Latin Music and Dance: Part 2
Latin dances are derived from the same music genre (Ex: Salsa dance and Salsa music, Merengue music and Merengue dance). The rhythmic pattern of the music correlates with the physical movements of the dancers.
The origins of the diverse Latin dance groups came from the mixture of Afro-American and Ameri-Indian tribal rituals and religious worship with additional Iberian influences (Ex: Spain and Portugal).
Renato Almeida, Brazilian ethnomusicologist, studied the relationship of folk music and dance, particularly of African and Ameri-Indian descent. He manged to illustrate the the classification of the very origin of dance moves:
Choreography
Number of arrangements of dancers
Affective charcacter of relationships
Man to Higher-Being Religious
Man to Man-War Dances
Man to Woman-Dance representing various aspects of courtship
Below are several images of dances from various Latin countries. They all have similarieties and differences in movement, choreography and representation but they all represent a part of Hispanic culture and history that contiues tp thrive today. I will plan to post some videos on my next posting so you can get a better obervation of the dance movements.
Mexico-Mariachi
Puerto Rico-Plena
Panama-Cumbia
Colombia-Cumbia
Related articles
- A Latin Dance Scene Spreads Across New York (nytimes.com)
- The Zumba story (teachstreet.com)
- Latin dancing – Salsa and bachata (gravityplanet.wordpress.com)
I love latin dance. I’d also love to learn some of the origins of some of the moves. I didn’t know anyone had that information.
Thanks Mike, I had a fun time researching this and it really opened up to Latin dance and music as a cultural element. You should read National Rhythms, African Roots: The Deep history of Latin American popular Dance by John Charles Chasteen.
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