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Lambada

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Lambada

Lambada (Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation) is a dance from the state of Pará in Brazil. The dance briefly became internationally popular in the 1980s, especially in the Philippines, Latin America and Caribbean countries. It has adopted aspects of dances such as maxixe, carimbó, forró, salsa and merengue.

Lambada is generally a partner dance. The dancers generally dance with arched legs, with the steps being from side to side, turning or even swaying, and in its original form never front to back, with a pronounced movement of the hips. At the time when the dance became popular, short skirts for women were in fashion and men wore long trousers, and the dance has become associated with such clothing, especially for women wearing short skirts that swirl up when the woman spins around, typically revealing 90s-style thong underwear.

The association of Lambada and the idea of 'dirty dancing' became quite extensive. The appellative "forbidden dance" was and is often ascribed to the Lambada. This was largely due to its links to Maxixe, a dance of the early 1920s, because of its spicy lyrics and close contact with the dance partner. This idea was further perpetuated by the 1990 movies Lambada and The Forbidden Dance, and the short skirts, typical to the Lambada dance, that were in fashion around 1988.

Lambada has many links with Maxixe and also with Forro. They have many figures in common. For example:

From the time that Brazil was a Portuguese colony, Carimbó was a common dance in the northern part of the country. Carimbó was a loose and very sensual dance which involved many spins by the female dancer, who typically wore a rounded skirt. The music was mainly to the beat of drums made of trunks of wood, thinned by fire.

Carimbó involved only side to side movements and many spins and hip movement, which has influenced lambada movements.

After a while, a local radio station from Belém (Pará's capital city) started to call this new type of music "the strong-beated rhythm" and "the rhythms of lambada". The term "lambada" had a strong appeal and began to be associated with the new emerging face of an old dancing style.[self-published source?]

The word lambada means "strong slap" or "hit" in Portuguese. However, as a dance form, lambada is of obscure etymology. In Portuguese it may refer to the wave-like motion of a whip. This flowing wave motion is reproduced by the dancers' bodies, and is one of the main elements that distinguish Lambada from other Latin dances.[self-published source?]

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