The programme
Capoeira, samba de roda and the dances of the orixás explained
What each rhythm actually is, where it comes from, and what to watch for on the night.
Check availability ↗The rhythms at a glance
| Instrument | Dance | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Berimbau | Capoeira | The bow's single string and gourd resonator setting the whole game's rhythm |
| Atabaque | Dances of the orixás | The deeper, more ceremonial pace against capoeira's game-like energy |
| Pandeiro | Samba de roda | The circle formation and call-and-response singing |
| Sticks | Maculelê, where it runs | The sticks striking in time with the drums, not the dancers' feet |
Capoeira and the berimbau
Capoeira is often described as a fight disguised as a dance — two players trade cartwheels, kicks and sweeps inside a circle (a roda) of clapping, singing onlookers, never quite making contact. What sets the pace is the berimbau, a single-string musical bow with a gourd resonator that belongs to Bahia's Candomblé tradition and, by most accounts, wasn't adopted into capoeira itself until early in the 20th century. A skilled berimbau player can speed up or slow the whole game with the instrument's rhythm alone, which is part of why it's treated as the lead instrument in any capoeira circle, this show's included.
The dances of the orixás
Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian religion built around the orixás — deities each associated with a force of nature, a colour and a distinct dance and drum rhythm, played on atabaque hand-drums. A folklore show like this one stages theatricalised versions of that repertoire for an audience, which is a different thing from an actual Candomblé ceremony (a terreiro session) — the company is performing a tradition, not conducting a religious rite, and it's worth watching the segment with that distinction in mind rather than assuming you're seeing an authentic ceremony.
Samba de roda and the pandeiro
Samba de roda is a circle dance and song form that took shape in Bahia in the 19th century, closely tied to the same Afro-Bahian world as capoeira and Candomblé's orixá and caboclo traditions. A soloist dances inside a ring of singers and musicians playing pandeiro (frame drum), guitar and hand claps, and it's widely credited as one of the direct ancestors of the samba later associated with Rio's carnival. UNESCO recognised samba de roda on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2005, a reflection of how central the form is to Bahian identity specifically, distinct from Rio's later, larger-scale carnival samba.
Maculelê, where it appears
Maculelê is a stick dance, traditionally performed with a pair of wooden batons (sometimes machetes in ceremonial versions) struck together in time with atabaque drums — by most accounts it began as a harvest or mock-battle dance from Bahia's Afro-Brazilian communities before folklore companies adopted it as stage repertoire. Whether it appears on a given night depends on the specific company's programme; if it's part of the show, it tends to be one of the most physically striking numbers, the sticks cracking together in a rhythm as precise as the drumming underneath it.
What's typical and what varies
A live folklore show performed by a working company isn't a fixed script — the exact running order, which numbers appear and how long each runs can shift from night to night depending on the performers rostered and the room. Treat the sequence described here as broadly typical of a Bahian folklore evening rather than a guaranteed set list for your specific date, and if a particular number matters to you, it's worth asking GetYourGuide's support ahead of time rather than assuming. A company performing several nights a week will usually rotate soloists through the same core repertoire, so the shape of the evening (capoeira, then the circle dances, then the ceremonial numbers) tends to hold even when the individual performers change.
Watching respectfully
Because part of the programme draws on Candomblé's sacred repertoire, it's worth watching that segment with the same respect you'd bring to any religiously rooted performance art — Candomblé remains a living faith in Salvador, not a historical curiosity, even when a folklore company presents a staged version of its dances for a paying audience. Applause is welcome at the end of a number, as with any performance, but treating the orixá segment as a photo opportunity in the same register as the capoeira game can read as tone-deaf to Bahian audiences; a beat of quiet attention before the applause tends to land better than shouting through it.