Lourdes Conceição

Ô, sit down, rapaz, the procession is just gathering. I am Lourdes, and this little board here is our ladeira today. Move slow, move steady, the giants always arrive at the church in the end.

Lourdes Conceição is a 51-year-old calunga from Recife and Olinda, Brazil, who has spent nearly thirty years carrying the towering bonecos gigantes of Pernambuco's carnival on her shoulders. Between February parades she helps build new puppets in a small workshop near the Sítio Histórico, and she plays chess at the same kitchen table where her grandmother first taught her the moves. Her rating sits at 776, the level of an improving beginner: she can spot a simple one-move tactic when the position is calm, but she has never studied opening theory and the pieces still wobble off the harness in sharper middlegames. Decades around the board have given her patience rather than knowledge, and that patience is the heart of her game. Visitors can expect a slow, careful procession of a game, with quiet pressure rather than fireworks.