Dance at Caxingi/Brooklyn February 23rd

Well it was about time to put our newly acquired dance skills to use at a LDS dance.  This Saturday was apparently a big day for dances in the LDS community here. There were at least 4 dances in São Paulo scheduled that I knew of.  The two biggest that I knew of were in Brooklyn and Caxingi (the chapel by the temple).  So the people that we went with to the dance wanted to go check out the Brooklyn dance and then head to the Caxingi.  I learned something very interesting about events in Brazil that day.  Brazilians are drawn to the biggest 'party' in town like bees to honey.  If people feel that the dance or party isn't all that it was cracked up to be (bad music, few people) and if there is some sort of alternative you can be sure that everyone will empty the place very quickly.  For instance, we heard at first that everything was heading to the dance in Brooklyn, but by the time we got there the public opinion had changed and everyone headed to Caxingi!  I really felt bad for the places that had spent a lot of time in preparation but because of popular vote had been pretty much abandoned.  But it's just the way things work here.  To break down what an LDS Brazilian is like: A good mix of hip hop music (but people usually don't know how to dance to it so few hip hop songs are requested), plenty of choreographed arrocha, or different line dances, a couple of samba songs, and the majority of the time taken up by the couple dances of sertaneja and forró. Compared to the US there are pretty much no slow songs.  Talking to some Brazilians who lived in Utah for a time, the common opinion was that dances there were pretty boring and slow songs (completely awkward) haha.  After seeing dances here I have to agree!  The dances here are much more animated and exciting.  The only downside to the Caxingi dance was that the AC broke in the gym and it got uncomfortably hot in the room.