In my final lesson before my Portuguese tests, my teacher decided to offer us an unusual form of revision. Instead of going over those conjugations one more time, she decided to show us how to dance to forró. This is one of the many types of traditional Brazilian popular music that exist independently from the pop mainstream, but manage to maintain equal levels of popularity. Personally, all the forró I have heard up to now has been just as mediocre as the stuff in the pop charts. Apart from this one:
Forró In The Dark feat. David Byrne - Asa Branca (download from here)
See the hat in action:
Forró In The Dark are based in New York, and have decided to take classic forró tunes and update them, with mixed results from what I have heard. The track with Bebel Gilberto is as dull as you would expect from a track with Bebel Gilberto. But the above track with David Byrne is, unsurprisingly, ace (read about it on his fantastic blog). This track with Miho Hatori (once of Cibo Matto) is also pretty cool:
Forró In The Dark feat Miho Hatori - Paraiba (download from here)
So now I know how to do the most basic forró dance (despite my my English embarrassment) and I passed my course. Result!
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2 comments:
congratulations sir. i'm so glad that your dancing feet have finally proved worthy of a function other than luring unsuspecting hotties 'tward the dancefloor. who knew that your silken moves could help you pass language exams. maybe there's more truth in that quote that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" - you have given hope to generations of students...
Dancing about architecture!...I've never heard of such a thing, but it sounds like fun! I would like to have a boogie to the Royal Festival Hall....can one decide which dance they adopt or are there rules about this? Answers on a postcard.
Zedx
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