Belly dance and other dances can work for weight loss success. In fact, you can burn as many calories belly dancing as you can walking, swimming or riding a bike. That means you can burn from 200 to 500 calories for an hour of belly dance depending of the intensity of your moves. With a healthy diet and constant work on your belly dance technique you can really shape up your abs while having fun. Bottom line: The more you move the more calories you’ll burn.

And here is an opportunity for you to start a belly dance fitness program. Once again Projeccion Leyla Salam and Sandybell Start Your Fitness Right Studio bring you the BellyDance Cardioton. In this third version you will find out how to incorporate belly dance into your cardio routine and you will be learning the folkloric dance step Saidi Jump Jump. Saidi is a traditional dance rhythm from the south of Egypt.

The Belly Dance Cardioton will take place on Saturday May 30th at Power Club of 12 of October Avenue. For more information you can call 6683/1497, 6794/0498.

Next week we will be posting pictures of the cardioton, don’t miss it!

El Bunde is a folkloric Panamanian dance with a sensual and religious rhythm that is danced in Darien province of Panamá City, Panamá. El Bunde is also known as “The Panamanian authentic Christmas” because it is danced during Christmas festivities especially on December 24 and its improvised verses and songs talk about the arrival of the baby Jesus. This Panamanian dance is only danced by couples that are replaced in front of an image of a boy that represents the baby Jesus. El Bunde is a popular religious Panamanian festivity that is celebrated from December 6 to January 6 by the black people of Garachiné Town of Darien Province in Panamá City, Panamá.

The Bunde is a Panamanian dance with religious sense that constitutes a beautiful hybrid where best contents of each ethnic contribution of Panama City, Panama are joined and harmonized.  In Panama City, Panama this dance consists of only one figure, where the couple star dancing in front of the boy, this folkloric dance is a glad religious dance that is continuously animated with real fervor. The instruments that are used in this Panamanian dance are: the drawer, the drum and a pair of maracas accompanied by a singer. The dance of El Bunde is doubtless one of Panama’s typical dances where it is emphasized the grace of the black race of Darién province.

I used to do a lot of things before. I used to do “típico” or folkloric dance, I used to travel to the “interior” (countryside) and ride on wagons pulled by oxen. Even my quinceañera birthday party theme was folkloric and I remember dancing “El Punto” with my brother. Today I was reminiscing those days and just wondering about our regional dances. That is why I am sharing with you about folkloric dances from Los Santos.

The province of los Santos is considerate one of the most important exponents in folklore in Panama. Los Santos is not only the HQ of the world famous Carnaval Tableño but it is the birthplace of Panama’s folklore. There dances are of great variety, from popular dances like pindín to tuna, puntos, tamborito, cumbias, mejoranas, all of them with lots of passion and sensuality. The most popular dances from los Santos in the whole Panama are:

The Cumbia Santeña:  One of the most popular dances in Panama.  It consists in four forms of steps:  paseo (a traveling step), seguidilla (another traveling step), cruces (the couple dance a crossing step) y zapateo (tapping step).  La cumbia has giving birth to a popular dance you can find in salons and bars around the country: pindín.  The cumbia santeña has four important variants:

• Cumbia Cerrada (Close Cumbia): A fast dance where in the seguidilla step a circle is form and closes the formation to open up again.
• Cumbia Abierta (Open Cumbia): A slow dance.
• Cumbia Zapateada ( Tapping Cumbia): Tap movements accompany the music.
• Cumbia Atravesada ( Crossing Cumbia):  a very fast and happy dance.

Tamboritos (Drums Dance): These drums are of Spanish origins and they are of melodic and lovely rhythm with tales of love, passion, sentimental, or it can be of insults, hard and rebellions.  They also tell about animals like iguana, dove, and snake.  And tamborito has two important variants:

• Tambor del Norte ( Northern Drum):  It is a soft drum and the dancers execute soft sensual movements.
• Tambor Corrido ( Running Drum):  Faster paces drum than the tambor del norte.

Also the Dirty Devils are from Los Santos regions, check my pass blogs to learn more about them.

It is difficult for me to explain in great detail how this dances are performed or explain the steps.  I am not very sure if the translation in English is correct.  But I just wanted to share a little about Panama’s dances.  I have added a little video that I hope can give you some light on Panamanian dances. Of course, this video is courtesy of youtube.com.