Casa Brasil hosts exhibition on Brazil's traditional June Festivals

Casa Brasil launches this week the Brasil Junino exhibition, created to introduce foreign audiences to the typical songs, dances and dishes of Brazil's traditional Festas de São João, or St. John Festivals (also called Festas Juninas, or June Festivals, since they usually take place in that month).

Conceived by the Ministry of Tourism in partnership with the Brazilian Institute of Integration - Culture, Tourism and Citizenship, the exhibition aims to promote São João as a tourist product, showcasing the diversity of attractions of one of the country's largest cultural manifestations. The exhibition will be open to visitors every day until 18 September.

Brazil's most popular festivity after Carnival, the St. John Festivals have a strong impact on local economies. The exhibition continues the work the Ministry of Tourism initiated in February this year to transform the June Festivals calendar into a tourist product, highlighting its attractive features to Brazilian and foreign visitors alike. In line with that goal, June Festivals around the country received R$ 6 million in investments from the federal government in 2016.

“The Brasil Junino exhibition portrays the work the Ministry of Tourism has been developing to highlight the value of the St. John Festivals, which are such an important festivity, as a tourist product for Brazilians and foreigners," said acting Minister of Tourism Alberto Alves.

The space received presentations from the Balé Flor do Cerrado group and the Mateus and Catirina duo, who travel the country portraying Brazilian culture through theatre performances. Quadrilha (square-dancing) groups and forró bands and trios will also be in attendance, all to show visitors the cultural richness of the St. John festivities that take over a number of Brazilian destinations in June.

For carioca (Rio native) couple João and Isabel Paixão, the experience was well worth it. “It is amazing how the organisers managed to represent the diversity of Brazilian culture so well in this space. The Brasil Junino exhibition looks very cool. This is a typical Brazilian festival, and it was very nice to see how well it was represented in the smallest details, including even the namoradeiras”, he said, referring to the traditional clay dolls that are perched upon window sills during St. John Festivals.