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Care to Dance?

We have a few months until Strictly Come Dancing graces our screens once more

and Len ‘Seven!’ Goodman, ‘Mr. Mean’ Craig Revel Horwood and the rest of the

judging panel score the celebrities on their English quickstep, Cuban cha-cha-cha and

my personal favourite the American jive.

June 24th, 2016 Author: Victoria Bowler RSS-Feed

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In the meantime, where do these and other national dances stem from and what do

they resemble?

Carnival time

The Latin-American samba originated in Brazil in the late 16th century, with the

ballroom samba that we recognise being traced back to the early 1900s. With two

basic dance steps, the samba comprises small movements but changes pace in

accordance with the music beat. A Sambista embodies carnival rhythm, complete

with skimpy costume and flamboyant headgear.

Brazil is also hosting the Olympics in its capital city Rio in 6 weeks but the path to

glory has been far from smooth. The Zika virus is primarily a concern for pregnant

ladies and unborn children but the remaining small risk to everyone else has forced

Rory McIlroy among others to withdraw from the games. President Dilma Rousseff

has been suspended following charges of misconduct and is awaiting an

impeachment trial. The host state suffered a financial state of emergency following a

drop in oil prices which led to a lack of funds – they have been bailed out by the

central government in order to complete the Olympic projects. And now the killing of

Juma the Jaguar this week after she escaped her handlers following the Olympic

torch ceremony.

Not the best build-up to this global athletic feast, nevertheless the Olympics will take

place as scheduled so if you are going out to Rio remember your mosquito repellent,

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follow the exchange rates to get the best deal on your real and enjoy the games.

Enchanting Bollywood

It is hard not to be captivated by the beautiful, bright outfits, catchy Hindi music and

the Bollywood dance which fuses India’s traditional dances such as Kathak and

Bharata Natyam with hip-hop and modern, sometimes erotic, dance styles.

Bollywood is a blend of Bombay and Hollywood and is the world’s largest film

industry by number of film productions. No Bollywood film worth its salt is without a

corresponding well-timed, energetic dance routine. These dances have evolved and

captured the world’s attention: think Slumdog Millionaire’s Jai Ho routine at the train

station. Pop stars have also jumped on the bandwagon – have a listen to the Britney

Spears Hindi sample in her hit Toxic, taken from the 1981 Lata Mangeshkar song Tere

Mere Beech Mein.

“Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?”

With Portugal just scraping through to the knockout phase of Euro 2016 perhaps

Cristiano Ronaldo could have ignored his urge to strop and celebrated with some

classic Fandango moves instead.

The dance actually originated in Spain in the very early 1700s but Portugal embraced

the simple folk dance choreography as its own. Performing in pairs and egged on by

hand-clapping or castanets they dance either the ‘fandangos grandes’ which startsPDFmyURL lets you convert a complete website to PDF automatically!

slowly and gradually speeds up, or the ‘fandanguillos’ which is livelier from the outset.

The two dancers compete to execute the most appreciable footwork.

Yes you cancan!

Imagine the Moulin Rouge, Paris in the fin de siècle. The Eiffel Tower has just been

constructed and here you are at the foot of artistic Montmartre in a dark, smoky bar,

champagne flowing. It’s cabaret time and out comes the line of girls, scandalous and

splendorous in their frills and ruffles showing off their energetic high kicks and

cartwheels and cheeky, bottom-revealing skirt lifts. Fabulous!

The cancan (or le chahut meaning uproar) was actually originally performed in the

1820s by working class men as a variation on the quadrille dance’s leg-kicking

movement. According to an 1839 dance manual this form of entertainment was

designed to be inclusive to all classes of society – which was similarly the intention of

the Moulin Rouge 50 years later, welcoming an audience of diverse social standing.

A wedding dance

No, I don’t mean the after-dinner smooch to your favourite love song, relieved that

the speeches are all over. This one is for the young Norwegian men who,

accompanied by a fiddler, demonstrate their solo athletic prowess and virility,

sometimes competing with their friends, at weddings and other ceremonies – the

halling dance (hallingdansen).

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Derived from Hallingdal, a valley in southern Norway, the halling is said to be the

oldest dance in Northern Europe. One of the dance moves is called hallingkast, a test

of strength whereby a girl holds a hat 230-280 cms high on a stick and the dancer is

supposed to kick down the hat. Other moves are said to form the basis for

breakdancing skills.

Billion Dollar Baby

And finally the Charleston after its namesake in South Carolina – a quirky slapstick

dance which involves a lot of arm swinging and exaggerated legs movements.

Danced to ragtime jazz music, the Charleston can be enjoyed solo, in pairs or groups.

The craze was embraced by Flappers in the 1920s speakeasy era, and was actually

banned from many dance halls in view of the immoral liberated young women with

their short hair and equally short dresses showing off their moves.

In the 1930s the fashion moved on and the Charleston became the basis for the Lindy

Hop.

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