Kizomba

Kizomba is a partner dance native of the African country of Angola, it is a fusion of Semba with the Zouk music styles from the French Caribbean Islands with influences from other Lusophone countries. Kizomba means party in the Kimbundu dialect of Angola.

In Angola in the 50's the expression "Kizombadas' referred to a party.There was no association of the word to a Dance genre or a musical genre.But the dance known as "Semba","Rebita", "Kabetula", "Maringa", already existed in the 50's and 60's. Other dances coming from Europe like Tango, practiced by the Portuguese colonials. The "Plena" from Puerto Rico and Merengue are thought to be brought by the Cuban influence in Angola during the war. The style of Kizomba is now emphasizes a very smooth way of dancing with heavy influences of Tango steps, but one of the main differences is that the lower body, the hip, does forward/backwards and circle movements.People dance on the tempo, as well as playing on the off beat and only sometimes using syncopated steps.

In the modern Semba dance, it is easy to observe how so many of the steps have been influenced by Cuban dance and perhaps vice versa, as you can find high similarities in both genres.




Yes! Kizomba is finally generating some hype here. The reason why I was promoting Kizomba was actually because I loved dancing it but there was no one for me to dance with. So, a friend from France went and did a workshop, and now there's a small buzz in the salsa community on Kizomba. I'm happy.

However, the above video is a bit too 'show -off'-y or contrived imho. I prefer sensuality that is intangible, you can feel it by the energies, slight touches, or eye contact between the two dancers instead of overly gyrating hips. But this is my personal preference, in fact many good Kizomba dancers do the above video style (based on all the youtubes I've been watching).





Tapi style aku biasalah, very street or raw I guess. Of all the polished and professional Kizomba videos that I've watched, the below video has got to be my most favourite one. It's more to Semba actually (which is kind of a predecessor of Kizomba) and very free and playful, but still sensuous in a way.

Selambe je kan, kat jalan raya, just dance.

My friend told me he went to Ghana, and there.. someone turns on the radio in a shop, and suddenly everyone just gets up and dances. It's just so natural for them, no constraints.. dance is just their expression of joy and they really feel it.





note: just FYI, I've been told both video's above are more to Semba than Kizomba.