Limbo: A Traditional Caribbean Dance getting popular
Limbo is a popular type of dance form and a contest as well that originated in the Caribbean Island of Trinidad many years ago. The basic premise of the dance is that a group of dancers line up one after the other and while performing
certain dance moves try to cross under a bar that is lowered after each round. Whichever participant touches the bar and drops it is judged to be out while the others remain. The game continues until only one person remains. Over the years this dance has taken
a sort of competition format with even a world record being set up and broken many times. In the future this interesting dance format will continue to be as popular as it is today.
Even though the dance is meant to be a recreational activity, it is done as a fun activity. It takes a certain amount of skill and agility to properly take part in the dance. The history of the dance takes us back a long time ago.
The dance emerged in Africa as a part of the people’s culture and tradition at the time. Some say it was a way to lower a person’s head under a bar to represent the triumph of life over death. Some have even said that it emerged as a practice when slaves were
taken on ships from Africa and they would be taken below deck to the hold, they would pass under a bar.
The modern form of the dance emerged on the Island of Trinidad in the 1950s. It started to gain widespread appeal in the next ten years as the dance spread around the world. The dance is done along with traditional limbo songs
which have a very rhythmic and up tempo beat. Over time, the dance has become a social icebreaker which is used to bring strangers together at parties and social gatherings. But at the same time it also started to develop into a contest with numerous people
competing against each other.
People have started to try and set world records to get under the lowest bar possible. People from all over the world have tried to set the world record and the current world record is held by a woman named Shemika Charles from
the home of limbo, Trinidad, and she achieved the feat with a height of 8.5 inches. If we think about that, 8.5 inches is extremely low off the ground and Shemika was able to twist her body in such a way as to clear the height. This will not be the end of
the record though, because people will continue to try and get lower than 8.5 inches in the future.
Along with the regular dance of limbo, roller skating limbo developed alongside it. Roller limbo is a sport which sees players riding on roller skates and doing almost the splits by spreading their legs wide apart and moving their
bodies forward so that their faces are almost touching the ground in front of them. It is a sport because people take part in a competition to see who can get the lowest while on skates. There is even a version of the sport when competitors try to skate under
as many cars as possible as a form of the sport. Once on a German show a Chinese girl was able to skate under a plate of glass.
These days along with being a recreational activity and a form of a sport, limbo is also a great party game. It takes many forms and also can be done in many different styles but the original game remains the same as it was done
in the 1960s in the Caribbean. An extreme version of the sport emerged a few years ago but it was soon banned. Fire limbo started and became very popular in many parts of the world. It was conducted in the same way as regular limbo but the only difference
was that the bar was on fire. Soon this version was deemed too dangerous and it was banned. In the future we may see many different versions of the game emerging but the original will still be played all over the world and will remain very popular.
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