If someone starts playing drums somewhere in a favela (a Brazilian shantytown or slum), someone in one of the nearby houses will start dancing or singing, and they'll all come together and there'll be a party, according to film-maker Rowena Baines.
She is making a film on Afro-Brazilian dance and culture, which includes scenes from the show Balé Folclórico Da Bahia will perform in Dunedin in the Otago Festival of the Arts - Bahia of All Colours.
"Dance is a huge part of their culture, which is what I'm trying to bring out in my film. I think it's a very positive thing we are lacking.
"People walk with rhythm - when they walk they are already grooving.
"In the favela, little kids dance from a very young age," she says.
She was thrilled to learn that the dance company is coming to Dunedin as it reflects what her film is about, and she hopes those who come away from the show with questions will find them answered when her film is screened on November 16.
Originally from Auckland, Baines, a science communications student at the University of Otago, dance teacher and photographer, has been to Brazil six times and speaks Portuguese fluently. On her most recent trip a few months ago, she shot a film about the Afro-Brazilian fight to hold on to their culture.
Afro-Brazilians are descendants of the between four and 10 million African slaves who were transported to Brazil between 1550 and 1888 (when slavery ended). They live mostly in the north, especially in the state of Bahia, she says.
"There's been a lot of repression and it's been hard for them to hold on to their culture.
People who danced capoeira were thrown into jail. People who danced samba were thrown into jail simply because they were cultural events linked to the past and slavery.
That was up to the 1960s and '70s, but especially back in the 1920s and '30s when samba began to become more public," Ms Baines says.
"What's so beautiful about this culture they were holding on to, this music, samba and dance, is it's now Brazil's biggest tourism attraction, and it's come from the slaves' descendants who live in the favelas.
"In turn it now feeds them because Carnival is so huge it employs people for six months of the year."
Bahia of All Colours is about Afro-Brazilian history. It shows elements of the people's religion as well as capoeira, samba and the drumbeat that comes from Africa, which is ever-present the whole way through, she says.
"You get a real insight creatively into their culture which is what's beautiful about it, and quite different from a lot of cultures we usually experience.
"In Bahia, older women still wear big colourful skirts and the religious dances are still practised dressed like that; it's not just for show," she says.
"They show religious ceremonies. I was surprised when I saw it because it's something you don't usually see outside the holy grounds of Candomblé."
Candomblé, a religion developed in Brazil by enslaved African priests and which over time incorporated some aspects of Catholicism, has become strong in Bahia since persecution stopped in the 1970s, she says.
"They have certain rites and initiations which are secret.
"I filmed these ceremonies on the religious grounds and I was allowed to film up to a certain point when they became possessed and went into a trance, then I had to stop filming, so it's neat to see it recreated in such a beautiful way.
"The dances [in the show] are the ones they dance in the spiritual rite because dance is such a huge part of religion and spirituality for them."
In Candomblé, there are numerous Orishas (patron deities not unlike Catholic saints) and each has their own dance, costume and symbols.
During the rituals selected people invoke their Orisha and in a trance dance particular movements which belong to that Orisha.
Besides the religious dances, other forms are part of the culture. Capoeira, a martial art developed in Brazil, is gaining popularity worldwide these days. It is played low, unlike many Asian martial arts.
"The reason was because they had to hide from slave owners in the sugarcane because it was banned, so they had to do everything low.
"They put elements of dance in it - it's very rhythmic because when the slave-owners found them they could just say they were dancing.
"Through slavery things had to morph and adapt into things they were allowed to do," Ms Baines says.
"I've seen capoeira all over the world and a lot of it in Brazil, but when I saw them, it almost made me cry. It was so beautiful to watch. They are very highly skilled, these people."
Samba is another hugely popular dance that comes in many forms.
Five years ago Samba de roda, the original samba from Bahia, in which participants sing and dance in a circle, was listed by Unesco as an "Intangible Heritage of Humanity".
Samba was brought south to Rio de Janeiro after the end of slavery. It soon became popular and samba schools opened, but in the 1920s and '30s in particular it was considered disreputable, Ms Baines says.
"Samba is such a sensual dance and it came from a dance called umbigada which came straight from Africa. Umbigada means a tummy-button dance, so they would come one up against another and bounce their tummy buttons.
"Often after a samba dance there'd be a lot of frolicking in the bushes and one of the theories was that slave-owners allowed that because it would mean more slaves for them. "
Our own culture is comparatively conservative, especially with anything to do with our bodies - the pelvic area for example is taboo. In African culture it's not at all, she says.
"The energy that comes from these dances is what we would consider to be raw and very vibrant and very energetic.
"A lot of Brazilian dances are very sexual - some are sensual, but this show is more high energy. If there's one word to come out of that show, it's definitely colour, vibrancy and energy."
See it
Bahia of All Colours is presented by Balé Folclórico Da Bahia at the Regent Theatre, Dunedin, on October 12 and 13 at 8pm as part of the Otago Festival of the Arts. www.otagofestival.co.nz.
Favela Beat, a film on Afro-Brazilian culture and dance, by Rowena Baines will screen at the Regent Theatre at 7pm on Friday November 16 as part of the "ScienceTeller: Student Film Premiere 2012" presented by the Centre for Science Communication.
