Forró FAQ

Forró comes from Brazil and is the umbrella term for parties where a certain type of music (forró music) is played and danced to. More on this here!

No, nobody has to bring a dance partner. At Forró there is even no fixed dance partners, it is changed in short periods of time. So don't worry, we're sure to have some dancers for you!

Yes, there are in most Forró towns! At parties/dance nights, there is usually one beforehand free trial lesson to see the whole thing. Very often you can also get a taste of the Forró courses (simply contact the course leader). 

Forró comes from northeastern Brazil and has evolved from and thanks to the traditions of this region Luis Gonzaga spread to all of Brazil. Forró is now danced all over the world and you can travel to a festival in Europe almost every weekend.

Forró is danced on Forró! Awesome right? Forró is a generic term for music, dance and festival. You can find Forró music on Spotify (im Forrówelt Canal) or e.g. in the Forró Stream on YouTube!

That's why you should definitely come by! We start from scratch in our courses and therefore offer different levels (comparable to the language levels A1 - C2). In our basic course (A1) we focus on intuitive rhythm training and dance basics. We firmly believe that anyone can learn forró, and so far nobody has been able to convince us otherwise (and we've seen quite a bit!). First and foremost, however, we want to get you excited about dancing itself, so our courses are designed for experience, fun, technique, musicality and steps/figures, not just the latter as with most other dance courses.

There are two theories. The first is the legend that Brazilian railway workers held festivals not just for locals but (integratively) for the immigrants and conquerors as well, so they wrote 'for all' over the doors. This theory is romantic and reflects the openness and attitude of the Forrozeir@s, but unfortunately it is probably wrong. More likely the name comes from the designation fauxbourdon, a medieval musical style in France, which is said to have led to the emergence of the term “forróbodo” in Brazil.

Forró = fɔˈʀɔ. Zorro is spelled the same except for one letter, but our dance is pronounced differently. The two 'R's are mainly not pronounced as hard but very softly, almost like an 'H'. The second syllable is stressed.

I can understand this question well. Of course, it helps immensely if you already know one or more other dances well. Nevertheless has every dance its peculiarities and especially the beginning is important to build a solid framework. During the course you will of course develop much faster, because the team responds to each person individually. So you take the fast lane without skipping the grammatical basics. You don't start with an advanced French course because you already know Spanish, do you? I even think that a basics course, no matter what dance, is always good for everyone, no matter if you are a beginner, advanced or a teacher, you can never work enough on the basics and see/hear the course with new eyes and ears every time!

I've actually been asked that a number of times. My answer: colorful. Forró itself has no color, but lives from the variety of colors that the Forrozeir@s bring with them.

This is a popular and difficult question. We have already tried several models in our courses and have come to the conclusion that go through each stage at least twice (= half a year) should be before it goes to the next higher. Of course there are always individual differences in the groups, but the more experienced dancers take part in the course with different eyes, ears and feelings. We consider this to be essential for balanced development. 
According to the language level, we divide our courses from A1 to C2. There are usually no big differences to the levels at European festivals (apart from different names).

Everyone can do both! We do not make any gender-specific differences in our courses. Everyone dances the role they want to dance regardless of gender. However, we don't recommend learning two roles at the same time, as it's easier (in the beginning) to focus on one thing.