Author: Kathleen Hunt

I went with my friend Denise and her boyfriend to the Gafieira Estudantina for a night of forró. Last year, I used to see the Estudantina’s hand-painted dance banner hanging from its second-floor balcony, whenever I was walking around the Praca Tiradentes in Rio de Janeiro. But I’d never been up there. The Estudantina, it turns out, is one of Rio’s old ballroom dance halls (gafieiras)—founded in 1932. Denise told me her mother used to …