Guia Beach Show Jericoacoara-Ceará-Brasil

Foto: Ciro Costa
From a fishermen’s meeting point to an
intangible cultural heritage of Jericoacoara!
Forró da Dona Amélia (Dona Amélia’s Forró) is a
cultural heritage of Jericoacoara, and it is considered
as one of the driving forces of the village’s tourist
development, making its nights happy for over 30
years.
It all started in 1986, when Raimundo Gomes Ferreira,
best known as “Rachada”, a very extroverted and wellliked
person who would gather fishermen in front of
his house to talk about the events of the day, and listen
to forró from a battery operated record player.
At that time, there was no electricity in Jericoacoara, so
they used candles inside hanging bottles as lighting.
Since there was not much to do in the village after
nightfall, visitors who ventured into the place, when
they saw the excitement, they would join the locals to
interact and dance forró on the dirt floor.
To heat up the party, Rachada, noticing that they were
a different and more sophisticated group, decided to
juice up the drinks. To make something different, he
mixed uruçu honey (a typical bee from the region)
to the cachaça. It was a huge success, and for a long
time, forró and cachaça with uruçu honey was part of
the Jeri’s endless nights.
That dance became a tradition, it always started
at sunset and lasted all night long. For a long time,
there was cachaça with honey, candlelight, a battery
operated record player, and a lot of forró. After many
years running the place, Rachada decided it was time
to leave the scene, and breathe some fresh air, so he
moved to Camocim.
But that was not the end of the forró dance, and a new
time started with one of his friends, Jaqueline Amélia
Sampaio. She had a small restaurant nearby, and she
took over the place, merging the restaurant and the
forró, and named it as Forró da Dona Amélia, in honor
of her mother.
Now, the forró dance takes place on Wednesdays and
Saturdays. From 20h to 22h, the restaurant is open
with acoustic music. After that, there is an interval
and the forró dance happens from 23h to 2h in the
morning.
The Rua do Forró (Forró Street) and Beco do Forró
(Forró Alley) are two paths leading to the famous
Forró de Jericoacoara.
Jericoacoara. O paraíso é aqui | 89