FORRÓ IN LISBON: BAIÃO VAI, WORKSHOPS, AND COMMUNITY EXCHANGE
Rafael from Forró New York joined Lisbon’s forró community as a guest teacher at Baião Vai, connecting workshops and musical exploration with broader reflections on forró in Europe.
A FIRST TEACHING EXCHANGE IN LISBON
My first professional visit to Lisbon took place in December 2025, when I joined Baião Vai as a guest teacher during a wider European tour.
My connection with the city had already developed indirectly through my collaboration with Lisbon-based teacher Camila Alves. Camila had participated in several Forró New York activities, including workshops, editions of Forró New York Weekend, and a teaching tour across the United States and Canada in 2019.
The invitation to Baião Vai, however, came directly through the festival and Espaço Baião. Enrique Matos and Eva Matos, who were involved in organizing and producing that edition, invited me to teach as part of the official festival program.
The visit became an opportunity to encounter Lisbon’s forró community directly and to bring the educational work developed through Forró New York into a different cultural and festival environment.
BAIÃO VAI 2025
Baião Vai took place in Lisbon from December 5 to 7, 2025. The festival brought together workshops, social dancing, live music, and participants from Portugal and other parts of the international forró community.
Rafael joined the official program as a guest teacher, leading three workshops organized for different experience levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
Teaching across all three levels made it possible to approach related ideas through different degrees of complexity. The beginner workshop established a clear relationship between rhythm, weight transfer, and partner connection. The intermediate and advanced sessions expanded those foundations through coordination, movement vocabulary, musicality, and creative interaction.
Beyond teaching, Rafael participated throughout the festival’s parties and social activities. Experiencing the complete program made the visit more than a series of isolated classes: it became an opportunity to meet the local community, dance with participants and educators, listen to live music, and experience how forró is practiced in Lisbon.
THREE WORKSHOPS ACROSS EXPERIENCE LEVELS
BEGINNER - RHYTHM, WEIGHT TRANSFER, AND CONNECTION
The beginner workshop focused on how rhythm becomes movement through weight transfer, basic coordination, and connection with a partner.
Rather than introducing a large number of steps, the class worked from a smaller set of principles that participants could understand physically and continue developing through practice.
Joana Ilhão, a teacher with an important presence in Portugal’s forró community, particularly in Porto, helped Rafael create a short closing recap connected to the class. The video was later shared through the Forró New York YouTube and Instagram channels.
INTERMEDIATE - TIMING, COORDINATION, AND MUSICAL STRUCTURE
The intermediate workshop explored timing, coordination, and the relationship between steps and music.
Participants worked with the basic beat not simply as something to follow, but as a structure that can help organize movement and communication between partners. Clapping, stepping, and partner exercises created different ways of recognizing how musical time is experienced through the body.
ADVANCED - CREATIVITY, MUSICALITY, AND THE EMBRACE
The advanced workshop explored how foundational movement can expand into creativity, musical interpretation, and a more responsive use of the embrace.
Rather than treating creativity as the accumulation of increasingly complex sequences, the class examined how familiar material can change through timing, attention, connection, and individual choices inside the partnership.
During the intermediate and advanced sessions, Mira, an Austrian teacher based in Portugal, participated in the workshops and informally assisted Rafael with some of the demonstrations. Her involvement emerged naturally through the exchange created during the festival rather than as a formal co-teaching role.
FESTIVAL LIFE, MUSIC, AND COMMUNITY
The workshops were only one part of the Baião Vai experience. Rafael also participated in the festival’s parties, social dances, and live music events throughout the weekend.
These moments offered a different form of exchange from the classroom. Dancing socially made it possible to encounter participants outside designated levels, observe the diversity of the local and international community, and experience the relationship between music and dance in the setting where forró is most naturally shared.
The visit also provided a direct perspective on why Lisbon has become an important meeting point within the European forró network. The city brings together Brazilian cultural references, Portuguese-speaking participants, and an increasingly international community connected through festivals, classes, music, and travel.
DOCUMENTATION, RECORDINGS, AND EDUCATIONAL ARCHIVE
The Lisbon visit was also part of a broader effort to document educational exchanges and forró communities outside New York.
During the festival, Rafael recorded excerpts from classes, movement recaps, group photographs, social dancing, parties, and live music. A selection of those images and recordings appears on this page, while additional material remains preserved as part of the growing Forró New York archive.
Some of the educational ideas and photographs from Baião Vai have also become part of articles published through Forró New York. The workshops provided concrete examples for discussions about rhythm, coordination, forró universitário, creativity, musicality, and connection.
This documentation allows the experience to continue beyond the original weekend without requiring the page to function only as an event announcement. Additional recordings and reflections can be incorporated as new material is prepared.
FREE WORKSHOP RECAPS FOR WEBSITE MEMBERS
Selected workshops from Baião Vai 2025 also included short recap videos organizing movements, exercises, and ideas explored during the classes. These recordings give participants a practical reference they can revisit after the festival.
A selection of these Lisbon workshop recaps is available free of charge to registered members of the Forró New York website. Membership is free and also provides access to other member-only pages, videos, and educational resources across the site.
If you are already signed in, the link below will take you directly to the workshop recaps. Otherwise, you will be invited to log in or create a free account before continuing.
Free membership is separate from the paid online courses. Members who later want a more structured and in-depth learning experience can use the same account to explore the complete online programs.
CONTINUING THE EXCHANGE
The 2025 visit was Rafael’s first professional teaching experience in Lisbon, but it grew from relationships that had already connected Forró New York with educators and dancers based in Portugal.
Baião Vai created an opportunity to turn those indirect connections into an in-person exchange. It also placed the Lisbon visit within a broader network of festivals, teachers, musicians, organizers, and dancers who continue developing forró outside Brazil.
Forró New York remains based in New York City. The Lisbon page does not represent a permanent local program or branch. It documents a specific teaching experience and creates a place where future visits, recordings, and collaborations can be added when they occur.
→ EXPLORE THE HISTORY OF FORRÓ IN EUROPE
→ READ HOW FORRÓ COMMUNITIES GROW OUTSIDE BRAZIL
→ EXPLORE FORRÓ BEYOND NEW YORK
→ EXPLORE THE GLOBAL FORRÓ COMMUNITY