Samba Dance Classes Jupiter FL (Palm Beach County)

When the Brazilian Samba was first introduced to the United States in 1929, it became an overnight sensation. Like many other Brazilian dances, the music is an amalgamation of African and Latin American rhythm that is adorned with expressive, melodic lines. Samba owes its rhythm and moves to the African slave dances on the Brazilian sugarcane plantations. Originating in Bahia, Brazil, the dance first became popular in Rio de Janeiro, and later, its intoxicating rhythm was taken up by serious Latin American composers.

The Samba is festive and lighthearted, and performed today in all parts of the world. It brings to mind pictures of Rio’s festive Carnival. In its native land, the Samba is usually danced to a moderately slow tempo which contrasts vividly with the spirited version favored in U.S. The Samba has withstood the test of time and still ranks high among social as well as competitive dancers. It’s a carnival street dance, a ballroom competition dance, a 1930s classic movie number, and a powerful workout. 

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Fred Astaire and Delores Del Rio danced a version of Samba, the carioca, in the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio, while Carmen Miranda, a Brazilian dancer who Samba’d her way through That Night in Rio, became synonymous with the dance worldwide. Today, the many iterations of samba are a mainstay of  carnival in Rio De Janeiro and of Latin ballroom dancing everywhere. Now it’s a solo dance, a couple’s dance, a street-dancing exhibition, and a hybrid, merged with rock, acrobatics, and even reggae.