Tanzende Frauen

Brazilian Dance Styles

Samba is a Brazilian dance and music culture that is strongly informed by African influence. Historically tightly connected to slavery, occupation and migration, today’s Samba oscillates between extremes: Practised in many regional forms in Brazil, it was popularized, for example, by Rio’s Carnival, and its inclusion as competitive dance into the World Dance Program during the 1960s is also part of its history. Typical stylistic elements in samba dancing are isolation and the polycentrism of individual body parts, especially the hip. The samba, as a couple’s dance, as a solo dance or in a group (as danced at tanzhaus nrw) has a strong pull and is pure joy of life, as is another Brazilian cultural technique: Capoeira. Capoeira is a martial arts dance with roots that stretch deep into Brazil’s colonial era, too. Central elements are the fight, the music and the “roda” (Portuguese for “circle”), practised by rules and rituals that are orally traded. At this time, tanzhaus nrw only offers Capoeira exclusively for youths.

Instructors

Portrait of Carlinhos Batá

Carlinhos Batá

Show courses (2)

Carlinhos Batá, born ins São Paulo, started his dancing career with the company Batá Koto. Since 1999, he lives and works as an artist in Europe. Together with Marcelo Nascimento and Sergio Saira, he brought the much vaunted Brazilian way of life and the sambo boom to Düsseldorf. In 2009, he finished his dance pedagogy training at the German Institute for Dance Pedagogy (DIT) and also completed a degree in dance culture V.I.E.W. (mediation, staging, evaluation and knowledge) at the Sporthochschule Cologne. Since then, he has been involved in numerous projects at schools and cultural institutions conceptually as well as in the implementation with a focus on inclusion. Carlinhos teaching is in high demand, as his classes are characterized by his great dedication for the dance and music of Brazil.