Lambada
From Free net encyclopedia
- Lambada is also the name of a 1990 movie.
Lambada is a dance which became internationally popular in the 1980s. The exact origin of the dance is somewhat disputed but its known to have begun in Brazil and has forerunners such as the forró, sayas, the maxixe, and the carimbó. Some also say it began in Bolivia, a thought due to the song named Lambada which is actually an unauthorised translation of the song "Llorando se fue", from the Bolivian group Los K’jarkas. Kaoma, a French group, recorded this number one worldwide summer hit "Lambada" which sold 5 million singles in 1989 (see Music of Bolivia article for more about the translation of this song).
The association of Lambada and Dirty Dancing/Forbidden Dance became quite extensive, mostly due to the 1990 movie Lambada, although the people who dance this rhythm in Brazil and everywhere else prefer to define it as a sensual and romantic dance rather than erotic.
After 1994 the Brazilian music style (also called Lambada), which gave birth to the dance, started to fade away, and the dancers began to use other musical sources to continue practicing the Lambada dance. Among these rhythms were the Flamenco Rumba (such as from the Gypsy Kings) and some Arabian music. Today the majority of Lambada is danced to Zouk music (more specifically Zouk love) and the dance evolved so much from its original form that there is an ongoing discussion whether the Zouk-Lambada is a new type of dance or just the natural evolution of the Lambada of the early 90's.
The Zouk-Lambada style is still very popular in many countries such as Brazil, UK, Holland, Denmark, USA, Japan and Australia.
Below this line, a text that gives a global vision about the lambada and its intersections with zouk music (some references for this text were Carlinhos de Jesus, Chico Peltier and Jairo Brasil):
FOR WHO LIKES LAMBADA AND ZOUK
CARIBBEAN MUSIC
The correct way to call the region would be "The Caribes", considering its islands were ruled by many European countries such as Spain, France, England, and The Netherlands, resulting in many different identities and characteristics in each of them. In matter of music these identities represented a large variety of styles, even though most countries make use of the European stringed instruments and African percussion (Yorubá people). Many believe lambada - music and dance - to be cultural products of Caribe. There are also those who think Lambada and Zouk are two different names for the same dance and rhythm - but none of this is true. To understand how lambada was born and to dispel such misleading thoughts, it is necessary to know a bit more, separating dances and musical styles in this rhythm cauldron.
THE ZOUK MUSICAL STYLE
The Caribbean songs, ingredients in many Brazilian rhythms, have always had great influence in the country's north region. The zouk is one of them. Strong in French-colonized places such as Martinica and Guadalupe, it is sung, normally, in creòle - a mix of French and African languages.
Experts believe its rhythmic basis might have its roots in the Arabian music. This same basis is found in many countries like Spain and Portugal, in the Arabian world, in the African continent and in most of the Americas. One of the versions of the appearance of zouk says that it was created to develop knowledge about Martinica and follow the example of Cuba in cultural influence over Latin America. The result was a partial success: a musical style was created with world acceptance but since it happened through France, in many places - including Brasil - many believe the dance and music to be French. For example, some time ago, when people were to dance lambada in Brasil to the sound of zouk, they called it French lambada.
THE ZOUK DANCE
The zouk - which means party - is danced in Caribe, mostly in the Guadalupe islands and Martinica. Similar to merengue, it is danced with weight exchange basically on the head of musical time and has a very simple choreography.
THE LAMBADA MUSIC
Origined in Pará, the lambada musical style finds its basis in the Carimbó and in the "guitarrada", influenced by several rhythms including the cúmbia, the merengue and the zouk. Several reports from Pará say that the local radio station called "lambadas" (adjective) the more vibrant songs. In time the adjective turned into a noun, naming the rhythm whose creation is due to the musician Pinduca. The new name and the fusion of the carimbó with the Caribbean electronic music were very much liked by the people, found public and spread itself firstly over Brasil's northeast. Despite the apparent initial success, the really big one would only occur with the help from the French businessmen. With an enormous marketing structure and good musicians, the group Kaoma spread successfully lambada over Europe and other continents. Adapted to the different rhythm, the Bolivian song "Chorando se foi" was responsible for its spreading. The story is known, though the characters change: a national product finds value among people only after it has already found it abroad. After this a time came of many lambada recordings abroad and not. The French, for example, bought at once the copyrights of hundreds of songs. Dozens of bands and singers participated on this momentary fever, for the good of their careers, such as Sidney Magal, Sandy and Junior, Fafá de Belém, and the Balão Mágico group. Once this high exposition phase passed, as happens to most of yesterday's good news, the source dried out, the selling didn't go so well and the production ceased.
THE CARIMBÓ DANCE
Before we approach lambada dance style we should first speak of carimbó, the former's roots and foundations. The Indian dance, belonging to the Amazonic folklore, has been danced there for centuries. Closest to what we could call a lambada's parent, it is, in its traditional form, danced to the sound of drums made out of trees and tuned with fire. Nowadays Carimbó is characteristic for being danced apart and for sensual movements, with lots of spins and attempts from the woman to cover the man with her skirt.
THE LAMBADA DANCE
The lambada dance style had its origins when the carimbó began to be danced by a close couple instead of a distant one. Like forró, the lambada has in the polca its maximum reference for the basic moves, with the addition of "balão apagado" and "peão" from maxixe dance style. Normally, one exchanges his weight on the head time and the middle of the other. (So if one starts to count on "one" the exchanges occur in the "one", "two" and in between them). The lambada comes to Porto Seguro and there it develops itself. Good references were "Lambada da Boca da Barra" in Porto Seguro and "Jatobar" in Arraial D'Ajuda, where, since the very beginning people danced to zouks (French lambadas). All this happened during the rise of Bahia's carnival that renewed the fashion from time to time and once presented Brasil with lambada. This second lambada's phase lasted for a season and was little more spreading than the first that had only reached the country's northeast. To this day lambada had as a fundamental characteristic the embraced couple. This was so strong that during contests whomever released his embrace on the woman was disqualified. In the countryside and in the capital, lambada turned into a big success and soon was in films and many TV shows and soap operas. It's the time of great contests and shows. The need of striking spectacles forces the dancers into creating more daring choreographies with acrobatics and spins.
After a while the music style lambada collapsed and stopped being recorded. The nightclub DJ's took their chances to simulate the burial of the style. Consequently the dance lost its space, but survived due to the varied experimentations in "lambaterias" with musical styles which beat allowed lambada's moves. Just for instance, the flamenca rumba band Gipsy Kings sold significantly on account of the dance style and so the French, Spanish, Arabian, United Statian, African and Caribbean songs turned into the "salvation" and solution to the continuation of the dance style. Overall, the zouk was the rhythm that best fit into the dance becoming the most important style to dance lambada to. This is now danced with slower pace, with more time and pauses that didn't practically exist in lambada music style, allowing one to explore the most of sensuality, plasticity and beauty of our creation. The moves are softer and still proceed fluidly, modifying themselves as lambada gives room and exchanges with other dance styles. Still many researches continue to add knowledge, even outside parlor dances, such as researches on contact and improvisation. Nowadays the relation between the couple regains its old value, the acrobatics are left mostly exclusively to the stage shows and the dancing places reopen all over the country.
Even though it does not have appropriate recognition among some, lambada showed itself a great professional boost. We find "lambaterias" and lambada teachers all over the world and, even though they may call it zouk, many have lived and live on the lambada to this day. Out of all this history, some good things can be named, such as: a great part of the professional talents in Brazilian parlor dances today came from lambada; the youth's knowledge of the existence of the couple dance; the international recognition achieved - lambada is our most well known dance abroad (even more than samba) and mostly the rescue of the right to dance in an embrace, lost for decades.
Luís Florião - researcher, teacher and responsible for Movimento Lambada Brasil
Escola Sindicato da Dança - R. Carmela Dutra, 82 - Tijuca - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasil - CEP. 20.520-080 / lute@veloxmail.com.br
Contents |
The history of lambada
The origin
Since the time Brazil was a Portuguese colony (between year 1500 a.d. and 1822 a.d.) the Carimbó has been a popular dance in the north part of the country. It was a loose and very sensual dance in which the woman tried to cover the man with many spins and rounded skirts. The music was played mainly among beats of drums made of trunks of wood, thinned by fire.
As time passed by, the dance changed, as did the music itself, gaining many influences from the Caribbean music due to its geographical proximity which also generated some new rhythms like the Sirimbó and the Lari Lari, changing forever the way the original Carimbó was danced.
The name and the father
During the late 20th century, local radio stations from Belém started to call these type of music as "strong beated rhythms" and "rhythms of Lambada" (see Lexicon below). The term "Lambada" had a strong appeal and began to be associated with this new emerging face of an old dancing style.
By 1983 the Carimbó dance began once more to be danced in couples, in a 2-beat style, something very similar to the Merengue, but with the addition of many spins. Some authors relate to have experienced this kind of dance in Belém and Macapá. By that time a local brazilian singer called Pinduca published a long-play record with this kind of music and for this it is strongly believed he is the true father of Lambada, although he never got to be known anywhere else.
The fusion between the metallic and electronic music from Caribean brought again a new face to the Carimbó, which started to be played throughout the north-eastern region of Brazil (a place well known for its touristic appeal), and so this new Carimbó travelled with a new name of Lambada.
The Lambada from Bahia - the first Boom
As the Lambada traveled through and down the north-east coast of Brazil reaching Bahia, it began receiving some influences from the forró , until it finally became a 4-beated dancing style, which was definitively different from the original Carimbó.
The way of dancing this new born Lambada was with arched legs, and the steps were done from one side to the other, and never from front to back. This was also the time in which the tight skirts were in fashion, and both things (the dance and the fashion) got much close to one another. Today at some places like the Lambar (a night club in Sao Paulo) this icon of a girl in a high and short skirt dancing with a man in long loose trousers still maintain its appeal on an outdoor.
During these years the Carnival of Bahia was increasing in popularity and every summer a new kind of dance showed up, and would disappear during the following year when another dancing style and rhythm would surge on the following summer. Such was the case a few years before the Lambada with the Fricote and the Ti-Ti-Ti that truly disappeared.
Along with the "trio elétricos" (Big mobile band trucks covered with speakers all around) playing the songs everywhere in Salvador the Lambada music and dance started to become very popular in Bahia, and established itself in the city of Porto Seguro. Still, in this first boom of the Lambada, the south-east region of Brazil (the country's economic centre) despised the rhythms which came from Bahia and most Lambada songs remained restricted to the North-east region of the country.
By that time, although it has been recognized as huge summer-fever success, the Lambada was far away from having its true world-wide success. Many of the first lambaterias (dance houses devoted to dancing Lambada) which opened on 1988 couldn't stand the low season and closed a few months later.
The forbidden dance
It's from these years (circa 1988) that came the first Legend about Lambada: the legend of the forbidden dance. With its roots on Forró and Carimbó and several other northern-brazilian dancing styles, Lambada was eventually related to the Maxixe, a dancing style that back in 1930 was the true forbidden dance because of its spicy lyric songs and its movements.
At its peak, and perhaps made on purpose to create even more exposure on the media, Lambada was advertised as an erotica and pornographic type of dance, when at best it was just a sensual way of dancing. The successful formula of advertising dances as erotic-driven has followed through after the end of the Lambada season in Bahia. Well established rhythms such as the Axé have suffered the same fate and this trend gave birth to seasonal hits such as the "dança da garrafa" and music groups like Gera Samba.
The international beat
While the Lambada was being buried at winter in Brazil, some entrepreneurs from Europe found other more ambitious plans for it. At the end of that very summer, a couple of French business man came to Brazil and bought the musical copyrights of something like 300 lambada musics. They then returned to France, founded the Kaoma Band, boosting it up with some serious Marketing dollars, and turned Lambada into a world-wide known music style, reaching even the far east corner of the world such as Japan.
The second boom
The Lambada world phenomenon was so strong that something almost unbelievable happened: the music returned to Brazil as a foreign music style, reaching the more economically evolved south-east region of Brazil. Some people reckon this re-insertion of Lambada has changed the way the young brazilian couples were dancing in the 1990s.
Whether this is true, the fact is around that time and for more than 30 years since the Beatles, young couples were not interested in dancing together. At the beginning of the 90s these young people started to dance together once again and hundreds of brazilian-style ballroom dancing schools were re-opened.
This second Lambada wave was larger in success, reaching the whole Brazilian population. It left strong imprints on the Brazilian culture when the Lambada became as internationally known as the Samba was.
The dance changes
With world-wide and national repercussion the dance started to evolve. On its origins (circa 1988) the couples would stick to dancing close to each other touching their bellies all the time. Such was the case of an early Lambada dancing contest at "Lambateria UM" (a dance venue) in which the contestants were to be eliminated if ever they ever became separated during the performance.
During the second boom, the strong demand for dancers in films and shows brought together the experinece and techniques of many professional dancers and started changing the way the Lambada was danced. Jive style turns were added and also some acrobatic movements were incorporated. It is from this era that the Cambre (a bend from the waist to the side or to the back coming from ballet) was incorporated.
Along with the Lambada music playing in every radio station, many musicians coming from various other pop-styles such as Fafa de Belem and Sydney Magal, followed the trend and recorded several songs that became well known hits and from time to time still find their way today on the dance floor.
Hunting for a new rhythm: the decline of the lambada music
After a while the Lambada music style entered in decline and in 1994 it was already very difficult to find any Lambada songs on any music store. Lambada composers started to fade away and people like Beto Barbosa were never again to be heard of.
The dance lost a lot of its strength and appeal and hordes of dancers migrated to other more traditional brazilian dancing styles or followed the trends into other Bahia's summer season dances such as the Axé. Others still remained attached to the Lambada dance and started to seek other Caribbean music styles such as the Soca, Konpa and Zouk to keep on dancing the Lambada moves.
Other non-Caribbean music styles were also incorporated such as the Flamenco Rumba from Gipsy Kings and some Arabic songs, but the majority of the tunes selected were Zouklove (a sub-style of Zouk).
By the end of the 1990s the dance recovered most of its original way and style, with less acrobatic moves, more smoother, intimate and closer contact between the partners.
Nowadays most teachers and dancers are using the term Zouk-Lambada or simply Zouk to refer to the Lambada dance, and there's an ongoing discussion on brazilian dancing forums of whether these are actually two different kind of dances.
Lexicon
When it comes to lexicon terminology the word lambada is associated with the act of brawling using clubs. Some associate it with the word "Lombada" which means bump, others with "Lombo" which means loin. There are also others that regardless of any dictionary references freely associate the word with the wavelike motion of a whip.
It was also thought to be a hoax in fashionable 80's New York dance clubs like the Palladium.
See also
- List of dances
- A History of Lambada (portuguese)
- Lambada vs Zouk (portuguese)
- Article: Regarding ballroom (portuguese)
Films
- Lambada (1990) (Lambada: Set the Night on Fire)
- The Forbidden Dance (1990) (Lambada - The Forbidden Dance/Forbidden Dance Is Lambada)