There is a new dance fever hitting the streets of Panama and it is called Passa Passa also known as dance hall. Passa passa is an addictive energetic dance which worked its way to the streets of Colon and various places in the city of Panama. There are even people dancing to this popular Caribbean rhythm in the outskirts of Panama where the smaller towns are located.

Dance hall originally came from Jamaica and started in the late 70s. This dance and music initially came from reggae and like reggae; dance hall brings many different people across the globe together. Although dance hall or passa passa dancing came from Jamaica, it has moved on to different countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and now Panama. Passa passa involves a lot of movement and difficult steps, but it can be learned with practice. Once you got the passa passa riddim you can pretty much learn to dance all the steps. There are very popular parties such as dutty fridaze where many people go to dance passa passa. Usually men like women go to these parties to compete with their rivals. There are many popular dance hall steps like hot wuk, tek weh yuself, willie bounce, dutty wine, and wacky dip that they dance when competing. These dance hall moves are a more decent way of dancing passa passa.
Others dance passa passa in a more sexual way. This usually involves the man and the woman dancing erotically. Not everyone likes this type of dance so a lot of people in the Caribbean and Panama prefer to dance Passa passa in the more decent version. The general attire worn by women dancers for this kind of dancing is more revealing and sometimes even R rated. Others go dressed normally but this doesn’t stop them from busting a move on the dance floor.

Everyday more and more dance steps are being created for dancehall. Some very popular dancers of passa passa are Ding Dong and his crew. They dance passa passa steps like the badman pull up, wacky dip and many more. Ding Dong also makes popular dance hall music which Panama enjoys listening to. You get different themes and tones from this kind of dance and music. A lot of passa passa rhythms’ are influenced by religion, sex, violence, social issues, and issues like women’s rights.

Panama dancers are catching up with the rest of the Caribbean pretty fast. Soon all of Panama will be dancing the difficult but fun steps to passa passa. Next time you go out, look for your nearest dance hall parties and learn the steps to the most popular dance in the Caribbean. In passa passa for every song there is a dance.

Breakdance, breaking, b-boying is a street dance style that evolved as part of the hip hop movement among African American and Puerto Rican youths in Manhattan and the South Bronx of New York City during the early 1970s. It is normally danced to electro or hip hop music, often remixed to prolong the breaks, and is a well-known hip hop dance style. Breakdancing involves the elements of toprock, downrock, freezes, and power moves.

Breakdancing may have begun as a building, productive, and a constructive youth culture alternative to the violence of urban street gangs. Today, breakdancing culture is a remarkable discipline somewhere between those of dancers and athletes. Since acceptance and involvement centers on dance skills, breakdancing culture is often free of the common race and gender boundaries of a subculture and has been accepted worldwide.

The past Sunday 5 of April the super event Back 2 Da Scene was carried out in the gymnasium Yuyin Luzcando de Bethania, from 11:00 a.m. This event gets together the best dancers of break dances from Panama and the other provinces of the country. Competitions of 3 versus 3 were carried out, in which 3 of the best dancers of each enrolled group participated; also mini competitions of 1 versus 1 were realized maintaining active the attending public.

There was participation of MC’s/Rappers that animated live to the public with their rhymes. In short, the event filled the expectations of the public who attended hoping that these events repeat more often since it had a very good welcome by the fanatics of this dances.

Panama is known as the “crisol de razas” or “melting pot” and that’s why it has adopted many of the traditions from these cultures, special in its dances. Dancing is not just a way of expression and sensuality but it is also a way to make dreams become true. With many competitions worldwide, Panama couldn’t fall behind and brought in “Bailando por un Sueño” or Dancing for a dream (for its English translation, which is a Mexican show produced by Telemetro in Panama.

In this television show, the contenders are coupled with national and/or international stars to dance and win the chance to fulfill the contestant’s dream. Many different dances are presented throughout the show, such as: mambo, tango, bolero, salsa, samba, hip hop, pop, rumba flamenco, disco, merengue, Reggaeton and many more.

Each couple has a choreographer who trains them all week long until the day of the show. Each season lasts about 8 weeks and each episode are presented among 1 to 3 different rhythms. There was even a special show dedicated to Celia Cruz on the last season of this contest.

As we all know, the dance in Panama has achieved great popularity; reason why contests such as “Bailando por un Sueño” are a total success in our country. There is no doubt that dancing is the biggest form of sensuality, eroticism and expression worldwide.

For more information about this contest in Panama, log into http://www.telemetro.com/bailando

Today I bring you an exciting dance to learn, it is called Capoeira. Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art form that ritualizes movements from martial arts, games and dance. This art was brought to Brazil from Angola some after the 16th century in the regions known as Bahia, Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro. Participants form a roda or circle and take turns either playing musical instruments (such as the Berimbau), singing, or ritually sparring in pairs in the center of the circle. The game is marked by fluid acrobatic play, feints, and extensive use of sweeps, kicks, and headbutts. Less frequently used techniques include elbow-strikes, slaps, punches, and body throws.

Rhythm is the heartbeat of Capoeira and song is the soul. Music can make a game play fast and hard, without music Capoeira is not complete. This is the excitement that Capoeira brings to you. Capoeira continues to grow in popularity and here in Panama you can also learn these fascinating steps and movements in their prestigious schools.

The Nutcracker is the all time favorite Christmas ballet and the most popular ballet among children.  The Nutcracker Ballet is based on the story “The Nutcracker and the King of Mice” written by E.T.A. Hoffman. Although what is seen on the stage today is different in detail from the original story, the basic plot remains the same; the story of a young German girl who dreams of a Nutcracker Prince and a fierce battle against a Mouse King with seven heads.  When Marius Petipa had the idea to choreograph the story into a ballet, it was actually based on a version by Alexander Dumas.   Lev Ivanov was Petipa assistant and finished choreographing the ballet after Marius got ill. 

The music of the Nutcracker was composed by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. An interesting footnote to the score of The Nutcracker is the famous use of the celesta in the Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy. The celesta was a new musical instrument which had just been created by Auguste Mustel.  Tchaikovsky premier in March 1892 an eight part concert of the ballet and become so popular the music score was published even before the opening of the Nutcracker.

December 18, 1892 was the grand first performance of the Nutcracker Ballet at the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, with Choreography by Petipa/Ivanov, music by Tchaikovsky, décor by Botcharov, Antoinette Dell’ era as Sugar Plum Fairy, Paul Gerdt as the Prince, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker-Prince, and Timofei Stukolkin as Drosselmeyer.

In Panama City we will have presentation in Anayansi Theater, Atlapa, the 27 and 28 of December.  Saturday the 27 the function is a 7:30pm, and Sunday the 28 at 10:30am and 4:30pm.  Tickets can be found at Blockbuster and cost range is from $10 to $50.

Merengue Dancing is a Latin America style dance and it’s the national dance of the Dominican Republic. Merengue is a combination of two dances, the African and the French Minuet. Merengue dancing is a couple’s dance, eventhough the original was not dance by individual couples and the original movements were only the shaking of the shoulder, nowadays it’s dance in 4 beats or 8 beats, and with a sensual movement of the hips. The basic steps counting on 8 beats is the most popular (1, 2, 3, 4 – 1, 2, 3, 4) and only after completing those eight steps you can change to some other movement. Merengue dancing is composed of three basic movements; they are the Side Basic Movement, Forward Basic Movement and the Back Basic Movement. The combination of these three movements, with small variations in body position, makes up the steps of the dance. In this dance you move in every beat.

From all the dances, merengue is the easiest to learn, if you can walk you can dance merengue. One important rule of all Latin dances is “feel the music”, is important to enjoy the music in order to make your movements look natural. The music indicates what to do, just feel the music, because dance is based in listening and moving to the rhythm of the music. Another important rule is the tempo of the music, the tempo indicates dancers how fast or pause they should make the movements, displacements or turns. The tempo is the important component that differentiates merengue from salsa, mambo and other kind of dances. The music tempo is about 120 – 160 beats per minute.

Here in Panama City, Panama merengue is one of the most popular dances and there are many academies where you can go and learn in the different workshops, more of how to do the merengue dance, the important steps and movements such as the position,  the correct posture, and men’s and women’s basic steps. Learning how to dance merengue is a great way to start familiaring with Cuban Motion.

Reggaeton is a type of urban music very well known in Latin Countries and has started to be known in the music business.  Reggaeton is a blend of Jamaican reggae and dancehall with Hispanic rhythms and hip hop.

There is a controversy of whether this rhythm is originally from Panama or Puerto Rico. We are not sure where it actually originated, but we can say that it all started in Panama when Jamaicans were brought to Panama to collaborate in the construction of the Panama Canal around the early 20th century. The Panamanians adapted the Jamaican music styles and created the Spanish version of reggae. The first Spanish Reggae was recorded around 1970 by Panamanian artists that later introduced this gender to Puerto Rico.

The first popular Spanish Reggae song was “Son Bow” or “Dembaw” (They Bow) recorder by Panamanian artist El General in 1991. El General is known as the Father of Reggaeton. Though he didn’t get the respect he deserved among the audiences, he made a tremendous contribution to this gender that is very well recognize among his fellow singers.

Meanwhile in Puerto Rico, hip hop was already in the streets and Spanish Reggae was started to become popular. This combination of these two styles and the inclusion of few other musical genres made the perfect blend to create a new style of Spanish Reggae that we know as Reggaeton. 

Reggaeton started to become popular during the mid 90’s in all Latin Countries, specially Puerto Rico and Panama. But it wasn’t until 2003-2004 that it made an impact in the Latin youth in the United States. It was then that this genre exploded and started expanding around the world.

Nowadays being very popular, Reggaeton is a genre of its own and is played everywhere you go from night clubs to bars to strip clubs and many other places of relaxation and fun.

The combination of the rhythms in Reggaeton makes this a very sexy and erotic dance. Women all over the world like to dance to this genre because of the freedom and sensuality that they can use to dance to it. From booty shaking to hip movements and the sexiness of its steps, Reggaeton has become very popular. You can let your imagination flow as you get involve with the beat and very contagious rhythm of this genre. A lot of women like to touch their bodies and their partners’ bodies while dancing to this kind of music. Many men like women to place their bottoms right on top of their private parts so they can feel the heat and sexuality of this dance; some women love to feel men getting excited, which will usually happen if you let yourself go with the music. You can even perform striptease or pole dance with this genre!

Whether they are dancing or singing the songs, Reggaeton has become a form of expression for young people around the world. No matter where or when it all started, Reggaeton is not going anywhere!

RESPECT!