Dance. Language. Culture.
Bilingual Guide for Samba
This short guide is meant to help you understand basic sentences and words in Brazilian Portuguese in the context of samba dance classes. If you have already taken samba classes with teachers who mainly speak Brazilian Portuguese, you probably will recognize many words!
The History of samba and its socio-cultural meaning.
Samba, a dance originating in Afro-Brazilian culture, has historically gone through a variety of transformations until the present day without losing its essence. Dive in the rich world of samba culture to better understand the meaning of this captivating dance.
Meet Inès
Inès Ouedraogo is a French-Tunisian-Burkinabè dancer based in Boston who specializes in Brazilian samba. Since the beginning of her dance journey with SambaViva in 2015, Inès has participated in hundreds of performances, from festivals such as Dance for the World Community, Wake Up The Earth, Cambridge Carnival, East Boston Latin Festival, to shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, to private shows for corporate events, weddings, birthday celebrations, quinceañeras, to cultural events in universities such as Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Emmanuel College, Tufts University, etc. Inès also teaches samba classes with SambaViva from absolute beginner to advanced. Recently, she started teaching online classes in an effort to address the growing demand from the online dance community, especially after the pandemic forced everyone to work and exercise from home. Since 2019, Inès participates in Rio’s Carnival. She has paraded as a muse with Vigário Geral Samba School in 2020, a passista with Cubango in 2022, and a muse with Império da Tijuca in 2022 and 2023.