Forró Sem Palavras: How Forró Dancing Led Me to a Musical Project
- Rafael Piccolotto de Lima
- Mar 6, 2020
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Have you ever heard forró performed by a string quartet?
How about an orchestra?
Or a jazz ensemble?
I invite you to listen to Forró Sem Palavras.
Forró Sem Palavras is a musical project I created in New York in 2018. At its core, the project emerged from the meeting of two worlds that have accompanied me for most of my life: my involvement with forró as a dancer and member of the forró community, and my professional work as a composer, arranger, conductor, and educator. Over time, what initially felt like parallel paths gradually became part of the same artistic conversation.
Two Parts of My Life That Always Existed Together
For more than twenty years, forró has been part of my life.
Not only the music itself, but the dance, the communities, the festivals, the friendships, and the many experiences that tend to grow around social dancing.
At the same time, I built my professional life working with composition, arrangement, music direction, conducting, recording projects, and large ensembles.
For many years, these two dimensions of my life developed side by side.
There was the part of my life connected to rehearsals, scores, orchestras, and artistic projects.
And there was the part connected to dance floors, social events, and the culture surrounding forró.
People often asked how those worlds connected. The truth is that I never experienced them as completely separate. They occupied different spaces, involved different activities, and brought together different communities, but both were expressions of interests that had always coexisted naturally in my life.
Looking back, Forró Sem Palavras feels less like a sudden idea and more like the result of a question that had been accompanying me for many years.
Over time, that question evolved into a much broader artistic exploration involving concert halls, dance communities, orchestras, jazz ensembles, and different ways of experiencing music.
A Question People Often Ask
Recently, during a conversation with Brazilian dance instructor Alice Rodrigues, she asked me a question that many people have asked over the years.
How do forró and orchestral music relate to one another?
The question was familiar, but answering it out loud helped me organize thoughts that had been developing for a long time.
Part of that answer comes from recognizing that both are artistic experiences, even if they often happen in very different environments. When we think about a concert hall, we usually imagine an audience sitting and listening. When we think about a forró event, we imagine people dancing, interacting, and participating more directly in what is happening around them.
The environments are different, but both revolve around shared experiences created through music.
That observation eventually connects to another idea that has fascinated me for years.
Body, Sound, and Movement
Part of my work as a conductor involves communicating musical ideas through movement. Musicians observe gesture, timing, and physical expression, and transform those elements into sound.
Dance approaches that relationship from the opposite direction. The music already exists, and movement emerges as a response to what is being heard.
For years I have been fascinated by the fact that both experiences involve the same elements - body, sound, movement, rhythm, expression - but arranged in different ways.
During my conversation with Alice, I found myself describing this relationship through an observation that has accompanied me for a long time. In music, the body often functions as the source of sound. In dance, sound becomes one of the forces that generates movement.
I do not see these as opposing experiences. To me, they feel more like different perspectives on a similar relationship between sound, movement, and human expression.
Many of the questions that later became part of Forró Sem Palavras emerged from spending years moving back and forth between those two worlds.
Creating a Place Where Those Worlds Could Meet
At a certain point, I stopped thinking about those connections only as ideas and became curious about what would happen if they were explored through an actual artistic project.
That curiosity eventually became Forró Sem Palavras.
The idea was surprisingly simple.
I wanted to bring forró into musical environments where people would not normally expect to encounter it, such as chamber groups, orchestras, and instrumental ensembles.
Forró has a much longer relationship with instrumental music, improvisation, and concert traditions than many dancers initially realize. I explore some of those connections in more detail here:
The project’s name - Forró Sem Palavras - can be translated as “Forró Without Words” or “Wordless Forró.”
Part of that name reflects an aspect of forró that has fascinated me for many years. Although many people encounter forró primarily through songs and singers, there is also a rich tradition of instrumental music woven throughout its history. Musicians such as Sivuca, Dominguinhos, Hermeto Pascoal, and many others demonstrated how much of the rhythmic, melodic, and emotional character of forró can exist independently of lyrics.
Forró Sem Palavras grew partly from a desire to explore that side of the tradition. Many of the project’s performances and arrangements place instrumental voices at the center, allowing melodies, rhythms, improvisation, and orchestration to carry the musical narrative.
In that sense, the title is not meant to suggest an absence, but rather a shift in perspective. It invites listeners to experience forró through one of its most beautiful and sometimes overlooked dimensions.
Of course, even the word “forró” can mean very different things depending on the musical context. Traditional pé-de-serra, universitário, contemporary interpretations, orchestral projects, and instrumental approaches all occupy different places within a much larger musical ecosystem. I explore some of those musical worlds in more detail here:
From New York to Different Cities
What started in New York gradually expanded into different formats and collaborations.
Over the years, the project has involved close to two hundred musicians and has been presented in cities such as New York, Montreal, Toronto, São Paulo, Campinas, and Rio Claro.
Each version reflects the musicians involved, the venue, the audience, and the local artistic community that helps bring it to life.
Some performances happen in theaters and concert halls. Others happen in spaces where people are invited to dance. Some audiences spend the evening listening attentively. Others participate through movement and social interaction.
The format changes according to the context, but the underlying question remains remarkably similar: what new possibilities emerge when these different musical and cultural spaces are allowed to meet?
A Flexible Project Rooted in Forró
One thing that became clear over time is that Forró Sem Palavras is not really a fixed ensemble.
Different performances have involved string quartets, chamber groups, jazz musicians, large ensembles, and symphony orchestras. The instrumentation changes according to the musicians available, the venue, and the artistic goals of each collaboration.
What has remained constant is the project’s relationship with forró. Not only with its rhythms and repertoire, but also with the broader culture that surrounds it. The dance, the social experience, the communal aspect of music-making, and the sense of participation that exists within forró communities continue to shape the way I think about the project.
For that reason, I have never viewed Forró Sem Palavras as a departure from forró. If anything, it feels like one of the many paths that emerged from spending so many years immersed in that world.
Explore the Project
If you would like to hear more recordings, performances, and collaborations, I invite you to explore the project’s YouTube playlist.
You can also learn more about the project’s history, performances, and artistic development through my artist website.
I also wrote a detailed essay about the origins of the project, its artistic development, performances in New York, Montreal, and Brazil, and the questions that continue to shape its evolution.
→ Read: Forró Sem Palavras: Building Bridges Between Forró, Jazz, Concert Music, and the Contexts Where Music Lives
Although the project grew from my experience inside forró communities, many readers may be discovering forró itself through this article. If that is your case, this introduction offers a broader overview of the dance, music, and culture surrounding the tradition:
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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