Oito Costas com Costas
Forró figure-eight through a back-to-back pass
ForroLevel: Improver2 min read2 citations
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Oito costas com costas ("figure eight, back to back") is a spatial floor figure belonging to the named vocabulary of forró universitário, the codified partnering stream of forró — the social partner dance rooted in Brazil, the largest country in South America and the only nation in the Americas to count Portuguese as an official language.[1] In that system, oito designates any figure-eight floor trace, and costas com costas identifies the back-to-back passing orientation that sets this variant apart from forward-facing figure-eights.
The figure extends forró's lateral two-step basic into a double-loop path. From the embrace, the leader raises his joined hand — typically left to follower's right — to open the hold, redirects his follower into the near loop while himself pivoting away, and steers both bodies along a shared arc until their backs briefly align. The joined hand stays active and low through the crossover, sustaining torsional connection and cueing the direction of the unwind. He then reverses weight and direction, draws the follower through a mirror-image second loop, and closes back to the basic. The follower sustains the two-step pulse throughout, contributes roughly a half-rotation toward the shared axis at each crossing, and mirrors the opposing loop to complete the eight. The figure's symmetry — each loop a reflection of the other, each crossing yielding the same back-to-back configuration — is what the compound name encodes: oito for the path, costas com costas for the moment.
Danced in 2/4 time, the figure fits naturally at relaxed to mid-tempo forró speeds, where both loops can resolve within a short musical phrase without compressing the turns. It exemplifies forró's place within Brazil's broader popular-music tradition, historically shaped by the synthesis of domestic forms with international genres into distinctly Brazilian expressive idioms.[2]
How it's danced
Lead and follow cues
Count2/4 forró time. Built on the lateral quick-quick basic (one weight change per beat); the full figure spans roughly two short phrases (~8 weight changes) — about four counts for the first loop into the back-to-back pass, four for the mirror loop back to facing. Forró has no On1/On2 frame; the figure floats over the lateral pulse rather than breaking on a fixed count.
Lead
From the lateral basic, raise the joined hand (commonly his left to her right) to open the embrace and step to initiate rotation. Send the follower along the first loop while turning the opposite way so the two pass back to back; let the joined hand travel over or behind to keep the link through the crossing. At the eight's centre reverse the lead into a mirror-image second loop, then lower the hand and close to the basic facing her. Rotation is staged: open about a quarter to bring the pair side-by-side, continue to roughly half-around (back-to-back) at the crossing, then unwind — two opposing half-passes, not one continuous spin.
Follow
Keep the basic's pulse alive and follow the raised hand into a rotation, turning about a quarter to side-by-side and continuing to roughly half-around so the backs meet at the crossing; re-face as the loop completes. Mirror the motion the opposite way for the second loop, then settle back to the lateral basic facing the leader. Maintain the hand connection throughout — let it pass overhead or behind rather than releasing — and stay low in the knees so the rotation stays grounded.
Song timingComfortable at relaxed mid-tempo forró — roughly the pace of a moderate xote (about 110-135 bpm felt pulse) — where the back-to-back pass has room to breathe. Faster baião and arrasta-pé (150 bpm and up) compress the rotation and demand a tighter frame; very slow tempos open room to stylise the pass. As a turning figure it reads best over a steady, danceable groove rather than at the genre's fastest extremes.
Learn first
Prerequisites
- Forró básico (lateral two-step)
- Basic volta/giro (turn)
- Costas com costas (standalone back-to-back pass)
- Maintaining a hand connection through a turn
Watch out
Common mistakes
- Releasing the joined hand at the back-to-back crossing, severing the connection that defines the figure.
- Under-rotating each loop so the partners never reach true back-to-back and the eight collapses into a single flat arc.
- Losing the lateral basic's pulse so the loops drift off the 2/4 beat.
- Leading the rotation by pushing the follower around rather than through the raised-hand frame.
- Standing up out of the soft-knee forró posture so the turn floats and the embrace pops open.
Don't confuse with
Easily confused moves
- Oito alone — the plain figure-eight without the back-to-back pass.
- Costas com costas used alone — a single back-to-back rotation, not the full figure-eight.
- Ocho — the Argentine tango figure-eight, a solo footwork pattern, not a partnered passing figure.
- Salsa or bachata figure-eight styling — different dances and mechanics; 'paso cruzado'/'cruzado' refer to cross-step footwork, not this figure.
Around the world
Other names
Forró universitário (São Paulo and national dance schools)
Oito costas com costas
the codified full name of the figure-eight performed through a back-to-back pass
Forró universitário (informal usage)
Oito
shortened where the back-to-back reading of the eight is the default
Forró universitário (informal usage)
Costas com costas
emphasising the back-to-back pass; also names the standalone back-to-back rotation
International forró scenes (Europe and elsewhere)
Oito costas com costas
Portuguese terms are generally retained outside Brazil
References
How to cite this article
Choose a style and copy the citation.
Bailar Editorial Team. (2026). Oito Costas com Costas. Bailar Biblioteca. Retrieved July 4, 2026, from https://getbailar.com/biblioteca/move/forro-oito-costas-com-costas
Bailar Editorial Team. “Oito Costas com Costas.” Bailar Biblioteca, 2026, getbailar.com/biblioteca/move/forro-oito-costas-com-costas. Accessed 4 July 2026.
Bailar Editorial Team. “Oito Costas com Costas.” Bailar Biblioteca. Accessed July 4, 2026. https://getbailar.com/biblioteca/move/forro-oito-costas-com-costas.
@misc{bailar-move-forro-oito-costas-com-costas, author = {{Bailar Editorial Team}}, title = {{Oito Costas com Costas}}, year = {2026}, howpublished = {Bailar Biblioteca}, url = {https://getbailar.com/biblioteca/move/forro-oito-costas-com-costas}, note = {Accessed: 2026-07-04} }
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