Latin American Dance and Music Forms

Study Notes

Latin American Dance and Music Forms

Cumbia: A courtship dance originating in Panama and Colombia, featuring European and African instrumentation and characteristics.
Tango: A popular Argentinian and Uruguayan dance with roots in Cuban contradanza, habanera, and Cuban tango. It is a significant part of Argentinian national expression.
Cha Cha: A ballroom dance that originated in Cuba in 1953. Derived from the mambo, it features a characteristic 2-3-1 rhythmic pattern with syncopation on the fourth beat.
Rumba: An Afro-Cuban dance performed in a duple meter with a tresillo rhythm. It is commonly used in ballroom dancing, where couples or solo dancers execute a fast-fast-slow sequence with hip rocking and cross rhythms.
Bossa Nova: A Brazilian musical genre characterized by its swaying feel and nasal vocal style. It focuses on themes of love, longing, nature, and youthfulness.
- The nylon-stringed classical guitar is a key instrument in bossa nova.
- Sitti Navarro is known as the "Philippines' Queen of Bossa Nova".
Reggae: A Jamaican music and dance style that emerged in the mid-1960s. It combines English lyrics with Creole expressions.
Foxtrot: A social dance that originated in the USA after 1910. Its rhythm features a one-step, two-step, and syncopated pattern.
Paso Doble: A theatrical Spanish dance tied to bullfighting. The music is played during the matador's entrance and during passes before the kill.

Traditional Music of Africa

African music often serves a functional purpose, used in ceremonies like births, deaths, marriages, succession rituals, worship, and spirit invocations.
Some African music is related to work or social activities, while others are purely for entertainment.
Various African music genres:
- Afrobeat: A fusion of West African and black American music.
- Apala: A Yoruba tribal music from Nigeria used to wake up worshippers after Ramadan fasting.
- Axe: A popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. It combines Afro-Caribbean styles like marcha, reggae, and calypso.
- Jit-Jit: Fast, percussive dance music from Zimbabwe featuring drums and guitar, influenced by mbira-based guitar styles.
- Jive: A lively South African music style featuring a form of swing dance called the jitterbug. It represents freedom and joy.
- Juju: A popular music style from Nigeria based on traditional Yoruba rhythms and Western instruments like drums, keyboards, pedal steel guitars, and accordions.
- Kwassa Kwassa: A dance style from Zaire, popularized by Kanda Bongo Man, characterized by hip movements and arm movements following the hips.
- Marabi: A three-chord township music of South Africa from the 1930s-1960s. It blends American jazz, ragtime, and blues with African roots and is characterized by extended repetitive harmonies.
- Kudu Horn: An instrument made from the kudu antelope horn, producing a mellow and warm sound, adding a unique African accent to music.

Description

Explore the vibrant world of Latin American dance and music forms through this quiz. From the passionate rhythms of Tango to the melodic sounds of Bossa Nova, discover how these cultural expressions have shaped identities. Test your knowledge on each dance's origins, characteristics, and significance.