How Did Latin Dance Influence African American Dance

African Dance History: Influencing Latin Dance Africa has a deep history for influencing western civilization. Coming from things such as culture, food, music, and clothing just to name a few. One continent that has integrated those African traits into their lifestyle would be South America. As slaves would come from all across Africa, each person came from a region that has its particular cultural lifestyle. Such lifestyles can influence the people of their native land and the people of South America took those influences and mixed it into all aspects. But one thing that they had mixed into the most would be their musical arts. Which would not only affect their music but even more their dance styles. Which shows that African styles of dance had influenced the beginnings of what is now known today as Latin dancing and the many types of dance in the Latin style.

All having roots of African descent due to the influence amongst the African slave’s that were brought in during the 1500’s. During those times the slaves that were brought over were allowed to have more freedom, allowing the mixture of each regions dance style. Since the mixture occurred, such occasions as this would occur where African slaves found ways to adapt their dancing and continue their traditions in secret. Out of necessity this caused some changes in the dances. For example, since slaves were prohibited from lifting their feet, they created moves that included shuffling the feet and moving the hips and body (“African Culture: More Than Just a song”). Since these slaves were limited to minimum movement, they would have to alter their original dance. Thus allowing for ever involving dances influence the Latin