Charlotte’s Lavagem Festival honors Afro-Brazilian traditions with music and dance
WFAE 90.7 FM radio featured Associate Professor of Dance Tamara Williams and the annual festival she has established in Charlotte. Story by Elvis Menayese.
A four-day festival wrapped up in Charlotte over the weekend. The Lavagem Festival honors Brazilian indigenous people and the African diaspora through music and dance.
A dance procession made its way from a parking lot onto Shamrock Drive in east Charlotte. Children dressed in white walked alongside women carrying flowers on their heads. Tamara Williams helped organize the festival.
“The Lavagem is a celebration in Brazil where they cleanse the city,” Williams said. “They start at the beginning of the year in all white to cleanse, to bring in good energy.”
Williams started hosting the festival to help unite the community after the COVID-19 pandemic.