kizomba

Kimbundu is one of the Bantu languages spoken in Angola, predominantly in the Luanda region. Kizomba in Kimbundu means party or celebration — from the root kizombi, a joyful gathering. The word attached to a music and dance style that emerged in Angola and among the Angolan diaspora in Portugal during the 1980s, blending African rhythms (particularly semba — the Angolan dance) with Caribbean zouk music imported via Cape Verde and Martinique.

Angola's independence in 1975, after a protracted liberation war against Portuguese colonial rule, and the subsequent civil war that lasted until 2002, produced an Angolan diaspora concentrated in Lisbon. This diaspora community developed kizomba as a cultural expression — combining the African rhythmic heritage with Caribbean influences absorbed through Portugal's Atlantic connections. The music is slow, sensual, and built on a distinctive two-step and hip movement.

Portuguese television broadcast kizomba music widely in the 1990s, and the dance spread through the Portuguese-speaking world — Brazil, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe — before reaching the wider international dance community in the 2000s. By 2010, kizomba was being taught in social dance studios throughout Europe and the Americas.

Kizomba is now one of the fastest-growing partner dances globally. The irony is that many of its practitioners outside Africa are encountering an Angolan cultural form without knowing the country's history — the liberation war, the civil war, the diaspora that created the music. The dance detaches from the history even as the music carries it.