By IANS,
New Delhi: Samba, Salsa, Zouk, Lambada, Forro, Frevo … As Indians wake up to the joys of popular Latin American dances, Brazil Thursday announced India as the maiden venue for a World Dance Festival to be held September 10-13 in Gurgaon, a town adjacent to Delhi.
The festival, organised by Latin American cosmetics giant Surya Brasil, to be held at the Leela Kempinski in Gurgaon, is supported by the embassies of Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Ecuador and will bring 15 top Latin American performers to India and also feature Indian artists.
The organisers are expecting more than 1,000 participants at the three-day dance carnival, which will include 72 tutorial workshops, from countries like Brazil, India, the host nation, the US, France, the Britain, Australia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, South Africa and Serbia.
“We want to bring together dance enthusiasts from across the country and introduce them to different forms of dancing which are unique and new to India. We have also included Indian dance forms to make it international,” Raquel Novals, brand head of Surya Brasil in India, said Thursday at a press conference while announcing the festival with embassy representatives.
Part of the proceeds from the festival will be donated for treatment of spinal injuries in India, protection of children and People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
“The dances to be showcased at the festival include Forro, Saloon dance (for wheelchair users), salsa, hip-hop, street dance, jazz, Zouk, Zouk-arabe, capoiera, samba, pagode, lambada, frevo, house, video dance, Kathak, popular Bollywood dances and Punjabi folk dances,” Novals said.
The line-up of performers is impressive. “Indians for the first will have the opportunity to see and learn from world-famous dancers like Carla Lazazzera and Sheila Mello, Latin rhythms teachers like Douglas Mohmari, zouk master Philip Miha, hip hop artist Bianchini, Kaytee Namgyal, founder of the largest Salsa school in India, and Kathak exponent Uma Sharma,” Novals said.
Philip Miha and Sheila Mello are two of most popular names in Latin American dance.
Miha, a dance teacher since 1987, uses his experience as a physical education teacher to make Zouk, a dance of Caribbean origin, more acrobatic. He teaches at several dance schools in Sao Paulo, oversees Zouk performances at two major clubs in Brazil and choreographs Zouk events. He even hosts a Latin American dance festival in his country.
Zouk, a rhythm based sensuous dance from the Caribbean, is used with traditional high-energy Lambada dance to create contemporary form that is very popular among youngsters and in night clubs across Brazil. It is danced in couples. The dance is often referred to as Lambazouk.
Showgirl Mello, a ballet and modern dancer by training, is one of Brazil’s most sought after dancers, specialising in almost every genre of Latin American dances and ballet.
“Latin American dances have an interesting origin,” Flavio Werneck, head of the cultural section of the embassy of Brazil, told IANS.
Unlike Kathak and Bharatnatyam, which evolved in the Muslim courts and in the temples of south India respectively, Latin American dances mostly originated in brothels and shanty towns in the beginning of the 19th century after capitalism came to Latin America, Werneck explained.
“The workers, mostly farm hands and industrial workers, and prostitutes, developed the dances and composed music as post-work entertainment; which is why we usually dance in couples or in a crowd. Our dances are spontaneous, free-flowing and sensuous. Many Latin American dances have African influences because of the history of slave trade in the continent,” Werneck said.