Essay On Latin American Dance

I have always wondered about the history of Latin American dance. In this informational report, I am going to share with you the origins of the Latin American culture of dance.
Latin dance provides various styles of movements from different areas of Latin America. Latin American dance has three influences, which include: the African influence, the native influence, and upper class European influence. Around the 16th century, explorers traveled back to Spain and Portugal explaining to people about the intricate dances that they saw from the Aztecs and Incas. The dances that were observed by the explorers were ritualistic centering on hunting, astronomy, or agriculture.
In the early 16th century, European settlers began colonizing areas of South America and adopting the dance traditions aligning them the cultures of that specific area. Over time, the European folk dances and tribal dances would combine creating what we know as modern Latin dancing. The European influence involved group dancing until it evolved to male and female partnership through its

move to the Americas. During this time, the music and social aspect started establishing the Latin genre moving away from dancing as a form of storytelling, but emphasizing the steps and rhythm. During the movement of European settlers, African America slaves came along and introduced Latin dance with different movements as well as music. For example, improvisation, which is movement, created on the spot without the slaves from Africa introduced any practice.
This next part of the reading is going to introduce you to some popular dances practiced in Latin America.

The first dance that many people have heard of is the salsa. Salsa originated in the 1920’s on the Cuba Island. The dance began spreading rapidly in local clubs as well as promoted on the local radio stations. Salsa is a partnered dance that incorporates the African influence of improvisation throughout various combinations. While improvising, the upper body remains still while the hips provide the most motion. The beat of the salsa music is 4/4.
The next dance is known as the samba, which came about in Brazil in the 19th century. The roots of the dance are from the African influence. This type of dance was performed for certain celebrations as well as at street festivals. The samba is simplistic, but beautiful to watch in its rhythm. The beat is in 2/4 times and within each measure there are three

movements.
Another form of dance in Latin America is the merengue, which is from the Dominican Republic in the early 1900’s. The dace consistently is quick paced and the music is repetitive in its beats. If you are just learning different Latin American dance styles, the merengue is the best for beginner dancers because of its simplistic moves. The basic merengue move requires you to have one leg that is dragged a little. There are two legends about why the movement of the leg developed. One is that dance came about with slaves, who were chained together and could only drag their leg and another legend states that a wounded war hero during a revolution came home to celebrate and everyone dragged a bent leg to show empathy.
The last dance that will be discussed in this writing is the cha cha. There are many dances that are practiced in Latin America, but these are some of the more popular ones that people have heard of. The cha cha is similar to the salsa, but a lot slower tempo. The name “cha cha” was originated from the sound that is heard of the heeled shoes hitting the floor during the movement. It is lively and upbeat to dance. If you are looking for something to get you in a good mood, then cha cha is the right movement for you. I hoped you enjoyed the informative history of the Latin American culture of dance.