1) SAMBA (in portuguese) = brazilian ballroom samba (in English). I shall not talk much about it now, since it is the most complicate one. First of all, I must just say that it is the most popular for any age and it is quite different from the international style ballroom samba.
There are mainly 3 different kinds of samba dancings (many more of samba music, but this would be another subject). Two of them are ballroom samba, namelly: brazilian ballroom samba and international style (the non-brazilian) ballroom samba; the third is a non-ballroom samba which is usually called "samba no pe'. Let us take each on in turn:
i) International style ballroom samba: This is the form most of you (if not all) are used to. It is not known in Brazil!
ii) Samba no pe': This is a non-ballroom form of samba. This is what most turists find when they come to brazil and it is what most (if not all) samba shows outside brazil are about. It is part of what appears in the carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Although in most turistic presentations it appears as a (almost) naked dancing, it is in its original form (popular form in brazil) a quite ellegant dance.
iii)Brasilian Ballroom Samba: It is probably unknow to most people outside brazil. It is a ballroom dancing like any other, i.e, waltz, quick step, slow fox etc. It is the kind of samba people dance in (ballroom) nightclubs in Brazil (mainly in Rio de Janeiro), where we also dance waltz, a brazilian form of jive, bolero (which looks like something between your rumba and your slow fox), and some other latin dances like salsa and lambada. Most dancers include some steps of samba no pe' in the ballrom form. There are variations of the dance as we move around Brazil.
See Brazilian Ballroom Samba which in part of my main page of Ballroom Dancing and Music for more information about samba.
1.B) BOSSA NOVA
Shahrukh Merchant (Tue, 20 Jun 1995) asks about bossa nova dancing: ``Does it have any place in Brasilian dance currently? Did it every have a place, or was it strictly promoted as a marketing ploy in the U.S. (as some liner notes of a Bossa Nova collection I have suggest)?''
First a short answer. Bossa nova is one of the forms of samba music and, AS FAR AS I know, there is no specific bossa nova dancing which differs from other samba dancings.
Now, a more complete answer.
Samba music, like most music (jazz for instance) is evolving and have today many different forms. One of these forms is bossa nova. The dance do not differ (AS FAR AS I KNOW) as one changes from one to the other form, but, if the dancers are felling the music and dancing to the phrasing etc, they will probably have different performaces. That is, some steps might be more apropriate to one form of samba than to the other; a specific step should be done more "like this" or more "like that" etc. But strictily speaking, the dance is the same.
What makes bossa nova so special is the fact that, for a couple of reasons, it became very popular among jazz players, allowing a interaction between samba and jazz. For this reason the bossa nova movement grew in USA (and some other countries) and together with the music, the dancing might also have become popular in USA. Since the music was called bossa nova, the dancing was probabily, in USA, called also bossa nova, but strictly speaking it was probably just samba. I cannot really tell how was this samba danced in USA. Was it brazilian (ballroom) samba or samba no pe' ? Were the dancers good ballroom dancers or just people who have some idea of the dance ?
So, the fact that the most popular form of samba in USA is the bossa nova, explains why the samba dancing was called bossa nova in USA.
2) BOLERO (in portuguese) = better call it bolero in English. It is, as I shall try to describe bellow, similar to your rumba and slow fox dances. That is the second in popularity. It is also the easiest for beginners, althought it may grow as difficult as one wants. Well, if I still remember my ballroom lessons when I was in UK, rumba is danced with a sort of music I would call "bolero", which is a Central-America music, while slow is danced with slow jazz music. Both are either binary or quaternary slow music and I am sure, that apart some felling, you all could dance rumba with slow jazz music and slow with bolero music. How we do bolero them:
2.i) take any binary or quaternary slow music (bolero, slow jazz or most of anything else). If the music is bolero, you may add some hips movements borrowed from the parents of salsa. If the music is slow jazz, you would not move your hips so much, probably, if its is a balada then ... well, for each kind of music, a different felling. For some kinds of music the dance might be very hot, for others very polite.
2.ii) take the rumba basic step and do it in a straight line, that is, take the rumba (front back left, back front right) and change to the bolero (front back back, back front front). This is the basis; but you are also free to do: right join right (join), left join left (join); or the square step; or just in front; or just back; or just side. Add to all of this some steps I think borrowed from tango (argentino) ages ago.
2.iii) take the body posture of ballroom (very close to the partner) and not the so called latin america posture (when the couple mantains a distance). That is actually true for most brazilian ballroom dancing, apart from "soltinho" which as we shall see is a form of jive. I really think that this is an interesting point: why when dancing latin america, people, in the international style stay apart and in the ballroom they get closer ?
2.iv) The arms: the right gentleman arm goes around the lady until it reachs her right side, while the left ladys arm goes on the right gentleman sholder or, better, around his neck (it is a hug). The other two arms are as usual. This is also true for most brazilian dances.
2.v) The heads. There are mainly two ways, which also holds for most brazilian dances. During the dance we actually go from one to the other, as we please.
2.v.1) the gentleman looks to his left while the lady to her right, i.e., both looking to the same side. The heads must touch. It is very very nice specially for samba, both to dance and to see people dancing is this way.
2.v.2) looking to each other. This is also wonderfull and very sex.
Most people, in Rio, who cannot dance anything, know at least the basic steps of bolero. I strees, nevertheless, that bolero may grow in complexity as much as the skills of the dancers go.
3) "SOLTINHO" (in portuguese) = a sort of jive. Well, as I said before, the international samba is different from the brazilian samba. Similarly, the jive we dance here is different from the original jive (the original is from USA, isn't it?). The basic of jive (as I learned in UK) is: back forward 123 123. therefore, the back is always with the left for the gentleman (for the lady is the opposite). In the "soltinho", we do: back(left) forward(right) 123 back(right) forward(left) 123. This makes the step symmetrical. Besides, the hips movements are quite different, although we are also learnig your way nowdays. The other steps are mostly the same with proper ajustments the match with the basic. Of course the jive may have some steps that the "soltinho" do not know and vice-versa, but this is just by chance.
4) LAMBADA (no translation necessary). To begin with, let us clear the confusion. There are 3 things which are called lambada. First, one song called "lambada" which people say it is a copy of a bolivian song. That might be true or not but it is not important for us dancers. The second is a sort of music (the song "lambada" is a lambada). The third and most important thing called lambada is a dance, which can be dance with many bounced binary or quaternary music like lambada music or many others. Where did the music and the dance came from ? Many places and countries probably, but as far as I know its present form evolved in Bahia (in Brazil). It is a very ellegant, sex and erotic dance (although samba and bolero can have the same features if one wants). Has many similarities with salsa. How to dance ?
4.i) take items 2.iii, 2.iv and 2.v.2 above.
4.ii) Take the horizontal hips movement of salsa and make it vertical. This make the partners get closer.
4.iii) Do not mark the forth step of salsa (the "off step").
That is the basic of lambada. The rest are mostly steps from others dances adapted to the lambada style.
5) FORRO' (both "o" are open like in the word "border"; the stress is on the second "o"; the double "rr" is pronounced like the "h" in "hospital"; both "o" are short). This word have several meanings. Primarily, it means a forro'-ball party (originaly in the North-east of Brazil, in the region of the city some of you may know called RECIFE). Nowadays it also means forro'-night-clubs and the dances one dances in those places and also the kind of music that are played. So, forro' is either the ball-party, the night-club, a set name of many different but similar dances and rithms whose names are chachado, bai\~ao etc (please, someone from the North-east could complete this line!).
It is very popular in the North-east but also in most of Brazil, including Rio. In Rio there are several forro'-night-club working all the year. Besides we can dance about 10 min of forro' in other ballroom places. That is why I probably forgot about forro' in my previous message: although very popular (as much or may be even more than samba), you can only really dance it in forro'-night-clubs.
June-July is the special season for forro' when we have special forro' parties. Besides the forro' dancing, there are several games, food etc... (I guess that in the begining it was a sort of church-party and all the money collected would go to charity).
There is also the "quadrilha". This is a collective dance where the couples are leaded by some one who shouts the coreographic movements. The quadrilha seems to be a brazilian adaption of some old french dance. In fact, some of the shoutings are french-like words.
That is enought for the party. Now I shall talk about the forro'-ballroom-dancing. Hug your partner as tight as you can (of course the left gentleman hand and the right lady hand are not hugging, but holding each other as in any other ballroom dance). The partners almost never stay apart (as far as I know). The usual steps are i) left join left (join), right join right (join); ii) left foot, right foot ... bouncing the hips strongly; There are many others, depending on the specific dance you are doing, i.e., chachado, bai\~ao etc. You can actually recognize steps that looks like salsa, North-American country, merengue etc, but I do not mean they are originaly from those dances, they seem to be just similar.
All the above is very easy, but the most important, and what makes forro' quite a difficult dance is: both bodies must be free like snakes, the hips must move to side, to front, to back, to wherever and all this in perfect harmony with your partner. It is the most delicious dance. It is quite a free dance. But some people can get very good and make nice beautiful steps. When taken to stages the dancers add some of other ballroom dances tequiniques and make ellegant nice presentations.
6) Salsa. It is the usual salsa in its many "dialects".
7) Tango. Is the tango argentino.
8) Among others less populars ballroom dances in Rio, I should mention: i) MAXIXE. It is an old and may be the father of ballroom samba. I think it was forbiden for some time because it was considered too sex (I wonder what would happen to lambada in those old days); ii) WALTZ, MERENGUE, CHA-CHA-CHA.
FUTURE: Samba, bolero, and soltinho will never die; neither forro'. Lambada and salsa are fashion but may also stay for ever. Tango will live for ever also. I hope we will incorporate most of the international ballroom dances here very soon. We are actually doing that.