FORRÓ WORKSHOPS IN NEW YORK
Forró New York regularly hosts special workshops, educational collaborations, and intensive learning experiences with guest teachers from Brazil, Europe, and across the international forró community.
While the weekly classes focus on continuity, foundations, partner practice, and long-term development, workshops create temporary spaces for experimentation, exchange, and deeper exploration within the dance.
Each collaboration brings different perspectives into the community - from musicality and connection to movement vocabulary, stylistic approaches, improvisation, cultural discussions, and social dance practices that go beyond the structure of weekly classes.
Since 2018, these workshops have become an important part of the educational and cultural ecosystem surrounding Forró New York.
WORKSHOPS BEYOND THE WEEKLY STRUCTURE
The weekly forró classes at Forró New York are designed around consistency and progressive development.
Students build familiarity with rhythm, movement organization, connection, musicality, and social dance practice through a recurring weekly structure that supports long-term learning.
Workshops operate differently.
Rather than following the regular class format, workshops create opportunities for temporary immersion into specific ideas, styles, and educational approaches brought by invited teachers and collaborators.
Some workshops focus on close embrace and connection. Others explore musicality, rhythmic interpretation, movement dynamics, creativity, roots traditions, contemporary approaches, or regional influences inside the broader universe of forró dance.
Because each workshop is shaped around the invited educator and the context of the collaboration, no two experiences are exactly the same.
These events function less as isolated classes and more as living laboratories inside the community - spaces where dancers can encounter different perspectives, experiment with unfamiliar ideas, and expand their understanding of the dance beyond routine practice.
GUEST TEACHERS AND EDUCATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
Since the early years of Forró New York, guest teachers and artistic collaborations have played an important role in the development of the project.
Beginning in 2018, workshops started becoming part of the educational activities surrounding the community, often connected to larger cultural exchanges, festival programming, touring educators, or collaborations developed specifically for the students and dancers participating in Forró New York activities.
Over the years, the project has welcomed teachers, dancers, and collaborators from Brazil, Europe, and different parts of the United States.
These collaborations have included workshops and educational activities with artists and educators such as Milena Moraes, Camila Alves, Juzinha, Daniel Marinho, Rana & Lucas, Victinho & Pâmela, Alice Rodrigues, Fiona Ladybird, Áurea Pires, Rodolfo, and other invited guests who contributed different perspectives and approaches to the community.
In many cases, these workshops emerged through partnerships developed around the Forró New York Weekend festival, taking advantage of artists visiting New York for performances, residencies, and festival participation.
As a result, the weeks surrounding the festival often become moments of intense educational activity in the city, creating opportunities for students to interact with visiting educators in more intimate and specialized workshop settings.
Some invited teachers present their own independent educational work through the platform created by Forró New York. Other workshops are developed collaboratively, combining different teaching approaches and creating experiences designed specifically for the local community.
CURRENT AND UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
Special workshops happen throughout the year depending on guest teacher visits, collaborations, festival activities, and educational projects connected to the Forró New York community.
Membership OfferMay 22-24, 2026 (three-day festival)Various locations (read event description)Forró festival in New York City with workshops, social dancing, live music, and DJs. Open to all levels, including beginners.
If no workshops are currently scheduled, you can still explore recordings, educational materials, social media archives, and the online learning platform connected to past activities and collaborations.
→ Weekly Forró Classes in New York
→ Forró New York Weekend
→ Learn Forró Online
RECORDED WORKSHOPS AND EDUCATIONAL ARCHIVE
Many workshops organized through Forró New York continue beyond the live event itself.
Over the years, portions of classes, demonstrations, partner exercises, conversations, and collaborative educational activities have been recorded and preserved through videos, social media excerpts, workshop archives, and online educational materials.
Some of these recordings later become part of the online learning ecosystem connected to Forró New York, including workshop libraries, educational archives, musicality resources, and special online courses.
This process allows the educational exchange created during workshops to remain accessible beyond a single evening or weekend, while also helping document the evolution of the community and the diversity of approaches that have shaped the project over time.
Selected workshop materials, demonstrations, and educational excerpts can be found through:
→ Learn Online Platform
→ Workshop Library
→ YouTube Channel
→ Instagram Archive
WORKSHOPS DURING FORRÓ NEW YORK WEEKEND
The largest concentration of workshops connected to the project happens during Forró New York Weekend.
The festival brings together guest teachers, musicians, dancers, DJs, and artists from different backgrounds for a weekend of workshops, social dancing, live music, and cultural exchange in New York City.
In addition to the festival schedule itself, guest teachers often participate in smaller workshops, collaborations, and community activities organized before and after the main event.
These moments frequently create some of the most dynamic educational exchanges of the year within the Forró New York community.
→ Explore Forró New York Weekend
BEYOND NEW YORK
Although the core activities of Forró New York are centered in New York City, the educational collaborations surrounding the project have also extended beyond the city through workshops, festivals, tours, and artistic exchanges in other regions of the United States, Brazil, and Europe.
These collaborations reflect the broader international network of relationships, cultural exchange, and educational dialogue that continues to shape the evolution of the project.
→ Explore Educational Collaborations Beyond New York