Samba (Brazilian) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Samba is a lively, rhythmical dance of Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian origin in 2/4 time

Time signature

The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....

danced under the Samba music. However, there are three steps to every bar, making the Samba feel like a 3/4 timed dance. Its origins include the Maxixe

Maxixe (dance)

The maxixe , occasionally known as the Brazilian tango, is a dance, with its accompanying music , that originated in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in 1868, at about the same time as the tango was developing in neighbouring Argentina and Uruguay...

.

The Samba music rhythm has been danced in Brazil since its inception in the late 19th century. There is actually a set of dances, rather than a single dance, that define the Samba dancing scene in Brazil; thus, no one dance can be claimed with certainty as the "original" Samba style.

Another major stream of the Samba dance besides the Brazilian Samba dancing styles is Ballroom Samba which differs significantly.

Samba no pé

Samba no pé is a solo dance that is most often danced impromptu when samba music is played. The basic movement involves a straight body and a bending of one knee at a time. The feet move very slightly - only a few inches at a time. The rhythm is 2/4, with 3 steps per measure. It can be thought of as a step-ball-change.It can be described calling it and-a-one, and-a-two, then back to one. The basic movement is the same to either side, where one foot moves to the outside lifting up just before the first beat (i.e. the right leg moves slightly to the right) and leg is kept as straight as a pole. The other foot moves slightly towards the front, and closer to the first foot. The second leg bends lightly at the knee so that the left side of the hip lowers and the right side appears to move higher. The weight is shifted to this inside foot briefly for the next "and-a", then shifted back to the outside foot on the "two", and the same series of actions is repeated towards the other side.

The dance simply follows the beat of the music and can go from average pace to very fast. Men dance with the whole foot on the ground while women, often wearing heels, dance just on the balls of the foot. Professionals may change the steps slightly, taking 4 steps per measure instead of 3, and often add various arm movements depending on the mood of the music.

There are also regional forms of the dance in Brazil where the essential steps are the same, but because of a change in the accent of the music people will dance similar movements to the slightly changed accents. For instance, in Bahia

Bahia

Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...

the girls tend to dance tilting their legs towards the outside instead of keeping their knees close to each other as in Rio de Janeiro.

This is the type of Samba one sees in the Brazilian Carnival

Brazilian Carnival

The Carnival of Brazil is an annual festival held forty-six days before Easter. On certain days of Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival," from carnelevare, "to remove meat." Carnival celebrations...

parades and in other Samba carnival

Carnival

Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

s over the world. This is also one of the most popular sambas.

Samba de Gafieira

Samba de Gafieira is a partner dance considerably different than the Ballroom Samba. It appeared in the 1940s and it gets its name from the Gafieira - popular urban nightclubs of Rio de Janeiro at that time.

The dance derived from the Maxixe

Maxixe (dance)

and followed the arrival of the Choro

Choro

Choro , traditionally called chorinho , is a Brazilian popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtile modulations and full of syncopation and...

(another samba musical style).
It left most of the Maxixe's Polka

Polka

The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...

elements behind but maintained the entwined leg movements of the Argentine Tango

Argentine Tango

Argentine tango is a musical genre of simple quadruple metre and binary musical form, and the social dance that accompanies it. Its lyrics and music are marked by nostalgia, expressed through melodic instruments including the bandoneon. Originated at the ending of the 19th century in the suburbs of...

, although adopting a more relaxed posture than the latter. Many see this form of Samba as a combination of Waltz

Waltz

The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...

and Tango

Tango (dance)

Tango dance originated in the area of the Rio de la Plata , and spread to the rest of the world soon after....

. Several Brazilian dance studios use elements and techniques from these two dances to teach Samba de Gafieira steps and dance routines.

The steps are done on a short-short-long (quick-quick-slow) tempo and the basic step motion goes as follows:

step - replace - forward (long)
step - replace - backwards (long)

From its inception to nowadays the Samba de Gafieira has incorporated many acrobatic movements and has evolved to become today's most complex dancing style of Samba in Brazil. This style is present in dance academies worldwide.

Samba Pagode

Samba Pagode is another Samba partner dance that resembles the Samba de Gafieira but has less acrobatic movements and tend to be more intimate. It became a dance style after the appearance of the Pagode

Pagode

Pagode is a Brazilian style of music which originated in Salvador, Bahia , and quickly went down to Rio de Janeiro region, as a subgenre of Samba. Pagode originally meant a celebration with lots of food, music, dance and party...

and it started in the city of São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

Samba Axé

Samba Axé is a solo dance that started in 1992 during the Brazilian Carnival season in Bahia

Bahia

when the Axé

Axe

The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...

rhythm replaced the Lambada

Lambada

Lambada is a dance from Pará, Brazil. The dance became internationally popular in the 1980s, especially in Latin America and Caribbean countries...

. For years it became the major type of dance for the North east of Brazil during the holiday months. The dance is completely choreographed and the movements tend to mimic the lyrics. It's a very energetic kind of dance that mixes elements of Samba no pé and aerobics and because of the lyrics, which are made for entertainment, the dance generally has some sort of ludic element.

Several Axé music groups such as "É o Tchan

É o Tchan

É o Tchan! is a popular pagode band from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil that started in 1992.- History :Originally called Gera Samba, they exploded onto the scene with their hit single Segura o Tchan...

" have as part of their marketing strategy to always release a choreography together with every one of their songs; therefore, Samba Axé is an ever-changing kind of dance with no commitment to maintaining any formal set of steps or routines (there's actually no such a thing as a basic step in Samba Axé.)

Samba Reggae

Also originated from Bahia, it's a mix of reggae beats with Samba drums

Bateria

The term bateria means “drum kit” in Portuguese and Spanish. In Brazil, the word is also used for a form of Brazilian samba band, the percussion band or rhythm section of a Samba School...

. Very popular in songs by Daniela Mercury

Daniela Mercury

Daniela Mercury , is a Latin Grammy Award-winning Brazilian axé, samba-reggae and MPB singer, songwriter and record producer. Since her breakthrough, Mercury has become one of the best known Brazilian female singers, selling over 20 million albums worldwide...

, who catapulted the rhythm to the world with songs like "Sol da Liberdade" "O Reggae E O Mar" and "Perola Negra". Samba Reggae is the second most popular samba style in Bahia, with followers all over Brazil.

Samba-rock

Samba rock

Samba-rock is a genre of samba and subgenre of rock. Created in the 1960s, the genre combines the sounds of Brazilian samba, soul, bebop and jazz. Jorge Ben Jor created the style with his album "Bidu/Silêncio no Brooklin"...

is a playful form of the samba, and it originates in São Paulo

São Paulo

. It is a Latin nightclub dance. Samba rock resembles a bit of samba de gafieira, Forró

Forró

Forró is a kind of Northeastern Brazilian dance as well as a word used to denote the different genres of music which accompanies the dance. Both are much in evidence during the annual Festa Junina , a part of Brazilian traditional culture which celebrates some Catholic saints...

, Zouk

Zouk

Zouk is a style of rhythmic music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe & Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish dance, the...

-Lambada

Lambada

Lambada is a dance from Pará, Brazil. The dance became internationally popular in the 1980s, especially in Latin America and Caribbean countries...

and Salsa

Salsa music

Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...

Samba de roda

A traditional Afro-Brazilian dance performed originally as informal fun after a Candomblé

Candomblé

Candomblé is an African-originated or Afro-Brazilian religion, practised chiefly in Brazil by the "povo de santo" . It originated in the cities of Salvador, the capital of Bahia and Cachoeira, at the time one of the main commercial crossroads for the distribution of products and slave trade to...

ceremony, using the same percussion instruments used during the religious ceremony. The typical drum is the atabaque

Atabaque

The atabaque is a tall, wooden, Afro-Brazilian hand drum. The shell is made traditionally of Jacaranda wood from Brazil. The head is traditionally made from calfskin. A system of ropes are intertwined around the body, connecting a metal ring near the base to the head...

; drummers improvise variations and elaborations on common patterns, accompanied typically by singing and clapping as well as dancing.