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.

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.

Chitre is one of the most important regions in Panama. A very famous place and well known because of the Spanish heritage and it´s  that popular dances from the Province of Herrera came from the Spanish flamenco in the colonial age, as well as Los Santos, Cocle, Veraguas, Chiriquí and Colon. This colonization brought an endless variety of foods, celebrations, music and ceremonies. Panamanians captured this cultural baggage and adapted all of them and made their own.

Even though we have lots of dances in our country, there is a special magic from a Panamanian dance called Dirty Devils (Diablicos Sucios) that comes from this province and that has a greater importance for all Panama girls that usually practice this discipline.

Panama dancers try to adapt this dance as a special interpretation from the old Spanish priests that remarkably split the two orientations:  “Dirty Devils” and “Clean Devils”.

CLEAN DEVILS

This is the most traditional dance of the festival of Corpus Christi. It is constituted by diverse hierarchies and the devil is the main character. The Devil emphasizes his rank by wearing the most luxurious clothes. Then the Angel comes (in the old plays was Saint Michael, but is no longer like that) dressed as a little boy with a veil that covers the face to him.

Then the Devil Captain appears and has some participation in the central dialogue. Other important character is the Diabla (Lady Devil), the only hilarious character at this dance. There are some other feminine dancers within this dance such as Virgin Mary and some minor devils.

The idea of this dance is to represent the fight between the good and the evil within a soul. The Angel defends Virgin Mary from the Devil´s offenses. And tired of this situation he proposed to the Devil build a gallows/hangman to destroy the soul. But of course that was not the original ideal of the angel, but to build a cross to save it, and that´s how the Devil was cheated by the angel in a “clean fight”.

DIRTY DEVILS

The main difference between this dance and the “clean” one is mainly in the clothes. The Dirty Devils dance uses dark colors and generally dance by pairs and in groups up to 12 dancers. During these executions the Diablico (Dirty Devil) must dance to the rhythm of the guitar, clapping the castanets that take in the hands.

The masks are done of paper, covered and painted by local artists.

Both dances celebrate the good and evil fight between the human souls.

CULTURAL EXPRESSION

Diablitos Sucios (Dirty Devils) dance is a cultural expression of a Panamanian dance that without any doubt girls in Panama like to participate due to the lack of sexual content.

Most Girls in Panama City usually go to a Dancing School in Panama to learn this specific dance and also La  Mejorana, Panamanian Cumbia, Panama Indian dances, Cumbia from Chorrera and some other beautiful dances from the Azuero region.

Once these dances are learned, it is common to see men and women in Panama performing these exotic movements in celebrations like Carnival, Corpus Christi, Holy Week and many others.

Definitively is a remarkable experience to enjoy these dance live, one in a lifetime experience!