New Dance

For the first time since the Cuban conga (1938), it looks as though the U.S. is taking up a new ballroom dance.

The new dance is the Brazilian samba* notable alike for its breezy tempo and its lilting bounce. North Americans got their first inklings of samba rhythms three years ago, when seductive Carmen Miranda came up from Rio to shine on Broadway in The Streets of Paris, became really aware of it last spring, when she samba-sang and samba-danced in a cinema, That Night in Rio (TIME, March 24). Since then the samba has been winning more & more fans. By last week:

> Half of Arthur Murray's pupils in 46 cities were taking samba lessons.

> Band Leader Eddie Duchin was playing the samba in theater engagements; his samba disc Brazil was a steady seller. Duchin had spent last summer in Rio, had come back steamed up with the samba's possibilities.

> U.S. phonograph companies, noting that record buyers were growing more samba-conscious, had seven albums on the market. A year ago they had none.

> On the East and West coasts, in Manhattan especially, the samba had broken out of the Latin American nightclub bounds, was being played & danced in many swank dance spots.

Born in the jungles of Africa, the samba arrived in Brazil centuries ago with shiploads of Negro slaves. It lived in Negro huts in the Brazilian hills, stirred to life for hilarious nights of song, went careening down to Rio at carnival time.

About 20 years ago Brazilian society began to cotton to the samba, and during the 19305 a refined version elbowed Brazil's long-popular Maxixe out of first place.

The Dance. Neither in steps nor in body motions does the Brazilian samba bear any relation to the Cuban rumba or the fast-fading conga. Whereas the distinctive feature of the rumba is undulating hip movements, of the conga a one-two-three-kick rhythm, basis of the samba is a springy, knee-action rise & fall--a motion heretofore found mainly on ski slopes. The samba's one ironclad rule: a knee-bend on every beat. A ballroomful of bobbing samba dancers suggests a gay polka, but the bobs in the samba are downs & ups, not ups & downs. The weight remains on one foot at a time for two full counts and dips. But quick waltzlike turns are also permissible and, as in other dances, partners may improvise fancy variations.

The Music. Even tone-deaf people can identify Latin American dance music. Its earmark is a varied assortment of strange drums, dried vegetables, bits of wood, which can produce sound combinations as fascinating as static in a transatlantic broadcast, rhythms more intriguing than the clickety-clack of a 60-mile-an-hour express. Samba music is no exception. It has its own Brazilian instruments; some tick off a steady one-two-one-two, others counter with a galloping rhythm.

Most popular and distinctive of samba instruments is the large, roundish cabaca, a gourd around which rattling beans are strung on loose strings. Other noisemakers include the reco-reco (sounds like running a stick along a picket fence), the cuica (a dull squeak). Above them the syncopated samba tunes run their jerky course.

*Correctly pronounced, its first syllable rhymes with "palm." Most people prefer to rhyme it with "ham."

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