Samba originated in Africa. The word "samba" is said to have evolved from the second largest Angolan tribe in Africa, the Kimbundu language "Samba". "Samba" was originally a kind of exciting belly dance. As the name suggests, the dance is characterized by the up-and-down shaking of the abdomen and the shaking of the hips. It was one of the most popular dance movements in Angola and began to spread with the rise of the slave trade. For more than 300 years, from the 1630s to the mid-1800s, Portuguese colonizers trafficked 12 million black slaves from Angola and other parts of Africa to Brazil. In cramming black slaves into the holds of ships bound for the newly discovered continent of Latin America, white slave traders feared that the long journey, with black slaves nestled in the holds for dozens of days at a time, would not fetch a good price when they arrived on shore with weak legs. Therefore, they rushed the black slaves who were crowded in the cabins to the deck every day, and let them dance a samba to the accompaniment of banging on the wine barrels and iron pots, so as to move their muscles. In this way, the colonizers' move, which was intended to enhance the bidding power of a special commodity like the Negro, inadvertently brought this dance, popular in Africa, to Latin America.
It has been established that samba was first popularized in Brazil around Salvador, the capital of Bahia state. This is where the Portuguese first landed to colonize Brazil. They ran a large number of plantations and mining sites here. The black slaves who were trafficked to the plantations and mines danced this hometown dance for fun after their heavy labor. In later centuries, black slaves and their descendants from Africa had more contact with whites from all over Europe and gradually integrated with indigenous Indians. As a result, their dances gradually absorbed some elements of the Bohemian polka from Europe, the Habanera from Cuba and the locally popular Brazilian Maxichea, gradually forming the modern samba. It is recorded that it was the women of Bahia who brought this dance to Rio de Janeiro, the then capital of Brazil, at the beginning of the 20th century. Since then, the dance has spread from the coast to the interior, from the slums to the upper class, from the blacks and mulattos to the whites. At the same time, the six-string guitar and ukulele that had been the main instruments of accompaniment in Spain were gradually replaced by percussion instruments such as brass drums, gongs and cymbals, which were used in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, where the first samba school, "Let's Gossip", was established in 1928, and where the first samba parade, "Valentine's Day Samba Parade", was held in 1932. In 1932, Brazil held the first Valentine's Day Samba Parade Observation Competition, which was welcomed and praised by the people. From then on, the modern samba was soon popular throughout Brazil.
Samba is a kind of collective fellowship dance, the participants are as few as dozens of people, as many as tens of thousands of people. The dance is accompanied by drums, gongs and other percussion. The dance steps are simple, the feet move forward and backward, the body side leaning, swaying back and forth. Male and female dancers dance in pairs in situ or around the ballroom with each other, or they can be separated to dance their own steps. Male dancers are fond of all kinds of dexterous movements of the feet, and their feet move or rotate rapidly. Female dancers focus on upper body shaking and abdominal and hip twisting. Samba can be performed in ballrooms and on the stage, but more often it is performed in groups in open squares and streets. The dancers form a circle or a double row, singing and dancing. The dancers are wild and uninhibited, with large movements and strong rhythms, giving people a feeling of passion like fire. And drums, brass drums, tambourines and other percussion instruments at the same time and work, high-pitched and intense, the sound waves rolling, and more to create a tense, hot, fiery atmosphere. When this atmosphere reaches a climax, the music often comes to an abrupt end, and the difficult dance dynamics are instantly condensed into a sculpture-like static that is silent. The instantaneous change of movement and static, the amazing harmony of the ups and downs, creates a unique sense of surprise and shocking beauty.
What makes the samba even more colorful is the gorgeous costumes of the performers. Both men and women are dressed in colorful costumes. Male actors foot boots, wearing an ancient European knight-like vest, or draped in African big chief-style robes. The female actors were more elaborately dressed. They are either wearing the body wrapped tightly around the beautiful pattern of the floor-length dress, or just hanging on the small can not be smaller, nearly naked "three-pointed", or even completely bare chest, only in the nipple painted a little colorful decorations. Their headdress is more chic, or wearing a gorgeous crown, or insert colorful bird feathers, or top a fire like plumes. Colorful dress is also full of colorful beads and jewels. Whenever the sound of dance music, modern lights flashing, clothing that is with the dance steps fluttering, beads and jade with the lights flow, like a group of flames flickering, such as a shooting star flying around, forming a dreamlike world. Being in it, one feels like being immortal, and one's soul soars.
Brazilian samba dance is divided into two categories:
①Mass samba: the dance movements are improvised by the dancers with the rhythm. Female dancers are mainly small and dexterous crotch-twisting movements, male dancers in addition to crotch movements, often with a variety of dexterous changes in foot movements to show their own dance skills. When performing, they can dance in a circle, or a man can invite a woman to perform in the circle, while the others are still in the same place to follow the dance, but also by a person in the lead, the others in the line behind, by the latter holding the waist of the former, the crowd in accordance with a variety of formations in unison to do the twisting movement.
② performative samba: female dancers twisted crotch action combined with a large amount of modeling dance and a variety of footwork changes, while the number of people according to the dance to create a variety of formations, male dancers holding a variety of percussion instruments while jumping.