….I’d flown from Rio to São Paulo the day before and spent the afternoon foxing around Vila Madalena in a black and white checkered top and kitten heels, feeling very mod concrete poetry meets lugubrious banana plants. At night I drank caipirinhas on the sidewalk, where the dancing spills into the road and stops traffic: in the corner bar I’d stopped in, quaint but urban, a man played a violin while women waltzed.

My anxiety spiked the next morning on the two-hour drive toward rural Americana. As we pulled off the highway and down a dirt road, I wondered if the horse and buggy kicking up red dust were part of the festa’s aesthetics, but my Uber driver said no—likely the local mode of transport. I tried to explain to her what I was getting us into, but she seemed unfazed, explaining there were many folkloric celebrations in Brazil. She planned to attend….