What Makes a Forró Embrace Feel Comfortable and Connected
- Rafael Piccolotto de Lima
- Aug 9, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
In forró, connection is not built only through movement, but also through touch, comfort, reciprocity, and the quality of the embrace itself.
Did you ever embrace someone and it felt so good that you didn’t want it to finish? Did the connection with someone make all your moves flow better than they ever did?
I believe that a good connection and a comfortable embrace are two of the most important factors in a great forró dance. It makes the dance much more enjoyable and allows dancers to have meaningful interactions.
Forrozeiros tend to have some of the most natural and friendly embraces among partner dances. I would even dare to say that the forró embrace is one of the reasons why people like to dance forró so much.
It is remarkable how much a good embrace can enhance our forró experience. But what makes a good forró embrace?
Based on many years dancing socially, teaching weekly classes in New York City, and observing countless interactions on the dance floor, I wrote this list of characteristics that, in my experience, tend to create the most comfortable and connected embraces in forró.
If you prefer to explore these ideas in a more direct and personal way, the video below expands on many of these reflections about touch, connection, comfort, and the experience of the forró embrace.
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is the foundation. Both partners should be wanting to engage in the embrace. If any of the partners are emotionally uncomfortable with the hug, it needs to change, the approach has to be different. This has nothing to do with technique. This has to do with personal space, intimacy, and respect.
Each person understands and feels the embrace in a different way. Each partnership on the dance floor has its emotional implications. We should understand it, be empathic and respectful.
My suggestion is: embrace your partner the way you like and want to be embraced. If she/he reciprocates, wonderful! If she/he responds in a different or negative way, adjust.
Very often, the best embraces are not the most elaborate ones, but the ones where both people feel comfortable, respected, and emotionally at ease.
Contact
Forró is a dance that uses full-body contact. We use contact to communicate, lead, and follow. Different than some other partner dances that rely mostly on visual cues and hands/arms, forró uses the entire body to connect. It has a strong tactile element.
By creating this kind of contact we can move together seamlessly and feel small nuances of movements by our partner. It also allows us to have a very subtle and organic lead/follow relationship.
A good embrace changes the entire emotional quality of a dance.
If you want to explore these ideas from a broader perspective on connection and chemistry in social dancing:
Positive Use of the Embrace
Use the connection and embrace to communicate movement and create good tactile feelings and reactions on your partner.
A big mistake that I often see on the dance floor is when people use their partners to “solve” their balance problems or use the partner to hold arm weight and body weight. It is not only very uncomfortable, but also limits the movements we can do.
Bring your best self to the embrace!
Active embrace
Both partners - leads and follows - are responsible for creating and maintaining good contact and embrace during the dance. The dance relationship should be balanced. The goal here is to have an active embrace as a tool to facilitate coordinated movement.
When both people are truly engaged in this process, the dance tends to feel much more fluid and alive.
Ability and willingness to adapt
Each person is different, each body is different, each dance relationship is different and each embrace will be different. We have so many ways to approach and use our embrace. We should choose it according to our partner and the situation.
The ability and willingness to adapt is a key element to make all embraces enjoyable experiences for both partners. The alternation between different kinds of embrace can also be a great opportunity to create interest in your dance and relationship with your partner.
There are 2 main ways of thinking about adaptation:
A) A general adaptation to your partner, adapt to his/her body, and your level of intimacy with him/her.
B) To the development of the dance. Different movements require different kinds of embrace and the embrace can be used in creative and musical ways.
In social dancing, adaptability is often what transforms the embrace from something mechanical into something deeply enjoyable.
If you want to continue exploring the relationship between sensitivity, musicality, adaptability, and connection in social dancing:
Conclusion
The embrace in forró goes far beyond technique.
It is part communication, part comfort, part sensitivity, and part presence.
And perhaps this is one of the reasons why certain dances stay in our memory for so long. Not necessarily because of complexity or difficult movements, but because of how the connection itself felt during the experience.
The best embraces usually are not the ones trying hardest to impress. They are the ones where both people feel comfortable enough to move naturally together.
If you want to continue exploring these ideas from a different perspective:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rafael Piccolotto de Lima is the Founder and Educational Director of Forró New York, as well as a Latin Grammy-nominated composer, arranger, and music director.
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