Carioca is the name of a dance choreographed for the Fred Astaire's movie Flying Down to Rio, where he paired with Ginger Rogers for the first time. It was based on earlier versions of a stage dance with the same name by Fanchon and Marco.
Following the success of the movie, an attempt was made to propagate the Carioca as a new ballroom dance, not very successful. It was a mixture of Samba, Maxixe, Foxtrot, Rumba and Tap. The distinctive feature of the dance (at least in the movie) was that it was to be danced with partners' foreheads in touch.
The song about the dance was performed by Brazillian singer/songwriter Caetano Veloso on his 2004 album A Foreign Sound, his examination of some of the great American songs.
The dance was characterized by a series of walking steps on the toes, executed with an elegant type of swagger - frequently punctuated with a light hop in attitude at an appropriate point in the musical phase.
Apparently, the dance masters who were responsible for the evening's program at society functions gained favor with their socialite clients by imposing as much restraint as possible on the dances and creating an obviously reserved interpretation.
In this dance strict attention must be paid to the carriage of the head and the posturing of the arms.
Carioca is actually a Tupi Indian or Tupian term (kara'i oca), roughly meaning "white house," or "house of whites" of the Portuguese peoples of Rio.
The Cariocadance was a group dance with dancers holding hands (cordoes) and swaying to and fro to the Carioca or Samba music.
One of the main reasons the dance didn't take off was the description of the dance steps were not included with the sheet music, which was becoming a popular process of not including them during the time.
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