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.
We want to continue to recover and revive social dances, as a festive way of gathering, learning from each other, keeping tradition alive and recreating it; Andanças developed its own life, which is contagious.
We want to keep Andanças independent from political, commercial, and financial motives; a place where everyone feels motivated to contribute to the common good, not paid for their work, but compensated in a fair and creative way; be it individuals, companies or public institutions..
We want to continue building the Andanças community, with the people, our partners, and local communities, and being part of a new local development.
We want to continue promoting our ethical and aesthetic principles, creating a space free of pollution, where good social, economic and environmental practises are shared and spread.
