cumbia

Cumbia originated on Colombia's Caribbean coast, from the musical and cultural fusion of Native Colombians, slaves brought from Africa, and the Spanish, during colonial times in the old country of Pocabuy, which is located in Colombia's Momposina region.

Cumbia was originally a courtship dance practised amongst Africans in freetimes, which was later mixed with European instruments and musical characteristics. Cumbia is very popular in the Andean region and the Southern Cone of South America. It continues to be more popular than salsa in many parts of these regions. The slave courtship rite, which featured dance prominently, was traditionally performed with music played by pairs of men and women and with male and female dancers. Women playfully waved their long skirts while holding a candle, and men danced behind the women with one hand behind their back and the other hand either holding a hat, putting it on, or taking it off in a playful manner. Male dancers also carry a red handkerchief which we either wrap around our necks, circularly wave in the air, or hold out for the women to hold. Until the mid-20th century, Cumbia was considered by the moralistic catholicized, to be an inappropriate dance performed primarily by the lower social classes.

The basic rhythm structure is 2/4. Due to its origins, both African and New World Native influences can be felt in Cumbia. In Colombia, Cumbia can be played with a rhythm structure of 2/4 and 2/2, while in Mexico, it is also played with a rhythm structure of 2/2, whereas in Panama, it may be played with a rhythm structure of 2/4 and 6/8. There in Panama, the processes that shaped the culture and idiosyncrasies of the Colombian Caribbean are the same; through three cultural aspects; hispanic, black and indigenous, dating through independence from Spain until today, which has also occurred in the neighbouring nations of the isthmus.

Researchers in the field wrote about its appearance in the Colonial era. In the evenings, Creole families would gather to recite poetry and perform music typical of Spain and other parts of Europe. Other nights, they would bring their slaves to play their traditional drums and dances. Amongst the favourite African dances was ‘El Punto’, which consisted of intrinsic, abdominal movements by black women dancing alone. Another dance was the ‘Cumbia’. For this one, the couples advanced to the middle of the room, both men and women, and gradually formed a circle of couples. The dance step of the man was a kind of leap backwards as the woman slid forward carrying a lit candle in her hand while a coloured handkerchief was also held.

It is mostly asserted that cumbia's basic beat evolved from Guinean cumbé music. Additionally, this drumming rhythm can be found in music of Yoruba (in the rhythm associated with the god Obatalá), and in other musical traditions brought from west Africa. The Spanish ‘conquistadores’ used the ports of mainland South America to import African slaves, who tried to preserve their musical traditions and also turned the drumming and dances into a courtship ritual. Cumbia was mainly performed with just drums and percussion.

The slaves were later influenced by the sounds of New World instruments from the Kogui and Kuna tribes, who lived between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Montes de María in Colombia. Millo flutes, gaita flutes, and the guacharaca (an instrument similar to the güiro) were instruments borrowed from these New World groups. The interaction between Africans and indigenes of the New World under the Spanish caste system created a mixture from which the gaitero (cumbia interpreter) appeared, with a defined identity by the 1800s. The European guitars were added later through Spanish influence. According to legend, the accordion was added after a German cargo ship carrying the instruments sank resulting in in salvaging of accordions washed ashore on the northwest coast of Colombia. However, it's more likely that German immigrants brought the instrument to Barranquilla in the 19th century. The accordion has since been adopted by the musicians of cumbia. There are many variations and style of this danceform, including ‘chacha’, ‘…sonidera’, ‘…villera’ and ‘chanchona’.

More recently, another format has emerged under many creative guises, such as `technocumbia’, ‘digital cumbia’ or `nu-cumbia´, which can all be included in a global movement of electronic music producers and disc jockeys such as Toy Selectah, Copia Doble Systema, Frikstailers, Cumbia Dub Club (CDC), Bomba Estereo, and El Hijo de la Cumbia who’ve been mixing cumbia rhythms, samples with electronic melodies. The style varies greatly, incorporating influences from genres such as Dancehall, Hip-Hop, Reggaeton and Electronica, in general. Notable labels include Generation Bass, ZZK Records, Mad Decent, Terror Negro Records, Bersa Discos and UrbanWorld Records.

For more detailed research and dance instruction you may want to read some more from the following links. Whatever your whim, it is here in South America where you may catch the cumbia cultural collectives making a show of our more traditional triplicate musical mixtures.

http://www.soundsandcolours.com/articles/colombia/in-a-nutshell-cumbia/

http://www.soundsandcolours.com/articles/colombia/a-musical-journey-through-cumbia/

forró

http://www.avioesdoforro.com.br/

If you’ve thought of a community centre recently or your local church or religious buildings and why they are left empty so much of the time perhaps you’ve even been considering how to make better use of those locales. Well, there can be little better than Forró (Portuguese pronunciation: [foˈʁɔ]). It is a kind of Brazilian dance, originating in the northeast, as well as a word used to denote the different genres of music which accompany the dances. Both are much in evidence during the annual Festas Juninas (June Parties), a part of Brazilian traditional culture which celebrates some Catholic saints. The most celebrated day of these endless parties is known as São João, although many of Junes saints are celebrated in a spectrum of manners.

There are several theories on the origin of the name.

"Forró" in the same written way (with the accented o) in the Hungarian language means "burning hot". In the 1940s, there were thousands of Hungarian emigrants arriving in South America. This is thought to have led to the naming of this dance.

Another accepted theory puts forró as a derivative of forrobodó, meaning "great party" or "commotion". This is the view held by Brazilian folklorist Câmara Cascudo, who studied the Brazilian northeast  most of his life. Forrobodó is believed to come from the word forbodó (itself a corruption of fauxbourdon), which was used in the Portuguese court to define a dull party.

Another theory often heard popularly in Brazil is that the word forró is a derivative of the English expression "for all" and that it originated in the early 1900s. English, Scottish and Welsh engineers on the Great Western Railway of Brazil near Recife would throw balls on weekends and classify them as either only for railroad personnel or for the general populace ("for all"). This belief was somewhat reinforced by a similar practice by USAF personnel stationed at the Natal Air Force Base during World War II, but that has been refuted because before the USAF went to Natal, the name "Forró" was already in use.

Forró is the most popular musical and dance genre in Brazil's northeast. Different genres of music can be used to dance forró and some of us have even given demonstrations of this dance without any musicians or recordings. Traditionally, forró as a musical genre, includes only three instrumentalists who play accordions, zabumbas and metal triangles. It is most usual for the accordion player to sing with speedy, entertaining and often humorous lyrics. The dance also becomes slightly different if you consider Brazilian regional variations. As part of the massive popular culture forró dances are in constant flux. The dance known as forró collegial  is the most common style amongst the middle-class students of colleges and universities in the southeast, having influences from other dances including salsa and samba. The traditional music used to dance forró was brought to the southeast from the northeast by Luiz Gonzaga, who transformed the baião (a word originated from baiano and assigned to warm-up for artists to search for inspiration before playing) into a more sophisticated rhythm with more musicianship, including keyboards and electric guitarists; lead\rhythm and bassists. In later years, forró achieved popularity throughout Brazil, in the form of a slower genre also referred to as xote that has been influenced by pop-rock music to become more acceptable for Brazilian youths of the southeastern, southern, northern, western and central regions.

Forró lyrics are usually about love and romance, passion, jealousy, or reminiscing about an ex-lover. They often are about northeastern themes and the longing or homesickness (saudade) that was often experienced during migrations in search of work. An example of this are the lyrics of a folkloric, anonymous song, very popular in the northeast and made famous across the country by Luiz Gonzaga, "Asa Branca". The literal translation is ‘White Wing’ and there is even a recent American version played by Forro in the Dark, who featured David Byrne, in which the singer says he will return home when the rains fall again on the dry, barren land of the northeastern sertão. The residents will know he is coming when they see a certain white winged bird of the region that only arrives when it rains.

Luiz Gonzaga and Jackson do Pandeiro are two of the most traditional forró composers. Integral forró musicians include Elba Ramalho, Aviões do Forro, Garota Safada, Forró Sacode, Geraldo Azevedo, Trio Nordestino, Dominguinhos, Falamansa, Trio Virgulino, Sivuca, Pertúcio Amorim, Rastapé, Geraldinho Lins, João do Vale, Flávio José, Trio Forrozão, Santana, Jorge de Altinho, Nando Cordel, Aldemário Coelho, Genival Lacerda and Renato Leite.

There are three rhythms of forró, xote (a slower-paced rhythm), baião (the original forró) and arrasta-pé (the fastest of the three), and amongst these many styles of dancing, which vary from region to region, and may be known by different names according to the location. Forró is danced in pairs, usually very close together, with the man's left hand holding the woman's right hand as in a traditional waltz, his right arm around her back and her left arm around his neck. However, observing and participating forró, you’ll find that’s about the only similarity as the Hungarian theory suggests, it is usually a fiery dance! Other styles may require staying partially away, or at a considerable distance, only holding their hands up the shoulders. Influences from salsa and some Caribbean dances have given greater mobility to forró, with the woman, and occasionally the man, being spun in various ways, although it's not mandatory to gyrate at all, and more complex movements may prove impossible to be executed in the usually crowded dancing area of ‘baile de forró’.

Here’s a contemporary list of the most popular styles of forró in Brazil;

Closer pairings, xote;

§  xote: a basic style, danced close together in a left-left-right-right movement, and has no spinning or variations

§  forró-love: similar to xote, but with a strong influence from zouk-love

§  universitário: the most popular style outside the northeast, much like the xote, but with the partners moving forward and backward, much like traditional Bolero. It contains many variations of movements

§  miudinho: the man dances with his left side slightly tilted, his left hand on the woman's waist and both her hands around his neck. Danced in the same place (mobility can be gained through spinning), has a lot of hip movements

§  puladinho/manquinho: is danced with the man's right leg still and his left leg marking the beats on the ground, while the woman with her left leg still and her right leg moving (the partners can exchange the leg positions, although it's not common)

§  merenguinho: the partners move along the sides, with movements similar to Merengue dance

§  cavalguinho: much like the puladinho, but with man and woman marking both their legs on the ground in alternate tempos, as if riding a horse.

Xote originally has its roots in the schottische dance.

Baião

§  baião or pé-de-serra: basically a style of xote, but with the partners tilting to the sides and moving their legs less to follow the faster rhythm

§  cacau: comes from Paraíba, in which the partners dance slightly away from each other with very fast leg movements

§  amassa-cacau: a variation of cacau from Ceará, it's danced less close and demands a lot of hip movements, with the legs mimicking a person squeezing cacao

§  valsado: danced close together, consists of moving along the sides, encircling a leg in turn behind a dance partner

§  valsadão: same as valsado, but danced slightly away from each other. It is, together with universitário, the richest style in terms of movements and variations

§  forrófieira: a newer style, mixes the traditional forró with steps and influence from Samba de Gafieira, and it has become quite popular in Rio de Janeiro and some parts of northeast.

Fast forró or Arrasta-pé:

§  arrasta-pé can only be danced in its own style, much like a very fast xote, but alternately marking the beats on the ground with both legs and therefore feet merely sliding speedily along smooth dancefloors or dry sandy earth soils.

Forro dancing styles are informally often grouped into two main "families", simply for practical reasons: The older Nordestino (northeastern) type of Forro and the Universitário (university) Forro that developed more recently in the south.

Nordestino forro is danced with the couple much closer together, with their legs often inter-twined and a characteristic sideways shuffle movement. Because of the intimacy, there are not as many step variations in this style.

Universitário forro, with its origins in the big southeastern cities of Brazil, is the more popular style outside of the north-east. Its basic step is forward-backwards - slightly similar to traditional Bolero or Salsa. With more space between the pair, many more moves, steps and turns are possible than in Nordestino styles. The more common steps include;

§  Dobradiça; the couple opens to each side like a hinged door

§  Caminhada: simple step of the couple to the front and to the back

§  Comemoração: balancing steps, with the man's leg between the woman's and vice versa

§  Giros: a variety of turns or spins, both simple and ones involving both dancers

§  Oito: a movement of both dancers around each other, side by side.

Universitário forro supposedly evolved from (and is still very similar to) the pé-de-serra/baião styles, while Nordestino is used to refer to the styles more like the original xote.

These links that are more informative of recordings and discs available in this emerging market and live events and touring groups may be useful in your quest to discover better the music and dance genre, widely known as forró. The best way of finding your space in the forró world is to go to a venue or arena and just try dancing forró. Despite all of this information if you can skank to reggae rhythms then it is a fourfold speed step up to dance FORRÓ. And after a few minutes you and your partner may begin experimenting a few more daring moves from your own humble origins. However, living in Brazilian cities, you may then be able to take dance classes and gradually progress with guided practise but being really honest it is best to find a patient partner and just enjoy dancing this beautiful South American style naturally anytime.

http://www.forroemvinil.com

http://www.soforro.net/

TANGO

Tango originated in the area of the Rio de la Plata, which is an area  of Gaúcho cultural heritage mostly associated with northern Argentina and Uruguay, and the dance and music spread to the rest of the world soon after.

Early tango was known as tango criollo, or put more simply tango. Nowadays, there are many tango dance styles, including Argentine tango, Uruguayan tango, ballroom tango and international styles, for example, Finnish tango, and vintage tangos. What many consider to be the authentic tango is that closest to that originally danced in Argentina and Uruguay, though similar styles of tango have developed into maturely distinct dance styles of their own right.

In 2009, Argentina and Uruguay suggested that Tango be inscribed onto the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists and in October of the same year UNESCO approved it.

Tango is a dance that has influences from European and African culture. Dances from the candomblé ceremonies of former slave peoples helped shape modern day Tango while the musicianship appears far more Eurocentric and we can honestly say that compared to most modern danceforms Tango most certainly appears to derive itself from some European masochistic orientation towards an orderly upright coupling. And yet having written that, it is an essentially urban South American dance with an extraordinary sensuality and without any personal experience, it certainly appears to be a closeknit, sternly erect, synchronised embodiment of coupledom. It originated in lower-class districts of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The music derived from the fusion of various forms of music from Europe, with the violin being integral. The word "tango" seems to have first been used in connection with the dance in the 1890s. Initially, it was just one of the many dances in those urban conglomerates, but it soon became popular throughout all levels of society, as theatres and street barrel organs spread it from the suburbs to the working-class slums, which were packed with hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, primarily Italians, Spanish and some French. Of all the famous intercontinental dances from South America, it is probably the most ‘European’ and it appears that amongst all those immigrants, the musicians made the best of what they had and the urbanites have been stepping up to tango musicians’ mastery for several generations, making tango what it is today, Argentina’s national danceform.

In the early years of the 20th century, dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires travelled to Europe, and the first European tango craze took place in Paris, soon followed by London, Berlin, and other capitals. Towards the end of 1913 it hit New York in the USA, and Finland. In the USA around 1911 the word "tango" was often applied to dances in a 2/4 or 4/4 rhythm. The term fell victim to fashion and did not indicate that tango steps would be used in the dance, although they might have been. Tango music was sometimes played, but at a rather fast tempo. Instructors of the period would sometimes refer to this as a "North American tango", versus the "Rio de la Plata tango". By 1914, more authentic tango stylings had been developed, along with some variations like Albert Newman's "Minuet" tango.

In Argentina, following the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, and authoritarian  restrictions introduced after the overthrow of the Hipólito Yrigoyen government in 1930 meant Tango was thrown into decline. Its fortunes were reversed as Tango again became widely fashionable and a matter of national pride under the government of Juan Perón. The ups and downs of Tango left it in decline again in the 1950s with economic depression and as the military dictatorships banned public gatherings, followed by the popularity of north Ameerican fashions, including rock’n’roll.

In 2009 the tango was declared as part of the world's "intangible cultural heritage" by UNESCO.

The Tango danceform consists of a variety of styles that developed in different regions and eras of Argentine, Uruguayan and more recently, other locations around the world. The dance developed as a result of many cultural elements, such as the crowding of the venue, many couples competition for status and the fashions in clothing. The styles are mostly danced in either open embrace, where a lead dancer and a following dancer have space between their bodies, or close embrace, where a leading dancer and a fellow connect either chest-to-chest (Argentine tango) or in the upper thigh, hip area (normally with more international tango).

We should consider its many diverse naming and styles such as; canyengue, oriental tango, which is usuallt Uruguayan, liso, orillero, camacupense, which is most associated with Angolan dancers, milonguero, show Tango (a.k.a. fantasia), ballroom tango and Finnish tango, which is a northern European form.

Worth note and study is "milonguero", which is characterised by a very close embrace, small steps, and syncopated rhythmic footwork. It is based on the petitero or caquero style of the crowded downtown clubs of the '50s and is accompanied by faster musicianship.

In contrast, the tango that originated in the family clubs of the suburban neighbourhoods (Villa Urquiza/Devoto/Avellaneda etc.) emphasises long elegant steps, and complex figures. In that style, the embrace is regularly opened briefly, to permit execution of the complicated footwork. The complex figures of this style became the basis for a theatrical performance style of Tango seen in touring stage shows. For stage purposes, the embrace is often very open, and the complex footwork is augmented with gymnastic lifts, kicks, and drops.

A newer style sometimes called ‘tango nuevo’, has been popularised in recent years by a younger generation of dancers. The embrace is often quite open and very elastic, permitting the lead dancer to create a greater variety of more complex floor oriented circles and swirls. This style is often associated with those who enjoy dancing to jazz and techno-oriented "alternative tango" music, in addition to more traditional Tango.

Whatever our first impressions of Tango are or have been, perhaps it is best appreciated closer to home in Montevideo or Buenos Aires, where its feet have been firmly and sternly set for several generations. No matter how international it has become, Tango is well rooted in the southern Atlantic part of this magnificent and noble continent. Tango is perhaps the most robust of all American dances, where any couple appear to be struggling in an agonising display of coquettishness in an endearing yet sincere struggle for dominance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulVIL1TVtTc&feature=related

Finding the best in South America: SAMBA

Finding the best in South America: SAMBA

Although it thrives through all of Brazil, especially in the states of the northeast, Minas Gerais, and São Paulo, samba is most frequently identified as a musical expression of urban Rio de Janeiro, where it is said to have been born and developed between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. Many in Bahia question that, claiming that it was actually first performed in Salvador in the times from when slaves first arrived in ‘Bahia dos Santos’, which was the seat of colonial government. We can state comfortably that there was minimal, direct, European influence in the making of samba.

In the Aurélio2010edition dictionary, samba is defined as a Brazilian dance with African origins with a bipedal compass accompanied syncopatically. The second definition is of the music and associated lyrics. Those of us who dance samba usually use all of our bodies with at least part of a foot on the ground most of the time but exponents are seen floating somewhere near the surface of enormous vehicles and dancefloors. There are sambistas in wheelchairs and a few of us can ‘sambar’ in cars and even on horseback! ‘Passistas’, who are the specially trained dancers, wear extraordinarily high-heeled shoes or daintily laced boots and very little more during carnaval. They have an unbelievable ability to make a party shake all around the world and many millions are witnessing continuously more daring innovations at carnaval every year upon year. Samba-ing, if you can imagine doing samba anywhere, anytime: then you’ll be getting a little closer to understanding how popular samba really is, also as a dance!

Batuque is sometimes considered a subgenre of samba and associated ‘batucadas’ produce music and dance originating from Cabo Verde and some historians have asserted that it is a truly pan-African musical form. An explanation as to why batuque and then samba were originally exclusively South American is that drums were never illegalized by the European slave-trading colonial authorities in the southern hemisphere of the Americas, whereas drums were destroyed in the USA, for example. We have also maintained more diverse percussion and it is sometimes difficult to define or find sufficient evidence to place the origins of instruments, like the world famous drum structured ‘cuíca’. In Rio, the dance practised by former slaves who migrated from Bahia in the late 19^th century, came into contact with and incorporated other genres played in the city, including ‘polka’, ‘maxixe’, ‘lundu’, and ‘xote’, thus acquiring a completely unique character and creating urban ‘carioca’ samba in its now recognised and established form of traditional ‘samba schools’, for example Leopoldense. Samba schools are large organisations committeed into hundreds and thousands, incorporating many more participants, temporarily, which compete annually at carnival parades with enormous thematic floats (trucks that have a large house-sized structure steadied on the trailer), elaborate costumes, and original music in ‘Sapucaì’, Rio’s sambadrome. The music and stars of carnaval are new every year and there are uncountable aficionados, who’re ready and willing to explain almost everything to evermore newcomers.

In the beginning, carnaval was an organised street rebellion against christian authorities and many contemporary protesters are inspired by the original, samba. It used to be a minority who planned, participated and progressed with this world culture. However, in 1917, Pelo Telefone (By Phone) was recorded and it is considered the first commercially viable samba song, which has been claimed to have been written by Ernesto dos Santos, a.k.a. ‘Donga’. There were, of course, many individuals who were included in that collective effort. From then on, samba started to be struan around Brasil, firstly by radio presenters who were associated with carnaval and then developing its own place in the music market.

The contours of modern samba came to fruition in Rio de Janeiro towards the end of the 1920s, from the innovations of groups of composers forming carnaval blocks in the neighbourhoods of Estácio de Sá, Osvaldo Cruz, Mangueira, Salgueiro and São Carlos. Since then, there have been many great composers of samba, but people in the streets have been carrying the standards, the banners and the rhythms with their feet firmly floating in Brazilian urbanisations, thus protecting, promoting and profligating the dance genre with clear intentions. In Rio, samba was initially viewed with prejudice and discrimination by the minorities in power because it had black roots and the authorities were racist or merely fearful of the consequences. With hypnotic rhythms and melodic intonations, in addition to playful and powerful lyrics, samba eventually conquered the mostly white middle classes as well, thus really freeing the spirits of millions every year most notably just before lent begins. Other genres derived from samba, such as ‘samba-canção’, ‘samba das marchinhas’, ‘samba com breques’, ‘bossa nova’, ‘samba reggae’ and ‘pagode’, have all become respected entities in themselves. Recently, it’s been pagode which has been bridging the annual, pre-lent, free-for-all, carnavalesque festivities and giving credit to the more modest samba gatherings, pagode is an intellectualised and often romanticised version with fewer musicians that is often more fun than the enormous street parades that emerge every year with full blown carnaval.

Samba’s success in Europe and the fareast not only confirms its ability to win followers, regardless of language but the proliferation of samba schools in foreign lands forming a Brazilian diaspora through almost all of western Europe and already in Japan, the recording industries are investing in the launch of sambista's discsets, which has created a market comprising catalogues including Japanese record labels. ‘Os Enredos’ recordings from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are now fast becoming the most sought annual purchase by musiclovers all around the globe. As Robert Marley stated in 1975, being interviewed by Fikisha Cumbo, ‘Americans still can’t dance reggae!’, and as a parallel observation, many around the world still seem incapable of dancing samba!

There are multiple theories about the word samba and its true origins. A few claim that samba transmuted from ‘zambra’, coming from Arabic, from the Moorish times in the Iberian Peninsula around the 8th century. Another theory has been articulated that it originated from one of many African languages, possibly Kimbundu, where ‘sam’ means ‘give’ and ‘ba’ means ‘take’. In Brazil, folklorists have suggested that the word samba is a corruption of the Kikongo word ‘semba’, translated as ‘umbigada’ in Portuguese, meaning "a blow struck with the belly button". One of our oldest records of the word samba, which was published in a Pernambucano magazine ‘O Carapuçeiro’, chronicled to February 1838, when Father Miguel Lopes Gama of Sacramento wrote in counter protest to what he called the ‘samba d'almocreve’, when he was not referring to a musical genre, but to a theatrical dance popular amongst afrobrazilians at that time. According to Hiram Araújo da Costa, over the centuries, the festive slave dances in Bahia were called samba. This adds weight to northeasteners’ claims that the true originators of samba, which is still most widely practised now in ‘rodas de samba’, are from the northeast of Brasil. Furthermore, if we accept the regional migration theory of cultural dispersion, there is little doubt and the southeasterners can always pride themselves that with radio and a record industry, it is they who have been commercialising samba for nigh on a century.

The circles of samba dancers and batucadas are still maintaining various regional characteristics and some of these popular dances are now growing as performance artists perfect their steps. A few generations ago we performed ‘bate-baú’, ‘samba-corrido’, ‘samba-de-chave’ and ‘samba-de-barravento’ in Bahia; ‘còco’ in Ceará; ‘tambor-de-crioula’ and ‘ponga’ in Maranhão; ‘trocada’, ‘còco-de-parelha’, ‘samba de còco’ and ‘soco-travado’ in Pernambuco, Paraíba, Alagoas and Sergipe, ‘bambelô’ in Rio Grande do Norte; ‘partido-alto’, ‘miudinho’, ‘jongo’ and ‘caxambu’ in Rio de Janeiro; and ‘samba-lenço’, ‘samba-rural’, ‘tiririca’, ‘miudinho’, and ‘jongo’ in São Paulo. Many of those have been left for dead, while in the northeast the diversity of dances is maintained and promoted as the original samba dances.

Another peculiarity of northeastern samba is competition. With formalised dance presentations between disputing groups of participants, showing who can perform best within smaller arenas and also involving more freeform rappers and singers with a less formalised structure, musically. There are intricate terminologies including dance phrases such as ‘quadrilha’, ‘corta-a-joca’, ‘separa-o-visgo’ and ‘apanha-o-bag’. There are many more choreographic elements in samba but ‘miudinho’ may seem familiar to anyone who has danced or observed dance. It is a dance solo in the middle of a dance circle. Say, there are 9 dancing in a circular form, then each person takes a turn to dance in the closed octagonal wheel. I’ve witnessed and participated in formats of the like in many different regions of several nations, usually in international sets of from 4 to well, 12 is acceptable, isn’t it? The instruments of traditional Bahian samba are tambourines, which are better named ‘pandeiros’, percussive ‘shakers’, ‘cowbells’, ‘berimbaus’, guitars and sometimes even ‘castanets’. Clapping of palms is often accepted in less formalised samba circles and percussion can be produced with cutlery, crockery, bottles and plastics while drumming can be generated with any imaginable large, hollow object. However, the drum manufacturing industry is required for precision and volume through the spectrum of tonalities and classifications of drums, which for many of us are the really essential instruments of samba.

Although there are many classifications of dance associated with samba, the true contemporary symbol of this dance genre is ‘samba do pé’, which is most usually a solo dance that is often performed impromptu, when any music resembling samba is played. It is an upright dance with very slight feet movements and an incredible wave from toes to headwear, with incidental balancing movements of arms, that is at times too fast for even a keen eye to observe fully. It is known to increase complete corporal suppleness, especially that of the spine. Many are simply mesmerised by competent exponents, who are also referred to as ´passistas`. The basic movement is the same to either side, where a foot moves to the outside lifting up that side of the dancers’ bodies.  The other foot moves slightly forwards, and closer to the first foot. The second leg bends slightly at the knee so that side of the hip lowers and the other side appears to move higher. When in full swing, the effect of ‘a passista` is that the person’s hips appear to form a continuously elliptical gyration and ‘sambistas’’ dancers are renowned for taking the limelight, even before they start their enchanting dances, which simply follow the musical rhythms and appear to be evolving with frequently accelerating beats. Men dance with most of each foot on the ground while women, often wearing heels, dance just on the balls of their feet. The best practised just seem to float, almost levitating in gentle circular movements as if defying gravitational forces!

So, why not 'strap on some wings' and get your feet on the move here in South America just as soon as you surely can!

http://guiaviverbem.net/videos/dancavideos_sambanope.htm

SAMBA

http://www.sambaderaiz.net/

Although it thrives through all of Brazil, especially in the states of the northeast, Minas Gerais, and São Paulo, samba is most frequently identified as a musical expression of urban Rio de Janeiro, where it is said to have been born and developed between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. Many in Bahia question that, claiming that it was actually first performed in Salvador in the times from when slaves first arrived in ‘Bahia dos Santos’, which was the seat of colonial government. We can state comfortably that there was minimal, direct, European influence in the making of samba.

In the Aurélio2010edition dictionary, samba is defined as a Brazilian dance with African origins with a bipedal compass accompanied syncopatically. The second definition is of the music and associated lyrics. Those of us who dance samba usually use all of our bodies with at least part of a foot on the ground most of the time but exponents are seen floating somewhere near the surface of enormous vehicles and dancefloors. There are sambistas in wheelchairs and a few of us can ‘sambar’ in cars and even on horseback! ‘Passistas’, who are the specially trained dancers, wear extraordinarily high-heeled shoes or daintily laced boots and very little more during carnaval. They have an unbelievable ability to make a party shake all around the world and many millions are witnessing continuously more daring innovations at carnaval every year upon year. Samba-ing, if you can imagine doing samba anywhere, anytime: then you’ll be getting a little closer to understanding how popular samba really is, also as a dance!

Batuque is sometimes considered a subgenre of samba and associated ‘batucadas’ produce music and dance originating from Cabo Verde and some historians have asserted that it is a truly pan-African musical form. An explanation as to why batuque and then samba were originally exclusively South American is that drums were never illegalized by the European slave-trading colonial authorities in the southern hemisphere of the Americas, whereas drums were destroyed in the USA, for example. We have also maintained more diverse percussion and it is sometimes difficult to define or find sufficient evidence to place the origins of instruments, like the world famous drum structured ‘cuíca’. In Rio, the dance practised by former slaves who migrated from Bahia in the late 19^th century, came into contact with and incorporated other genres played in the city, including ‘polka’, ‘maxixe’, ‘lundu’, and ‘xote’, thus acquiring a completely unique character and creating urban ‘carioca’ samba in its now recognised and established form of traditional ‘samba schools’, for example Leopoldense. Samba schools are large organisations committeed into hundreds and thousands, incorporating many more participants, temporarily, which compete annually at carnival parades with enormous thematic floats (trucks that have a large house-sized structure steadied on the trailer), elaborate costumes, and original music in ‘Sapucaì’, Rio’s sambadrome. The music and stars of carnaval are new every year and there are uncountable aficionados, who’re ready and willing to explain almost everything to evermore newcomers.

In the beginning, carnaval was an organised street rebellion against christian authorities and many contemporary protesters are inspired by the original, samba. It used to be a minority who planned, participated and progressed with this world culture. However, in 1917, Pelo Telefone (By Phone) was recorded and it is considered the first commercially viable samba song, which has been claimed to have been written by Ernesto dos Santos, a.k.a. ‘Donga’. There were, of course, many individuals who were included in that collective effort. From then on, samba started to be struan around Brasil, firstly by radio presenters who were associated with carnaval and then developing its own place in the music market.

The contours of modern samba came to fruition in Rio de Janeiro towards the end of the 1920s, from the innovations of groups of composers forming carnaval blocks in the neighbourhoods of Estácio de Sá, Osvaldo Cruz, Mangueira, Salgueiro and São Carlos. Since then, there have been many great composers of samba, but people in the streets have been carrying the standards, the banners and the rhythms with their feet firmly floating in Brazilian urbanisations, thus protecting, promoting and profligating the dance genre with clear intentions. In Rio, samba was initially viewed with prejudice and discrimination by the minorities in power because it had black roots and the authorities were racist or merely fearful of the consequences. With hypnotic rhythms and melodic intonations, in addition to playful and powerful lyrics, samba eventually conquered the mostly white middle classes as well, thus really freeing the spirits of millions every year most notably just before lent begins. Other genres derived from samba, such as ‘samba-canção’, ‘samba das marchinhas’, ‘samba com breques’, ‘bossa nova’, ‘samba reggae’ and ‘pagode’, have all become respected entities in themselves. Recently, it’s been pagode which has been bridging the annual, pre-lent, free-for-all, carnavalesque festivities and giving credit to the more modest samba gatherings, pagode is an intellectualised and often romanticised version with fewer musicians that is often more fun than the enormous street parades that emerge every year with full blown carnaval.

Samba’s success in Europe and the fareast not only confirms its ability to win followers, regardless of language but the proliferation of samba schools in foreign lands forming a Brazilian diaspora through almost all of western Europe and already in Japan, the recording industries are investing in the launch of sambista's discsets, which has created a market comprising catalogues including Japanese record labels. ‘Os Enredos’ recordings from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are now fast becoming the most sought annual purchase by musiclovers all around the globe. As Robert Marley stated in 1975, being interviewed by Fikisha Cumbo, ‘Americans still can’t dance reggae!’, and as a parallel observation, many around the world still seem incapable of dancing samba!

There are multiple theories about the word samba and its true origins. A few claim that samba transmuted from ‘zambra’, coming from Arabic, from the Moorish times in the Iberian Peninsula around the 8th century. Another theory has been articulated that it originated from one of many African languages, possibly Kimbundu, where ‘sam’ means ‘give’ and ‘ba’ means ‘take’. In Brazil, folklorists have suggested that the word samba is a corruption of the Kikongo word ‘semba’, translated as ‘umbigada’ in Portuguese, meaning "a blow struck with the belly button". One of our oldest records of the word samba, which was published in a Pernambucano magazine ‘O Carapuçeiro’, chronicled to February 1838, when Father Miguel Lopes Gama of Sacramento wrote in counter protest to what he called the ‘samba d'almocreve’, when he was not referring to a musical genre, but to a theatrical dance popular amongst afrobrazilians at that time. According to Hiram Araújo da Costa, over the centuries, the festive slave dances in Bahia were called samba. This adds weight to northeasteners’ claims that the true originators of samba, which is still most widely practised now in ‘rodas de samba’, are from the northeast of Brasil. Furthermore, if we accept the regional migration theory of cultural dispersion, there is little doubt and the southeasterners can always pride themselves that with radio and a record industry, it is they who have been commercialising samba for nigh on a century.

The circles of samba dancers and batucadas are still maintaining various regional characteristics and some of these popular dances are now growing as performance artists perfect their steps. A few generations ago we performed ‘bate-baú’, ‘samba-corrido’, ‘samba-de-chave’ and ‘samba-de-barravento’ in Bahia; ‘còco’ in Ceará; ‘tambor-de-crioula’ and ‘ponga’ in Maranhão; ‘trocada’, ‘còco-de-parelha’, ‘samba de còco’ and ‘soco-travado’ in Pernambuco, Paraíba, Alagoas and Sergipe, ‘bambelô’ in Rio Grande do Norte; ‘partido-alto’, ‘miudinho’, ‘jongo’ and ‘caxambu’ in Rio de Janeiro; and ‘samba-lenço’, ‘samba-rural’, ‘tiririca’, ‘miudinho’, and ‘jongo’ in São Paulo. Many of those have been left for dead, while in the northeast the diversity of dances is maintained and promoted as the original samba dances.

Another peculiarity of northeastern samba is competition. With formalised dance presentations between disputing groups of participants, showing who can perform best within smaller arenas and also involving more freeform rappers and singers with a less formalised structure, musically. There are intricate terminologies including dance phrases such as ‘quadrilha’, ‘corta-a-joca’, ‘separa-o-visgo’ and ‘apanha-o-bag’. There are many more choreographic elements in samba but ‘miudinho’ may seem familiar to anyone who has danced or observed dance. It is a dance solo in the middle of a dance circle. Say, there are 9 dancing in a circular form, then each person takes a turn to dance in the closed octagonal wheel. I’ve witnessed and participated in formats of the like in many different regions of several nations, usually in international sets of from 4 to well, 12 is acceptable, isn’t it? The instruments of traditional Bahian samba are tambourines, which are better named ‘pandeiros’, percussive ‘shakers’, ‘cowbells’, ‘berimbaus’, guitars and sometimes even ‘castanets’. Clapping of palms is often accepted in less formalised samba circles and percussion can be produced with cutlery, crockery, bottles and plastics while drumming can be generated with any imaginable large, hollow object. However, the drum manufacturing industry is required for precision and volume through the spectrum of tonalities and classifications of drums, which for many of us are the really essential instruments of samba.

Although there are many classifications of dance associated with samba, the true contemporary symbol of this dance genre is ‘samba do pé’, which is most usually a solo dance that is often performed impromptu, when any music resembling samba is played. It is an upright dance with very slight feet movements and an incredible wave from toes to headwear, with incidental balancing movements of arms, that is at times too fast for even a keen eye to observe fully. It is known to increase complete corporal suppleness, especially that of the spine. Many are simply mesmerised by competent exponents, who are also referred to as ´passistas`. The basic movement is the same to either side, where a foot moves to the outside lifting up that side of the dancers’ bodies.  The other foot moves slightly forwards, and closer to the first foot. The second leg bends slightly at the knee so that side of the hip lowers and the other side appears to move higher. When in full swing, the effect of ‘a passista` is that the person’s hips appear to form a continuously elliptical gyration and ‘sambistas’’ dancers are renowned for taking the limelight, even before they start their enchanting dances, which simply follow the musical rhythms and appear to be evolving with frequently accelerating beats. Men dance with most of each foot on the ground while women, often wearing heels, dance just on the balls of their feet. The best practised just seem to float, almost levitating in gentle circular movements as if defying gravitational forces!

So, why not 'strap on some wings' and get your feet on the move here in South America just as soon as you surely can!

http://tudodesamba.com.br/