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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 preffer 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 or not 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.
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 XX century, local radio stations from Belém do Pará (a capital city of one of Brazil's northern and oldest states) started to call these type of music as "strong beated rhythms" and "rhythms of Lambada" (Lambada is another word in local language for a strong hit). This name "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 and some authors relate to have experienced this kind of dance in Belém and Macapá (another capital city in the north of Brazil). 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-eas coast of Brazil reaching Bahia, it began receiving some influences from the Forró (a dance very popular in those regions), until it finally became a 4-beated dancing style, which was definitively different from the original Carimbó.
The way of dancing this 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-eletricos" (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 on a regular basis and most Lambada songs remained restricted to the North-east 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 first lambaterias (a place to dance Lambada) which opened by 1988 couldn't stand the low season and closed a few months later.
The Forbidden Dance
Its from these years (circa 1988) that came the first tale about Lambada - the forbidden dance. With its roots on Forró and Carimbó and several other northern-brazilian dancing styles at a certain stage Lambada was compared 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 erotic and pornographic dance, when at best it was just a sensual way of dancing. This trend of labeling erotic dances from Bahia followed on in further years with some other quite sexual referenced dances such as the "dança da garrafa" and reached its peak with the Axe movement in the late 1990s.
The International Beat
While the Lambada was being buried at winter in Brazil, some entrepeneurs at Europe found other plans for it. At the end of that very summer, a couple of French business man came to Brazil and bought the musical rights 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 or not this is true, the fact is that around that time, after more than 30 years since the Beatles, young couples started to dance together once again. Hundreds of Brazilian style ballroom dancing schools were re-opened.
This second Lambada wave was a much bigger success and left strong imprints in the Brazilian culture and in the minds and hearts of the young people who by that time were between 15 to 30 year old. At that stage 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), an early Lambada dancing contest took place at "Lambateria UM" had as a basic rule the contestants were to be eliminated if ever they ever became separated during the dance.
During the second boom, the strong demand for dancers in films and shows brought the experinece 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 like 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 on the dance floor today.
Hunting for a new rhythm: the decline of the lambada music
After these up's & down's the 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. Others still very resistant dancers started to seek other music styles such as the Socca, Kompa and Zouk (Caribeen music styles) to keep on dancing the Lambada moves.
Other music styles were also incorporated such as the Flamenco Rumba from Gypsy Kings and some Arabic songs.
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 many 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 several brazilian dancing forums of whether these are actually two different kind of dances.
To make matters worse and even more confusing, there's another completely different style of dance called Zouk, which is the way people dance in Martinique (the french caribeean island where the Zouk music was born).
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
- The Forbidden Dance Is Lambada (1990) (Lambada: The Forbidden Dance)
- Lambada (1990) (Lambada: Set the Night on Fire)
External link
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