Erin

Hello everyone.
I have a question that I would like to ask the community, and wonder if I could ask it here? I just got a CD of Fado, from Portugal, and after doing some research on the web, I have read that there is A: A dance form to this kind of music, and B: that it has possible Moorish influences. My question is, has anyone else heard of this as a dance form? Know anything about it, etc, etc? Any information anyone could give me would be helpful, even other websites to look at. Anything. This is beautiful and heartrending music, and I can imagine that it would make for a beautiful dance with Middle Eastern facets. However, being culturally sensitive, I don’t want to just jump in and choreograph a perfectly inappropriate dance without doing some research.

Suheir

I don't know about the dance but there's an online radio article about Fado here, if you're able to listen to it: BBC - Radio 4 - Woman's Hour -Cristina Branco

Yasmina

Dear Erin, my Portugal friend who is a bellydancer said that there is no authentic dance done to fado music. However, she herself has danced to fado music on Portugal parties but has never said that this is traditional.

By the way, don't you just loove fado? I've been listening to Mariza for 5 days now and still can't get enough of her...

Erin

I wasn't able to listen, but there was a lot of info there. So I will keep the link and look at it all as I have time. Thank you!

Erin

It must be the Brazilian version of Fado that I was reading about, as I did see something about the dance being similar to, or based on, the Samba. Though the two styles seem kind of poorly matched.

I do love it. The CD I have has various artists on it, and I have put it on repeat.

I will keep researching.....

Thanks!

Aziyade

We went Fado hunting in Lisbon a few years ago and found it's MOSTLY a vocal music form. Some Fado there was also incorporated into sort of a folk-music repertoire and so it might be danced to as kind of a variant on a folk dance, but it's not like Flamenco where the dance has explicit ties to the music.

You could dance to whatever you like, Fado, Flamenco, or Bluegrass.

Should you PERFORM to Fado, especially bellydance? I would hesitate to do so, unless you made it a "world fusion" kind of thing, and described it as such. You know there's going to be ONE old fuddy-duddy in the crowd (like me) who knows a little Fado and will think "what on earth is she doing?" Just to warn you!!

I found a beautiful piece of Ladino Jewish music that I wanted to do zambra to, until I found out the two would not ethnically accurately mesh. So, I'm still going to dance it, and if I perform it I'll just call it "zambra inspired."

But you don't have to PERFORM every piece you dance to, either.

Erin

Well, I am one of those who thinks that if you are going to go to all that work to figure out a dance to a piece of music, what's the fun unless you perform it (read "show off")? Otherwise, I am in total agreement with you regarding calling it anything other than what it is (not Middle Eastern, but with those influences...). Hence the research. I do NOT want to offend people, and do like doing things as authentic as possible. Thanks for sharing your personal experiences with it. It sort of confirms my intuition that Fado is not really a music style that lends itself to a particular dance form, unless perhaps the lyrics are sung to a waltz tune or some other type of background music. I am not really familiar with musical terms, so I hope I am making sense.

Thanks!