O forró como prática de dança no distrito do Porto: O contributo e o impacto do isolamento social devido à COVID 19 na vida sociocultural e na atividade física dos seus praticantes

Abstract

Forró, music and dance with origins in Northeast Brazil, is currently practiced in several countries. This work aimed to find out about the contribution of forró dance to physical activity and the sociocultural life of the people who practice it, and the impacts of social isolation due to COVID-19 in the students' perception. The sample consisted of 23 individuals of both genders, aged between 20 and 69 years old, who practiced regular forró dance classes in dance schools in the district of Porto, before social isolation due to COVID-19. An online questionnaire was used, consisting of three parts. The first concerns the characterization of the participants and the second part relates to forró as a physical activity, focusing the participants' attention on the time periods before and during social isolation. The third part of the questionnaire contained questions related to the socio-cultural dimension of forró practice, also focusing the participant's attention on those periods before and during social isolation. The quantitative analysis of the results was performed using the statistical analysis program "Statistical Package for Social" (SPSS), for Windows in version 26. The descriptive frequency was used for the categorical variables, for the numerical variables we proceeded with the application of the "Shapiro Wilk" normality test, the T test was used for paired samples when normality occurred, and the "Wilcoxon" test for when there was a denormality violation. For content analysis, categories and subcategories were chosen according to the occurrence of common responses among the participants' narratives. The categories for physical activity were: physical-motor order and psychological order. The categories for socio-cultural contributions were: socialization, interaction between practitioners, and learning and culture. Regarding the impacts of social isolation on the physical activity and socio-cultural life of the participants, there was a reduction in the number of forró practitioners, in terms of weekly frequency and hours of practice. Participants also reported that they missed socializing, people to practice dance with and sharing. This study provides relevant information for understanding the importance of forró dance in the context of health related physical activity.