Let's share some culture: Dances!

[MrKiwi]

How ya folks? Quite recently I felt captivated by a particular dance related to my national culture, so I thought: "What dances are there in other countries? How huge could the differences and variety so happen to be?"

This could be an interesting and even usefull thread for those interested on knowing other cultural traits out of their reality. Feel free to share some dance or rhythms related to your culture!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I'll start right away with the one dance inspired me to do this:

Uru te hami (Not sure if this the song or dance name)


This is a traditional dance from Easter Island, it was a war dance actually. Its purpose its to show up the might of the warriors in a powerfull and intimidating choreography. This particular song divides in two phases; the first one is confrontation between warriors (also, usually only men dance here) the movements are stong and agressive; on the second and third sections, the song turns more cheerful, still strong, but the pace is different (also, sometimes, the second phase is women only dance, and third phase is for both), the meaning of this last half is showcase the vitality and prosperity of the people thanks to the gods of the island.

Cueca (This is the most emblematic dance here in Chile)


This is a courtship dance that took inspiration on how roosters courtship the chickens for mating. During this process the rooster walks around the chicken while this one usually avoids it. As portrayed by the dance, the male known as huaso, dances and chases the female, known as china (yes, like the asian country, not sure why they pick this name for it) she has a defensive posture during the dance, trying to get away or hiding behind her handkerchief. By the end of the dance they both face each other and dance around to end up together.

Hope you find this interesting and I hope you too share some cultural knowledge!

 

[Finnuval]

OKay I'll bite... Dutch Clog Dancing (and yeah it's pretty lame lol)

 

[Dororo]

Italy is FULL of different dances, as each region evolved quite independtly.
Anyway, one of the most famous and fun is TAMMURRIATA ("made of drums"), a neapolitan freeform dance. It always plays in couples, genderless and ageless, more or less acrobatical - just have fun keeping the pace by snapping your fingers or using castanets (nacchere).


(As for cultural stuff... in Italy dance was just a social gathering excuse so it doesn't have any other meaning but gathering together and have some relaxing time after hard work - and after wine - if not a excuse to find a partner. Dances were the only free context were you could interact with someone without risking scandals. Nowadays is just a fun activity. Many dance events happen at catholic holydays - but they lack any reference to, just a matter you don't work at holydays XD. That's why many are freeform and easy to grasp - my region, Tuscany, got different waltz-like folk dance so easy to learn you can in just 2 minutes).

 

[JosephSeraph]

This thread is awesome. That reminds me to do some research on dancing for festivals on Records in Blue lol

edit: I really don't know of any traditional Brazilian dances other than the cliche Samba. There are plenty but I never really experienced or gave them thought. Now I need to dive in!

 

[standardplayer]

Americans don't have any super traditional submissions, but we did have a thing for the Twist. Not saying we still do it or talk about it, but it happened.

 

[Finnuval]

@standardplayer well there are the native american dances ofcourse...

 

[standardplayer]

Yeah I'm white, so I'm not gonna claim Native American dances are the United States's traditional dances. I'll just take the fall for the Twist, thank you XD

 

[Astel]

This from the northeast of Mexico.