There can’t be many popular musical genres which feature the triangle, drum and accordion as three staple instruments. Forró, pronounced foh-ho, is one of them. It’s a lively, addictive music that has its origins in Northeast Brazil and which can now be heard and danced to in bars and parties all over London.
Couples dance together coladinho, heads and hips often touching, spinning and skipping in a close embrace. There’s something magical about a forró party – a live band and their traditional instruments squeezed into the corner of a Brazilian pub in South London every weekend. The crowd sing along to the lyrics as they dance, trying not to trip over tables. Many people dance barefoot.
There’s a theory that the word forró comes from the English phrase ‘for all,’ though the more plausible origin is the Brazilian Portuguese forrobodó, a word for a big party.
It’s no surprise that a musical style that has its roots in migration should end up playing a part in London’s diverse cultural scene.
Within Brazil, forró was popularised in the second half of the 20th Century through significant internal migration from the North of the country to the more prosperous South. A modernised version of the music and dance became fashionable in the 1990s, especially among university students (forro universitário, or ‘college forró’). Carlos André is one of a large group of teachers and musicians who run events and dance classes in London and other cities in the UK and Europe.
The forró scene is an outlet for London’s large Brazilian community to matar a saudade (literally, “kill their homesickness”). But it’s also a chance for Brits and enthusiasts of other nationalities to get a taste of a side of Brazilian culture that is less well-known internationally.