Bolero is a name given to certain slow, romantic latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms, which are both significant, and which have separate origins. The term is also used for some art music. In all its forms, the bolero has been popular for over a century, and still is today.
A version of the Cuban bolero is the dance popular throughout much of the world under the misnomer 'rumba'. This came about because a simple cover-all term was needed for Cuban music in the 1930s. The famous Peanut Vendor was so labelled, and the label stuck for other types of Cuban music.
In Cuba the bolero is usually written in 2/4 time, elsewhere often 4/4. The tempo for dance is about 120 beats per minute. The music has a gentle Cuban rhythm related to a slow son, which is the reason it may be described as a bolero-son. Like some other Cuban dances, there are three steps to four beats, with the first step of a figure on the second beat, not the first. The slow (over the two beats #s four and one) is executed with a hip movement over the standing foot, with no foot-flick.
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Bolero is a 3/4 dance that originated in Spain in the late 18th century, a combination of the contradanza and the sevillana.
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