Courtesy of Justin Ho

Samba dancers pose after their performance in the Association of Latin American Students’ 2014 performance of Carnaval. This year’s show included a look at more serious issues in addition to the usual fare of dances and bright costumes.

The newly added matinee sold around 100 tickets, which was only a fraction of Edison Theatre’s capacity and far below the turnout for the nearly sold-out shows Friday and Saturday night.

Junior Lorena Ramirez, co-chair of Carnaval, said that Carnaval has hoped to add a third show for several years.

“We’ve been trying to add a third show for the past two or three years, but inevitably something always came up because the month of April and the end of March are always really over-programmed,” Ramirez said. “But then this year, we were like, ‘You know, let’s just finally try it’ because every other cultural show on campus has a matinee.”

Ramirez said the low turnout could be due to both the conflict with WUStock, which was rescheduled to March 29 after the dates for Carnaval were set, and the lack of public knowledge about the event, due to this being the first year the matinee was held.

The show featured dances from previous Carnavals such as samba, hip-hop and cha-cha, along with additions such as tango and the tap-dance-like zapateado, which have been performed previously but were not featured in 2013. The Chamber Choir and a student mariachi band also performed at the beginning of the two acts of the skit.

The skit, interspersed with dances, focused on Washington University student Sophie, who is visiting Brazil for the 2014 World Cup. Initially, Sophie and her Instagram-obsessed friends are simply tourists in Brazil, guided by tour guide Lucenzo, but Lucenzo and Sophie are soon caught in the middle of protests against the Brazilian government’s spending on the World Cup. Though the two are eventually released and Sophie returns to the U.S., she remains conflicted about the difficulties the Brazilian citizens face.

The serious tone of the skit seemed to confuse the audience at times. After an ostensibly tense scene in which Sophie and Lucenzo were arrested by Brazilian police, the audience could be heard laughing as the scene faded to black.

Senior Savanna Meyers, co-chair of Carnaval, said that the skit may have taken people by surprise because previous years’ skits have been lighter in tone, but she feels its message was an important one to share.

“We just wanted to have the skit be a bit more—not just funny, but also have a message and social commentary,” Meyers said. “Having the skit be less humorous and be more topic-oriented…some people said, ‘Oh, it wasn’t as funny as last year,’ so they didn’t understand that that wasn’t the point. But I think it was good; I think people left thinking about it.”

Student responses to the dances, however, were very favorable.

“I thought the performances were really cool. All the different kinds of dances and costumes were really great,” freshman Destinee Shipley said. “The belly dance and the [West] African dance were my favorites.”

“I was really surprised by how fantastic [the] bachata was. The mariachi band of course was great. I was really impressed overall; it was a really good show,” freshman James Wall said.

Ramirez and Meyers were also pleased with the results of the shows.

“I think the show was great. I’m exceptionally proud of everybody, all the dancers, all the choreographers—everybody really rose to the occasion and everybody was great. I think [for] the matinee, in the future, maybe just spreading awareness a little bit more and just continually trying to not have a conflict [would be best],” Meyers said.