Frevo

What frevo is

Frevo names both a kind of music and the dance that goes with it. It comes from Recife, in Pernambuco, and belongs to the Brazilian Carnival. The word is usually traced to frever, a form of the Portuguese verb ferver, meaning to boil. Listeners and dancers are said to feel as if the ground under them is boiling. The dance itself is known as passo, and those who perform it are passistas. Frevo is played and danced in the street, in parades, and at football matches, where the bands work a little like pep bands.

How it began

According to the usual account, the music arrived before the dance. Near the end of the 19th century, army regimental bands based in Recife began marching at Carnival. Carnival had Catholic roots, so alongside martial music they played marches for religious processions. Two bands drew the biggest crowds: the Espanha, whose conductor came from Spain, and the 14, from the 14th Infantry Regiment. Supporters cheered for one or the other, and the bands answered by playing faster and louder. Police meanwhile chased capoeira fighters and arrested them at their shows. Those fighters began carrying umbrellas in place of knives and hid their moves inside dancing, and from that the frevo dance is said to have grown.

Dancing the passo

Frevo dance is called passo. It grew out of capoeira, its moves turned into near-acrobatic ones. Since rivalry between groups had shifted from fighting to style, each dancer worked to invent a step of their own, which took practice, strength, stamina and flexibility. Jumps, quick legwork, bent legs and tumbling all belong to it. Costumes changed to suit: plain dress gave way to small, light and colourful outfits. The umbrella changed too, from a black one with a wooden handle to a small bright prop, swung, passed between the hands, slipped between the legs, or tossed up and caught. From the 1950s the master Nascimento do Passo is credited with more than a hundred new movements, and in the late 1990s he opened Recife's first school for frevo.

Music and styles

Most often the word frevo means frevo-de-rua, street frevo: instrumental music at a fierce, fast tempo, carried by trumpets, trombones, saxophones and tuba. American listeners often think it sounds like a polka. The bands also play at football matches in Recife, in the manner of a pep band. "Vassourinhas" is a well-known tune, and Maestro Duda is a celebrated conductor in the style. Frevo de bloco is sung and uses string instruments, and Capiba was its most famous composer. Frevo de trio, also called frevo baiano, was arranged in Bahia for smaller groups from the early 1950s, after the Clube Carnavalesco Misto Vassourinhas of Olinda performed in Salvador; those bands helped start the trio elétrico tradition, mixing frevo with Western pop rock.

Recognition and today

In 2012 UNESCO put frevo on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in an inscription naming it as the performing arts of Recife's Carnival. By then the passista had long been one of the best-known figures of Pernambuco's Carnival. Recife's big band SpokFrevo Orquestra, some seventeen or eighteen professional musicians led by the saxophonist Spok, set out to carry the music abroad and toured the United States in March 2012. Older material is being preserved as well: the band of Captain Zuzinha, which linked the state police with the public in Pernambuco, kept thousands of manuscript scores, and a UCLA Library programme has digitised nearly seven hundred arrangements.

How Frevo is kept

Carnival groups and brass bands take to the streets of Recife. Bands parade and compete, each with its own crowd of followers. Passistas, the dancers, wear small bright outfits and carry little umbrellas. They move in fast steps, jumps and turns, swinging the umbrella or throwing it up and catching it. Rival groups try to outdo one another with new steps rather than with fights. Street frevo bands also play at football matches, and blocos sing their frevos with strings behind them. Dancers learn from teachers and masters, and the passista is one of the most prominent figures of the whole Carnival.

When and where

Frevo belongs to Brazilian Carnival, which comes once a year on dates that change from year to year. Through those days bands and dancers fill the streets of Recife. Frevo also turns up at other city celebrations and at football matches, so it is heard beyond Carnival as well.

Recife, the capital of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil, is its home, and the tradition is strongest there and in nearby Olinda. It is tied to the Carnival of Pernambuco. A related form, frevo de trio, took root in Bahia after a club from Olinda played in Salvador in the early 1950s, and it fed into the trio elétrico bands of Bahian Carnival.

What Frevo means

For the people of Recife, frevo carries the feeling the name suggests: heat, speed and a kind of boiling energy. Its history holds a quieter meaning too. When police broke up capoeira gatherings, dancers kept their movements alive by hiding them inside a dance and by carrying umbrellas instead of knives. Rivalry once settled in the street moved into skill and style, and a dancer's own invented step became a mark of honour. The passista now stands for the Carnival of Pernambuco itself.

Questions people ask about Frevo

See also

ForróMusic, dance and party from Brazil's Northeast, with accordion, triangle and zabumba drumKizombaA close, slow couple dance from Angola, named after a Kimbundu word for partyBaiãoA syncopated folk rhythm and partnered dance from northeastern BrazilCarimbóA dance and music genre from the Amazon region of Brazil, centered around a wooden drum.

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle
• UNESCO BrasiliaUNESCO, Heritage listing
• UNESCO BrasiliaUNESCO, Article

• Frevo on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.