They call her the muse of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival. She insists she's a missionary

Raquel Potí has become the preeminent face of Rio’s Carnival street parties, and is a fixture on the front pages of Brazilian newspapers and magazines

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Standing 9 feet tall, Raquel Potí regularly graces the front pages of Brazilian magazines and newspapers, and on Saturday the artist donned a lavish feathered costume and lacquered her body in gold glitter. At one point she charged the length of the street party, sweeping her rainbow wings like she was about to take flight. It was the latest of her charismatic stilt walking performances that has prompted some media to call her the muse of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival.

But on a recent weekend, she had reduced herself to her natural, petite size and patched jeans. During a class outside Rio's modern art museum, she instructed a group of students to lock eyes with a partner. Each pair recalled someone who shaped them and shared their dreams. Then they hugged. Some wept, one while recounting how her grandmother taught her to smile.

“You weren’t tricked," Potí, 40, told them. "This IS a stilt walking class. And it has already begun!”

The class is at the center of her outsized footprint in Rio, which includes managing several government-funded social projects to teach stilts, theater and performing arts, running a production company and recruiting members of her ever-expanding network for event appearances.

At just over 5 feet tall, the tiny titan is chiefly responsible for the explosion of stilt walking in Rio, having trained more than 1,000 kids and adults over the past decade. That boom has altered the landscape of the world’s biggest Carnival, where hundreds of stilt walkers tower over the many raucous parties that occupy and dominate public areas.