Andanças - International festival of popular dances
Andanças is a festival that promotes popular music and dance, by means of learning and exchange between generations, experiences and cultures. Andanças revives social habits of living music. It gives a new spin to popular balls, with the help of a multitude of traditional Portuguese and world dance customs. The festival aims at recovering musical and choreographic traditions, and merging them with contemporary elements.
At Andanças it is possible to learn more than fifty different dance styles, from Portuguese, African and American dances, to various European dances: from Hungary, the Balkans, Basque, Baltic regions, Belgium, Poitou, Italy, Galicia, Catalonia, other Mediterranean areas, of Gypsy origin, and more. Besides encouraging curiosity for diversity, Andanças also tries to remind participants that popular music is also synonymous with identity, and often the survival of it.
Since 1996, Andanças annually reunites people from all over the world in the spirit of sharing, get-together, and sustainability, making it an alternative to other summer festivals. It is a place to dance, make music, try new things, but also to share and exchange ideas and plans for a better world.