Today the Spanish Sevillida
is the national dance of Spain,
grown from the Seguidilla Manchegras. Originally it was danced
to bells and castanets, wild mannerisms, and only the women danced.
The French smoothed it out and was done solo by male or female
with three distinct styles southern, northern and Flamenco.
Spain has 47 provinces and they each have their own style of dance.
*
The Spanish
dances consisted of many types of dances ....
01) - Basque Dances (thirty)
02) - Bolero
- 1700s - (couple or couples folk dance, could be done like
Quadrille,
5 patterns [passo, final],
---- performed to a Seguidilla (dance or Song.) Bolero
viejo o parado: A style derived from the Seguidilla. The Valldemosa
bolero (Majorca, Spain) is the most popular in the Balearic
Islands. The name parado (stopped) comes from the abrupt end of
the dance.
03) - Cachucha
(Spanish solo dance, better done by a lady than a male which
is danced to the Andalusan national Anthem. Fanny
Elssler made this dance popular at the time. The word Cachucha
means a term of endearment or a kind of cap. Castanets are also
used in this dance.)
04) - Cascaron (Mexican) - (Egg
dance, filled with cologne, powder etc.)
05) - Chacona
- exotic - (Guatemala) about 1560s
06) - Dansas hablados - (Pantomimic
chants)
07) - Danse aux petits grelots
- (Bell/Ring dance)
08) - Danse de espadas - (Sword
type dance, clothed in white).
09) - Danza Prima (from Asturias)
10) - 'El Zapateado' - (3/8,
same as Guaracha, steps are struck, making noise. Similar to Anglaise
& Sabottiere'...aka Heel Taps).
11) - 'El Zorango' - (named
after a head dress or hair ribbon.) Which in Spain is composed
of ribbons, mingled with the hair. Its steps are simple, following
a very sprightly movement, and are practiced backwards
and forwards; while sometimes the hands are clapped to the time.
12) - Folia - (north of the
Pyrenees around 1565)
13) - Fandango
- (basically a Chica dance, usually a solo male or preferably
female dance.) Also Malaguena
14) - Flamenco
(originated with the Gypsies of southern Spain, some say India.)
15) - Jaleo
de Jerez - (a passionate female only impromptu dance.)
16) - Jalisco - Originated same
as name. Male dancer places his hat on ground, female dances around
it, if she touches hat, she accepts his love.
17) - Jota
- National dance of Aragon. Also a Valencia version. (Quick
Spanish dance in 3/8 time).
18) - Guaracha - (3/8, one
person dance, accompanied by guitar, Movement grows progressively
quicker.)
19) - Gittana - A Spanish Dance
?
20) - Malaguena - (school dance
from Valencia.)
21) - Milote (Mexican) - Danced
in May, animated mask type dance.
22) - Minuet
Afandangado - (Minuet & Fandango mix.)
23) - Minuet Allmandado - (Minuet
& Allemande mix.)
24) - Morris
Dances
25) - Pasacalle (around 1560s)
26) - Pie De Jibao - (Spanish
couples Court dance of 1560, maybe from Jibado [hunchback])
27) - Sarabande
- 1100s - (3/4) - ( Main Spanish dance - erotic, gliding
steps - Around 1560s.)
28) - Sardana - (from Cataluna)
29) - Seguidilla
- (Spanish dance having many varieties in all provinces and
country Hispanic. a.k.a.: Paso de Vasco, Sevillana) from Castile.
30) - Seguidilla's Boleras - (Paseo,
Estribillo). When singing to a Bolero
dancing to a guitar.
31) - Seguidilla's Taleadas -
(part Bolero part Cachucha.)
32) - Seguidilla's Manchegras
- Moriscan
- (Spawned the Sevillana's) from La Moncha
33) - Sevillana - Spanish dance
with many varieties, known as Coplas, closely related to the Seguidilla
(the Seguidilla is often called... the Sevillana in Andalucia.)
34) - Tango (originally from
Andalucia, later modified in Buenos Aires.)
35) - Zambra - is a Spanish Flamenco
dance with direct Moorish
origin, done entirely by women.
36) - Zapateado, El - (form
of Flamenco,) This is the same sort of movement as the Guaracha,
and is in the time of 3/8. There is in this dance a considerable
noise made by the feet. Its steps are struck, as it were, similar
to the Anglaise and the Sabottière.
37) - Zarandeo - a Lascivious
movement of the of the hips, dancing in ecstasy, sexual power.
The Agitanado
is heel work used in non-Flamenco
type Spanish dances while Taconeo is Gypsy. The Castanets is Spanish
but not Flamenco!. Good Castanets are tuned to the left being
1/3 higher in tone than the right. In the Ballet
"'El Amour Brujo," one of the routines called "Ritual
Fire
Dance" is a favorite among Spanish Dancers.
The
Cachucha, danced either by a man or a woman alone, though
better suited to the latter, is admirably calculated to accompany
the medley of music peculiar to this dance; which is sometimes
sprightly, and sometimes impassioned. It seems expressly designed
to display the elegance's of ones posture and attitude.
The Danzas:
There were many and varied danzas. Most Danza's were executed
only by the men:
Danzas de espadas : in which the
dancers clothed in white cloth and armed with a sword,
flutter to the sound of instruments.
Danses aux petits grelots : rings
adorned with little round bells, which the dancers carry on hamstrings.
Shoe Danzas : The dancers mark
the measure by striking their shoes with their hand.
Danzas habladas : expressive dances,
kind of pantomimes intermingled with dances and recited chants.
The Folies d'Espagne
was almost universally practiced by the Spaniards. It was first
sung, then played on instruments, and finally danced. Any kind
of step was adapted to it, every one forming for himself a measure,
according to his own peculiar taste and style.
The Guaracha,
the music of which is in 3/8 time, is danced by one person, accompanied
by the guitar. Its movement, which should grow progressively quick,
renders it rather difficult. It is now but seldom danced, and
never except at the Theaters.
The
Menuet Afandangado is partly composed of the Minuet
and Fandango.
The Menuet Allmandado
is intermixed with steps from the Minuet and Allemande.
The Sarabande
- is said to be originally from Asia, rather than Spain. It is
sometimes spelt Zarabanda or Sarabanda, a graceful dance traced
to the twelfth century, which, according to Padre Mariana, received
its name at Seville from a devil in a woman's form. These dances
gave great scandal, and in 1621 they were modified. The name Zarabanda
means noise, and is of Arabic-Moorish
origin. It may well have been a survival of the licentious Greek
Cordax. It is danced to alternating 3/4 and 3/8 time, using castanets
and tambourines. Among other theatrical dances of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries were the Chaconne
and the Escarraman; these, together with the Zorongo, are similar
to the Zarabanda, which Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) denouncement
of the dance spread throughout Europe and would be suppressed
at the end of the reign of Philip II (1556-1598.) The Gallarda,
a merry dance with five steps--hence cinque-pas--and
the Pasacalle, were of the same type.
The S'a llarga y S'a
curta: These are the two
most typical dances from the island of Ibiza, Spain. Depending
on the beat of the music "S' a llarga" stands for long
and "S' a Curta" for short. The woman dances slowly,
barely moving while the man dances vigorously trying to prove
his manhood and strength.
The S'escandalari is another dance
from Ibiza and is a peasant dance celebrating planting and harvesting.
The Seguidilla's Boleras
is a name which was given when the Boleros
were sung, and accompanied by a guitar. The great difficulty of
this dance consists in resuming the part called the Paseo, which
is immediately after the first part of the tune in the prelude
of the accompaniment, which precedes the Estribillo. The Estribillo
is that part of the couplet, not indeed where the moral is found,
but which contains the epigrammatic point or turn.
The Seguidilla's Manchegras
which are danced by four, six, eight, or nine persons, are far
more rapid in their movements, beginning without the Paseo. The
traversias of it is shorter, and its bien parado is without gesture.
This dance is very sprightly in its motions, and a great favorite
with the lower orders, who give themselves up to it with a peculiar
zest. It is of Moriscan
origin.
The Seguidilla's Taleadas
is a species of the Bolero,
mingled with some measures of the Cachucha.
The Tripili Trapola
is nearly similar to the Zorongo, excepting that it finishes with
three demi-tours or half turns.
The Zorongo
has given name to a headdress for women, which in Spain is composed
of ribbons mingled with the hair. Its steps are simple, following
a very sprightly movement, and are practiced backward and forward;
while sometimes the hands are clapped to the time.
The Zapateado
is the same sort of movement as the Guaracha , and is in the time
of 3/8. There is in this dance a considerable noise made by the
feet. Its steps are struck, as it were, similar to the Anglaise
and the Sabottière .
Portuguese Dance
- Portugal is closely allied to Spain by its geographical position
and by the common origin of the race, so expect in some respects
to find the two countries resembling each other in their dances.
But as North Spain differs from South Spain, so does Portugal
differ from her sister country; and, moreover, Portugal was not
one province, but a group of provinces. Each one of which has
to some extent dances and dance-music peculiar to itself (like
the Fofaor Fado dance.) In this southwestern corner
of Europe we find many remains of old Moorish civilization, and
the traces of Saracen culture are greater in Portugal than even
in Southern Spain; it is stated that the Saracens taught the Portuguese
Cymons "all the sweet civilities of life," and among
these the dance were prominent. These dances were said not to
be specially graceful; they were slow in movement, and similar
to Oriental
dances, similar to the East because they consisted mostly
of movements of the body and arms, and because they had no steps
worth mentioning.
They were simple and expressive, and were often
performed as a rest after labor; the threshing-floor was generally
the scene of the dance, and its season is mostly that of harvest
or vintage. The dances are generally innocent and decorous; they
resembling Quadrilles,
with hops and skips, but without much spirit, and the faces of
the performers maintained a solemn gravity. Castanets were seldom
used in Portugal, and the dance is accompanied by the guitar,
or by songs, the theme of which is usually the bright-eyed maids
or the brave sons of Lusitania. The name of the principal dance
of a Romaria is the Fofa.
Portugal is famous for its Ballets
ambulatories, which are religious processions with dances, in
imitation of the Tuscan pomp, and such as we meet with all over
Italy. The canonization of Cardinal C. Borromée (c.1700s)
was celebrated by a ballet of this kind. There is also a well-known
dance called the Fado. Portugal
really consists of two distinct parts -- the north is Celtic in
character, while the south is Arab.
In contemporary Spain the word Danza implies
a dance performance at public festivals, and ordinary dances are
called Bailes. |
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