Music and dance
The attention is focused upon couple dances with embrace. In particular, the artistic and
musical work is focused towards tango, kizomba and bachata.
Although musically different, tango, kizomba and bachata are clear ethnomusicological examples
of cultural sicretism
, through the encounter of European, African and Native cultures, that, in different
places of planet Earth
gave origin to musical, artistical and social phenomena, reinforced over several years.
Tango
Tango can be considered the paradigm for couple dance with embrace, above all in the case of close embrace, or rather of "milonguero tango".
Tango was born at the end XIX century, as phenomenon localized in Buenos Aires, or,
more generally, in the area of
"Rio de la Plata".
From Argentine, tango spread to Europe in the beginning of XX century, achieving success,
till the point of acquiring different forms of tango, that we can see nowadays.
Focusing the attention on "Rio de la Plata", to understand tango in a clear and completo manner,
both musically and as a dance, we have to approach also
the milonga, musical genre close to "candombe", another typical example of African origins of music,
developed in South America through the encounter di different European and Native cultures.
Moreover, with the term "milonga" we mean also the place, where you can play and dance tango.
Finally, to complete the musical panorama about tango, we have to get closer to vals criollo, that we can listen to in milonga.
Kizomba
Kizomba has its own origin in music known with the term "zouk", music and dance born in Angola,
during the Portuguese colonial period.
So, it's not accidental that many actual songs of kizomba show lyrics written in creole Portuguese,
such as Portuguese spoken in Cape Verde Islands.
From Angola, zouk music spread in different colonial lands, also in French colonies:
infact, nowadays French is a very fertile land for zouk and kizomba.
Kizomba, that we can listen to currently, very often includes new soul sounds and, sometimes,
shows musical affinity to
reggae music.
Anyway, zouk or kizomba preserve a strong sensuality in the gestures
of the couple, sensuality highlighted in a variantion of kizomba, known as "tarraxa".
Bachata
From South America of Argentina and from Africa of Angola, we can travel to Latin-Carribean area to meet bachata, a musical genre known to the audience long since, above all because of discographycal successes during the 90's.
