Read about the Zumba Dances and a short history of each,
Then check out the basic count for each dance.
The first bunch of dance descriptions is thanks to www.zumbacornwall.ca
Merengue
The Dominican Republic is usually credited as the origin of Merengue although Haiti and Santo Domingo fall in that category as well. It is faster pace rhythm. Common instruments are congo drums, accordion, and guiro. The most common move for the Merengue is the "basic march".
Salsa
Salsa is a blend of many Carribean cultures and strongly influenced by Cuba, but made popular in New York and Florida as it is known today. Salsa had a very distinct beat and is usually a faster tempo.
Cumbia
The Cumbia is known as a rhythm from Columbia, South America, but holds influences from Africa and Europe. Cumbia is often associated with a tropical or creole flavor to the music. The most common Cumbia move is the "Sugar Cane".
Reggaeton
Reggaeton has Jamaican influences and was made popular in Puerto Rico and Panama. The music contains a heavy bass drum beat, with a primary instrument being a Reggae style drum. The most common move is the "ZUMBA hit" otherwise known as "crumping".
Flamenco
Currently known as the rhythm from Andalusia in southern Spain with influences from Gypsy, Muslim and Jewish cultures. Flamenco is known fo the sounds of handclapping, finger snapping, tongue clicking, knuckle gashing, etc... In ZUMBA, some of the moves are related to the "picking of the grapes" for wine production. Much attitude is projected in the upper body movements.
Samba
Samba originates in Brazil. Samba is known for its sexy hip moving moves.It was and is danced as a festival dance during the street festivals and celebrations. First introduced in the U.S. in a Broadway play called "Street Carnival" in the late twenties. The festive style and mood of the dance has kept it alive and popular to this day. Samba is a fun dance that fits most of today's popular music.
Other dances that are 'taught' in Zumba Fitness classes are Bellydancing,
Cha Cha, Bachata, Rumba, and even Rock 'n Roll and Hip Hop:
Bellydancing (thanks to www.essortment.com)
The type of dancing the American people now call belly dancing, also known as the dance of the east and the oriental dance, can be traced back at least 2000 years and some historians believe the figure is closer to 6000 years. While its exact beginning is unknown, many groups claim to be the founders (including Egypt and Turkey). Historically, women would use the dance style for entertainment and pass it down from mother to daughter until it became a part of the areas culture. The dancers normally only danced for other women—at least publicly—and it was often used as a way for mothers of bachelor sons to get to know the perspective mates in the area. Possibly the tradition was handed down in the ancient fertility communities to help women prepare their abdominal muscles for labor. Overtime belly dancing was adapted to fit the preference of each different group it reached. For example, in Saudi Arabia the dance is considered sacred and was never meant to be viewed by men. Alternatively, in the Middle East belly dancing was often used at weddings to stimulate the bride and groom for their wedding night and to bless their marriage as a fertile one. The dance style made its debut in the United States at the 1893 World’s Fare in Chicago by an Egyptian dancer called “Little Egypt” and it was also at this time that a 21 year old event promoter named Sol Bloom named the style “belly dancing” by translating the French term “danse du ventre.”
Cha Cha (thanks to www.latindanceforever.com)
In the late 1940s, Havana, Cuba, was one of the most popular resorts for North Americans, especially those residing along the east coast. The most famous American dance bands as well as the many outstanding latin bands native to Cuba played at the city's casinos. Some of these orchestras tried combining the American JAZZ beat with the Cuban RUMBA rhythm; The result was a new rhythm called the MAMBO.
A dance was developed to the new mambo rhythm, danced to the off beat rather than the traditional downbeat. For this reason, the dance was popular mainly with dancers thoroughly familiar with complex Afro-Cuban music. However, among the many figures of the mambo was one called the "chatch", which involved three quick changes of weight preceded by two slow steps. By the early 1950s, this figure had developed into a new dance comprised of many simple variations on the basic footwork. The dance acquired the name CHA-CHA ; its characteristic three-step change of weight carried the identifying verbal definition, "cha-cha-cha".
Bachata (Part of this text was taken from "Bachata, A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music")
The music that today is called Bachata emerged from and belongs to a long-standing Pan-Latin American tradition of guitar music, musica de guitarra, which was typically played by trios or quartets comprised of one or two guitars (or other related stringed instruments such as the smaller requito), with percussion provided by maracas and/or other instruments such as claves (hardwood sticks used for percussion), bongo drums, or a gourd guiro scraper. Sometimes a large thumb bass called marimba or marimbula was included as well. When bachata emerged in the early 1960s, it was part of an important subcategory of guitar music, romantic guitar music - as distinguished from guitar music intended primarily for dancing such as the Cuban son or guaracha- although in later decades, as musicians began speeding up the rhythm and dancers developed a new dance step, bachata began to be considered dance music as well. The most popular and widespread genre of romantic guitar music in this century, and the most influential for the development of bachata was the Cuban bolero (not to be confused with the unrelated Spanish bolero). Bachata musicians, however, also drew upon other genres of musica de guitarra that accomplished guitarists would be familiar with, including Mexican rancheros and corridos, Cuban son, guaracha and guajira, Puerto Rican plena and jibaro music, and the Columbian-Ecuadorian vals campesino and pasillo- as well as the Dominican merengue, which was originally guitar-based.
Rumba (thanks to www.latindanceforever.com)
The word Rumba is a generic term, covering a variety of names (i.e., Son, Danzon, Guagira, Guaracha, Naningo), for a type of West Indian music or dancing. The exact meaning varies from island to island.
There are two sources of the dances: one Spanish and the other African. Although the main growth was in Cuba, there were similar dance developments which took place in other Caribbean islands and in Latin America generally.
The "rumba influence" came in the 16th century with the black slaves imported from Africa. The native Rumba folk dance is essentially a sex pantomime danced extremely fast with exaggerated hip movements and with a sensually aggressive attitude on the part of the man and a defensive attitude on the part of the woman. The music is played with a staccato beat in keeping with the vigorous expressive movements of the dancers. Accompanying instruments include the maracas, the claves, the marimbola, and the drums.
As recently as the second world war, the "Son" was the popular dance of middle class Cuba. It is a modified slower and more refined version of the native Rumba. Still slower is the "Danzon", the dance of wealthy Cuban society. Very small steps are taken, with the women producing a very subtle tilting of the hips by alternately bending and straightening the knees.
The American Rumba is a modified version of the "Son". The first serious attempt to introduce the rumba to the United States was by Lew Quinn and Joan Sawyer in 1913. Ten years later band leader Emil Coleman imported some rumba musicians and a pair of rumba dancers to New York. In 1925 Benito Collada opened the Club El Chico in Greenwich Village and found that New Yorkers did not know what Rumba was all about.
Real interest in Latin music began about 1929. In the late 1920's, Xavier Cugat formed an orchestra that specialized in Latin American music. He opened at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles and appeared in early sound movies such as "In Gay Madrid". Later in the 1930's, Cugat played at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. By the end of the decade he was recognized as having the outstanding Latin orchestra of the day.
Rock 'n Roll (thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org)
The immediate origins of rock and roll lie in the late 1940s and early 1950s through a mixing together of various popular musical genres of the time. These included gospel, folk music, and the blues - particularly the electric forms being developed in Memphis, Chicago, New Orleans, Texas, California, and elsewhere - piano-based boogie woogie, and jump blues, which were collectively becoming known as rhythm and blues. Also in the melting pot creating a new musical form were country and western music (including Western swing and influences from traditional Appalachian folk music), jazz, and gospel music.
However, elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of the 1930s, and in blues records from the 1920s. During that period many white Americans enjoyed African-American jazz and blues performed by white musicians. Often "black" music was usually relegated to "race music" outlets (music industry code for rhythm and blues stations) and was rarely heard by mainstream white audiences. A few black rhythm and blues musicians, notably Louis Jordan, the Mills Brothers, and The Ink Spots, achieved crossover success; in some cases (such as Jordan's "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie") this success was achieved with songs written by white songwriters. The Western swing genre in the 1930s, generally played by white musicians, also drew heavily on the blues and in turn directly influenced rockabilly and rock and roll, as can be heard, for example, on Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" (1957).
Going back even further, rock and roll can trace one lineage to the old Five Points, Manhattan district of mid-19th century New York City, the scene of the first fusion of heavily rhythmic African shuffles and sand dances with melody-driven European genres, particularly the Irish jig.
Hip Hop (thanks to www.about.com)
A product of cross-cultural integration, rap is deeply rooted within ancient African culture and oral tradition. Hip-hop is believed to have originated in the Bronx by a Jamaican DJ named Kool Herc. Herc's style of deejaying involved reciting rhymes over instrumentals. At house parties, Herc would rap with the microphone, using a myriad of in-house references. Duplicates of Herc's house parties soon drifted through Brooklyn, Manhattan. Herc and other block party DJs helped spread the message of hip-hop around town and spawned tons of followers.
Here's the basic count for some of the dances: (Some of this info is thanks to www.thedancestoreonline.com)
Merengue: Merengue music essentially has the tempo and rhythm of marching music. This is appropriate for the even tempo left, right, left, right, step timing. The music and the basic step may be counted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Counting to eight is also very popular. The basic step can be thought of as side step, close, side step, close, side step, close, side step, close.
Salsa: The basic count of Salsa is 1,2,3, hold - repeat; so it would look like this: With feet together - right foot forward on 1, left foot step in place on 2, right foot close to left foot (or slightly back) on 3, hold for 1 beat; then left foot back on 1, right foot step in place on 2, left foot close to right foot (or slightly forward) on 3, hold for 1 beat.
Cumbia: Basic Cumbia count is 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & - so the basic step would look like this: with feet together - right heel forward on 1, left foot step in place on '&', right toe back on 2, left foot step in place on '&', right heel forward on 3, left foot step in place on '&', right toe back on 4, left foot step in place on '&'.
Cha Cha: The true 'ballroom' Cha Cha beat is 1,2,3, 4 & 1 (rock step on 2,3 and cha cha on 4 & 1) but when we dance a cha cha in the Zumba Fitness format, it is counted as 1,2, 3 & 4 (rock step on 1,2 and cha cha, or triple step, on 3 & 4). The basic step looks like this: with feet together - right foot forward on 1, left foot step in place on 2, right foot close to left on 3, left foot step in place on '&', right foot step in place on 4; then left foot back on 1, right foot step in place on 2, left foot close to right foot on 3, right foot step in place on '&', left footstep in place on 4.
Bachata/Rumba/Bolero: The basic count for all three of these slow styles is 1,2,3, hold or quick-quick-slow where the slow has two beats. So, for example, you would dance a basic to the side as: feet together - right foot to side on 1, left foot close to right on 2, right foot to side on 3, hold on 4; then left foot to side on 1, right foot close to left on 2, left foot to side on 3, hold on 4.
Swing/Rock 'n Roll: For the basic Swing or Rock' n Roll you would dance it as (triple step) 1,2,3, hold; (triple step) 1,2,3, hold; 1,2 - so the basic step would be: with feet together - right foot to side on 1, left foot step in place on 2, right foot step in place on 3, hold; left foot step in place on 1, right foot step in place on 2, left foot step in place on 3, hold; right foot back on 1, left foot step in place on 2.
Live...laugh...love...ZUMBA!
Vivez...Riez...Aimez...ZUMBA!
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Zumba With Heather.
If you want to know what Zumba Fitness is, it is a latin dance-based fitness class that's guaranteed to be fun!
This site was designed by Heather Diodati
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