Where to Dance Forró in Canada: The Guide for Beginners and Enthusiasts (2026)

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Forró, the partner dance from Northeastern Brazil, is organised in four Canadian cities: Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Vancouver. We found eleven active groups across them, and ten of the eleven can only be reached through Instagram. This guide lists each one and what it does.

That last detail is the practical one. If you search for forró classes in Canada the way you would search for a gym or a language school, you will mostly come up empty, because only one of the groups below runs a website. The scene is coordinated through Instagram accounts and WhatsApp groups, which is also why schedules move without notice. What follows is a map of who is active and where, checked account by account.

Where forró is organised in Canada

Toronto

Toronto has the largest number of separate forró projects in the country, and they divide the work between them: one handles beginners, one handles social information, one brings in guest teachers, and one plays the music live.

• Forró For All Toronto: A volunteer-led project focused on introducing the basics to newcomers. It describes itself as organised by more than ten volunteers.
• Forró Social Dance Canada: Posts information on social meetups, practices and local gatherings, and organises workshops, including the Toronto Forró Roots Weekend with guest teacher Julie from Viajando Pelo Roots, based in São Paulo. Disclosure: this project is curated by Raquel Camargo, who writes for Raw POV. She did not write this guide, and the project is listed here because it is one of the active groups in the city.
• Forró Mundo Afora: Curated by Briza, this project brings guest instructors to Toronto for workshops, including Rafael Wilker and Daniel Marinho.
• Orquestra Zabumba: Hosts periodic live shows playing pé de serra forró, the acoustic three-instrument format of accordion, zabumba drum and triangle.

Montreal

Montreal is the only city on this list where the community runs a public website rather than an Instagram account alone, and the only one that holds an annual festival.

• Forró Montréal: The central organisation in the city. It runs weekly classes under the name Forró Lab and the annual Montreal Forró Fest. Also on Instagram.
• Collectif Aroa: Runs events and workshops for forró in Montreal.
• Forró na Neve: A winter-season movement centred around DJ Marcio, which keeps social dancing running through the coldest months.
• Outdoor summer socials: During the warmer months the community gathers on most Fridays at Parc de la Petite-Italie for outdoor social dancing. This is a seasonal pattern rather than a fixed event, so confirm on the accounts above before travelling.

Quebec City and Ottawa

• Forró Québec: The collective running workshops and social practices in Quebec City.
• Flávia Nascimento: A performer based in Quebec City who tours across the country, often programming forró alongside choro in concert settings rather than social dances.
• Ottawa: We did not find a recurring forró group in Ottawa. Brazilian music reaches the city through touring performances at venues such as the National Arts Centre, but we found no organisation running regular classes or socials. If one exists, we would like to hear about it.

Vancouver

Vancouver has two active projects, one for teaching and one for live music.

• Forró Vancouver: Run by Valerya and Ilia, two instructors who hold classes, workshops and events.
• Banda Forró do Cana: A forró band on the West Coast that performs at local events, including the Brazilian Sunset Concert. Note that the band’s former website, forrodocana.com, no longer resolves, so Instagram is now the only way to reach them.

What to know before you go

• Instagram and WhatsApp carry the schedule. Ten of the eleven groups listed here publish nowhere else. Follow the accounts before you plan a trip around an event.
• No partner required. Most of these collectives run on a rotation basis, so attending alone is normal rather than an exception.
• Bring the right shoes. Regular sneakers grip most Canadian dance floors harder than the smooth-floor venues common in Brazil, which makes turns harder on the knees. A pair of stick-on suede soles fixes that on shoes you already own ($28.99 CAD, on Amazon.ca, 4.1 stars).
• Cross-checking the international circuit. Events elsewhere can be checked through the Forró Federation.

If you are new to the dance itself rather than looking for a room to dance it in, our guide to what forró is covers the rhythm, the three instruments and the main regional styles. Readers in the United States can use our companion guide to where to find forró in the US. For other Latin partner dances in Canada, see where to dance salsa and bachata in Toronto.

Frequently asked questions

Which Canadian city has the most forró?

Toronto, by number of separate active projects. We found four there, against three in Montreal, two in Quebec City and two in Vancouver. Montreal is the only city with an annual festival and the only one where the main organisation runs a website.

Do I need a partner to go to a forró event in Canada?

No. The groups listed here describe themselves as running on a rotation basis, where dancers change partners through the evening, so arriving alone is the norm.

Is there forró in Ottawa?

We did not find a recurring forró group in Ottawa. Brazilian music reaches the city through touring performances at venues such as the National Arts Centre, but that is programming rather than a dance community.

Why is it so hard to find forró class times online?

Because ten of the eleven groups we found publish only on Instagram. There is no central listing, no shared calendar and, in most cities, no website. Following the accounts is the only reliable way to see a current schedule.

What is pé de serra forró?

It is the acoustic format built on three instruments: accordion, zabumba drum and triangle. It is what a live forró band in Canada is most likely to play.

Sources and method

From the sources. Every group in this guide was checked against its own Instagram account or website, one by one, and each link above points at that account directly. Forró Montréal’s site is the source for the Forró Lab classes and the Montreal Forró Fest. The Forró Federation is listed as a cross-reference for events outside Canada.

Raw POV analysis. The city table, the count of eleven active groups, the finding that ten of the eleven publish only on Instagram, and the division of roles described for Toronto are all Raw POV’s compilation from those accounts. No single source states any of them.

What we did not do. We did not attend these events, and we did not interview the organisers for this guide. We describe what each group publishes about itself. A previous version of this article linked several groups through Google search result URLs rather than their actual accounts, and cited a website for Banda Forró do Cana at forrodocana.com; that domain no longer resolves and the link has been replaced with the band’s Instagram. Absence of a group in a city means we did not find one, not that none exists.

Schedules and locations change often in this scene. Verify details directly through the linked accounts before attending.

📚 Part of our guide: Latin & Brazilian Dance in Canada