I have been in Lençois two weeks; two weeks which have given me plenty to write about. If the first week was marked by my settling in, getting adjusted, etc. this second week has been, and continues to be dominated by the Festa do São João. This yearly week long festival is less about remembering the life of Saint John the Baptist, and much more about celebrating “traditional” life in the rural interior of northeastern Brazil. Streamers and cardboard cutouts decorate the city. Brazilian tourists from Salvador, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro descend on Lençois in their jeans and cowboy boots; clothes that haven’t been worn in this part of the interior for at least 20 years. Everyone is busy preparing traditional dishes using peanuts, cassava, and corn; these staple food items take me on a trip back to Senegal and I am once again reminded of the history between Brazil and Africa.
In the school week leading up to the holiday weekend children dressed as caipiras (country people or cowboys/girls) perform in quadrilhas- akin to square dancing but with every move containing a theatrical aspect. Charming as it appears the storylines do include such crowd favorites as “the conquest (man/boy trying to charm a woman/girl” and “the wife going to get her drunk husband at the bar and carrying him home.” Watching these “dances” being acted out by eight year olds is disconcerting, especially as they are mirrored in the life stories I am hearing from the women I interview. But I digress. When the holiday weekend arrived it became the adults turn to put on their costumes and dance in their quadrilhas and these performances occur in the early part of the evening and range from comedic (men dressed as cowgirls) to quasi-professional renditions of traditional dances.
The quadrilhas are followed by bands that start no earlier than 11pm and play a range of forro music on a 19th century outdoor stage until 3:30am. Vendors line the narrow, cobblestone streets around the stage selling everything from ice cold beers, fruit and cachaça mixes, hot wine with ginger and cinnamon, grilled beef or cheese and savory pastries. Traditional forro is played using an accordion, drum, and triangle; but modern forro has electrified it, includes guitar and has become popular all over the country. Forro reminds me of zydeco music from the southeastern U.S., or vallenato from Colombia. Put simply it is a two-step, but a two-step danced with no space between partners and with tempos ranging from impossibly slow to extremely fast. I love forro. I love backyard parties with a traditional four-man forro band, and I love large outdoor performances with loud cover bands playing the forro hits that I’ve been listening to on my ipod for the last 3 years. But alas, I fear that my forro dancing ability leaves a lot to be desired. The overachiever in me isn’t satisfied with hearing, “You dance forro very well for a gringa.” My main problem lies in this- every man has a different style, a different jeito (way) of dancing forro. I have one friend who insists on only dancing with the same two partners to avoid the problem of different dancing styles; I like to dance too much to wait to dance only with people I’ve danced with before. Locals dance forro very simply, one-two, one-two, side to side at different speeds to match the music, and that I manage quite well. Ironically the better dancers are from outside of the interior of Brazil and they switch up the tempos and rhythms within a dance quite frequently. As I am not yet fully accustomed to dancing with no breathing room between partners, never mind being lead through more complicated variations of the basic steps, I am sure I am a comedic sight on the dance floor. Oh well; in an effort to learn I have put in solid hours of practice staying out until 3:30am for the last four nights (hahaha). There are three more nights of the festa left and I intend to spend each of those nights mastering my forro skills. I start every evening exhausted but somewhere in the middle as I watch couples swirling around me, I am so content that I don’t feel tired, just inexplicably happy.
In the school week leading up to the holiday weekend children dressed as caipiras (country people or cowboys/girls) perform in quadrilhas- akin to square dancing but with every move containing a theatrical aspect. Charming as it appears the storylines do include such crowd favorites as “the conquest (man/boy trying to charm a woman/girl” and “the wife going to get her drunk husband at the bar and carrying him home.” Watching these “dances” being acted out by eight year olds is disconcerting, especially as they are mirrored in the life stories I am hearing from the women I interview. But I digress. When the holiday weekend arrived it became the adults turn to put on their costumes and dance in their quadrilhas and these performances occur in the early part of the evening and range from comedic (men dressed as cowgirls) to quasi-professional renditions of traditional dances.
The quadrilhas are followed by bands that start no earlier than 11pm and play a range of forro music on a 19th century outdoor stage until 3:30am. Vendors line the narrow, cobblestone streets around the stage selling everything from ice cold beers, fruit and cachaça mixes, hot wine with ginger and cinnamon, grilled beef or cheese and savory pastries. Traditional forro is played using an accordion, drum, and triangle; but modern forro has electrified it, includes guitar and has become popular all over the country. Forro reminds me of zydeco music from the southeastern U.S., or vallenato from Colombia. Put simply it is a two-step, but a two-step danced with no space between partners and with tempos ranging from impossibly slow to extremely fast. I love forro. I love backyard parties with a traditional four-man forro band, and I love large outdoor performances with loud cover bands playing the forro hits that I’ve been listening to on my ipod for the last 3 years. But alas, I fear that my forro dancing ability leaves a lot to be desired. The overachiever in me isn’t satisfied with hearing, “You dance forro very well for a gringa.” My main problem lies in this- every man has a different style, a different jeito (way) of dancing forro. I have one friend who insists on only dancing with the same two partners to avoid the problem of different dancing styles; I like to dance too much to wait to dance only with people I’ve danced with before. Locals dance forro very simply, one-two, one-two, side to side at different speeds to match the music, and that I manage quite well. Ironically the better dancers are from outside of the interior of Brazil and they switch up the tempos and rhythms within a dance quite frequently. As I am not yet fully accustomed to dancing with no breathing room between partners, never mind being lead through more complicated variations of the basic steps, I am sure I am a comedic sight on the dance floor. Oh well; in an effort to learn I have put in solid hours of practice staying out until 3:30am for the last four nights (hahaha). There are three more nights of the festa left and I intend to spend each of those nights mastering my forro skills. I start every evening exhausted but somewhere in the middle as I watch couples swirling around me, I am so content that I don’t feel tired, just inexplicably happy.
One town square decorated for the holidy.
Children´s Qadrilha
Cecilia and I posing with the "forro band."
Forro Party
My friends dancing forro.
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