Carimbó

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Carimbó

Carimbó, a type of atabaque (conical single-headed drum) and the African-derived dance performed with it in the north of Brazil. The instrument is made of a hollowed trunk with an animal-skin drumhead. The drummer sits on the trunk and strikes the skin with his hands. Historically, the carimbó was used in the batuque, a dance brought from Africa by enslaved Africans. Also influenced by Portuguese and Native American cultures, the carimbó dance developed in Belém, a city located in the Pará region, during the colonial era. In the carimbó, men and women dance in a circle. Often dressed as a Bahiana, a woman then leaves the circle, dances into the center and, in a teasing manner, throws her flared skirt over the head of a male dancer. Carimbó can be found among the peasants and fishermen of the state of Pará. In the 1960s and 1970s, with the influence of electronic instruments, the rhythms of the carimbó helped produce the lambada.

See alsoLambada; MPB: Música Popular Brasileira; Musical Instruments.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

David P. Appleby, The Music of Brazil (1983).

Luis Da Camara Cascudo, Dicionário do folclore brasileiro, 5th ed. (1984).

Additional Bibliography

Crook, Larry. Brazilian Music: Northeastern Traditions and the Heartbeat of a Modern Nation. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005.

Murphy, John P. Music in Brazil: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

                              Bernadette Dickerson