Frevo is a dance and musical style originating from Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, traditionally associated with Brazilian Carnival. The word frevo is said to come from frever, a variant of the Portuguese word ferver (to boil). It is said that the sound of the frevo will make listeners and dancers feel as if they are boiling on the ground. The word frevo is used for both the frevo music and the frevo dance.

It was declared as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2012, under the title "Frevo, performing arts of the Carnival of Recife".

The frevo music came first. By the end of the 19th century, bands from the Brazilian Army regiments based in the city of Recife started a tradition of parading during the Carnival. Since the Carnival is originally linked to Catholicism, they played religious procession marches and martial music, as well. A couple of infantry and cavalry regiments had famous bands which attracted many followers amongst the populace of the state and it was just a matter of time to people start to compare one to another and cheer for their favorite bands. The two most famous bands were the Espanha (meaning Spain), whose conductor was of Spanish origin, and the 14, from the 14th Infantry Regiment. The bands started to compete with each other and also started playing faster and faster, louder and louder.

In order to end the violence, the police started to pursue the capoeiras and arrested many during their exhibitions. The latter reacted in a clever way by carrying umbrellas instead of knives and also disguising the capoeira movements as dance movements. Thus the dances evolved into what would be a unique form of dance - the frevo dance.

Frevo is more than 100 years old (1907) and naturally it has developed throughout this time to reach its current form.

In the same spirit of competition that created it, Frevo was developed by transforming the capoeira movements into the quasi-acrobatical movements of the dance. Each dancer worked hard in order to develop a new movement which required much rehearsal, strength, endurance, and flexibility and the fight between the groups moved from the physical to the aesthetical field. Frevo dance movements include jumps, coordinated fast leg movements, leg flexions, tumbling, etc.

Frevo dance is now known as passo and Frevo dancers as passistas. The clothes of the passistas also developed from regular clothing to a skimpy attire that is more appropriate for the movements. They are also very colorful, so they can be more visible in the crowd.

The umbrella also developed from regular black umbrellas with wooden handles to a small and also colorful umbrella. Umbrella movements are part of the dance and doing acrobatics with them is a common practice. It's not uncommon to see passistas throwing umbrellas in the air, do some movement, and catch them again. They also pass the umbrellas between their legs. The most common movement is just swinging the umbrella and passing it from hand to hand while executing regular movements.