juliana Paes Muse was also ranked by “People Magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People" in 2006. Juliana gained famed after successful leading role in GLOBO TV soap-operas. She has also done some cinema, musicals, theater plays, and even some fashion shows. As a multi-talented artist Juliana has proven she has more than a gorgeous body.



Samba History: Juliana is perfect example of well established Samba partnership. Being native to the Niteroi region, Juliana chose the Viradouro Samba School to start her samba parading story in Rio de Janeiro. She was elected to be Drum Queen for several years, enjoying great success, both by the São Gonçalo community and Brazil press and media. A great portion of her success as a drum queen is credited to her active involvement with the school. She always took part of most of the technical rehearsals at the samba school headquarters and at the Sambadrome.

Juliana was officially announced as the Drum Queen for Viradouro Samba School in 2004, where she maintained the post for five consecutive years through 2008. Important to note that in 2004, her first as Viradouro Drum Queen, Juliana replaced legendary samba muse and sensual icon Luma de Oliveira. That was not a simple task due to Luma´s immense popularity.



In 2009, Juliana alleged that she could not anymore fulfill the drum queen´s roll anymore, because of her tight TV and theater rehearsals’ schedule, but would continue to support the school. On October this year, Juliana passed her crown to newly elected Viradouro Drum Queen: Juliane Almeida. Congratulations Juliana for all your samba passion and charisma!