Candombe
| Candombe | |
|---|---|
| Cultural origins | Bantu African |
| Typical instruments | Candombe drums |
| Subgenres | |
| Candombe beat, candombe jazz | |
| Regional scenes | |
| Montevideo (Uruguay), Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Corrientes (Argentina), Minas Gerais (Brasil) | |
| Other topics | |
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The Uruguayan Candombe is an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity named by UNESCO, Las Llamadas, Candombe Comparsas  |
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The Uruguayan Candombe is an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity named by UNESCO, Las Llamadas, Candombe Comparsas
Candombe is an Uruguayan music and dance that comes from African slaves. It is considered an important aspect of the culture of Uruguay and was recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage of humanity. To a lesser extent, Candombe is practiced in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. In Argentina, it can be found in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Paraná, and Corrientes. In Paraguay is continued this tradition in Kamba Kua (Camba Cua) in Fernando de la Mora near to Asuncion. Also in Brazil, it still retains its religious character and can be found in Minas Gerais State.
This Uruguayan music style is based on three different drums: chico, repique and piano drums. This music style is usually played in February during carnival in Montevideo, Uruguay at dance parades called "Llamadas" and "Desfile Innaugural del Carnaval".
According to George Reid Andrews, the historian of Montevideo Black communities, after the middle of the 19th century younger blacks in particular abandoned the candombe in favor of dances from Europe such as the mazurka. Meanwhile, whites began to imitate the steps and movements of blacks. Calling themselves Los Negros, upper class porteños in the 1860s and 1870s blackened their faces and formed one of the carnival processions each year.
African-Uruguayans organized candombe dances every Sunday and on special holidays such as New Year's Eve, Christmas, Saint Baltasar, Rosary Virgin and Saint Benito. They would set a fire to heat the drums and play candombe music, specially during the night in certain neighbors such as Barrio Sur and Palermo in Montevideo. The typical characters on the parade represent the old white masters during slavery in old Montevideo city. It was a mockery to their lifestyle with a rebel spirit for freedom and a way to remember the African origins.
A new dance, which embodied the movement and style of the candombe, and called a tango with couples dancing apart, rather than in an embrace, was created by the Afro-Argentines of Mondongo in the year 1877. So wrote a man who identified himself as "Viejo Tanguero" in a September 1913 article in Buenos Aires's first mass circulation popular newspaper. In a book published in 1883 Ventura Lynch—a noted student of the dances and folklore of Buenos Aires Province—noted the influence the Afro-Argentine dancers had on the compadritos, or tough guys, who apparently frequented the Afro-Argentine dance venues. Lynch wrote, "the milonga is danced only by the compadritos of the city, who have created it as a mockery of the dances the blacks hold in their own places". Lynch's report was interpreted by Robert Farris Thompson in Tango: The Art of Love as meaning that city compadritos danced milonga, not rural gauchos. Thompson notes that the population of city toughs dancing milonga would have included blacks and mulattoes, and that it would not have been danced as a mockery by all the dancers.
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Wikipedia