The native people in Brazil had their own dance and music styles for a long time, but everything changed when the Europeans came to Brazil. They brought the Western Culture to the country, so on the music. From this  moment, the music and dance culture of Brazil, started to shape.

Native People

These people lived for hundreds of years in the amazon. They had a recuperate culture from the rest. They developed their own culture, so also different dance and music styles. They lived deep in the rainforest  and had their own kind of music, they played hundreds of years at some instruments like whistles, flutes, horns, drums and rattles.

Arrival of the Europeans

Between 1500 and 1700 the Europeans came to Brazil. Especially Portuguese people. They brought not only the language to the country, but also their culture. The western culture, included music and dance.

African Influence

The Europeans brought African slaves to Brazil to work on plantages. The Europeans were very strict and they didn’t treaded the people in the  right way. They put the slaves and native people in camps to work and they couldn’t go out of there.

If they tried to escape and would be catched, they would be punished. They could choose, being punished or fight back. But the last things was hard to do, because they  had to train. Because the overseers had weapons and were dangerous.

They found a solution: They trained on music. The overseers didn’t realize that they were training to fight, because it looked like dancing and they didn’t hit each other.

They made special music to train on the beat. This is how the dance- and musicstyle capoeira arose.

There are lot more styles originated from the African influence, take look at the Brazilian Carnival . All those dances and music have influences from Africa and the Native People.

Nowadays

The Brazilian music and dance culture is very recognizable, especially Rio’s Carnival . It plays an important roll in the Brazilian culture.  There are many different styles originated. And the most famous one is samba