Brazilian Carnaval at Club Nokia

The music is pumping at Dance Studio No. 1 in West Los Angeles as instructor Diane Yakimovicz urges her students faster and faster, their footwork a dazzling blur. With hardly a breather, she forms them into a conga line, hands on each other's hips. There's no point being coy, as strangers' bodies bump up against each other in a sweaty unison of movements. “It's a great chain of energy exchange," proclaims the buoyant Yakimovicz.

This Monday night dance group is not made up of professional dancers, merely keen amateurs preparing for L.A.'s biggest Brazilian party night, the 10th Annual Brazilian Carnaval 2010 at Club Nokia on Saturday night, the largest Brazilian-style Carnaval on the West Coast.

“If you can't get to Brazil, then this is the next best thing," says organizer Patricia Leao, who has been producing the event for 10 years.

“Most people are familiar with the street kind of Carnavals they see on TV, but ours is a club style," Leao says. That doesn't mean it skimps on style or substance. The night kicks off with a Rio-style samba school parade of 20 percussionists, plus ongoing displays of colorfully costumed samba dancers, Capoeira (the acrobatic martial arts dance) and nonstop music with live bands, including Chalo Eduardo (one-time percussionist for Santana and Sergio Mendes) and his band the Brazilian Beats. The band provides a thumping soundtrack of batucadas and percussive rhythms guaranteed to get hearts pumping and feet on the floor.