Samba de gafieira

Samba de gafieira is the orchestral partner-dance samba of Rio de Janeiro's gafieiras, the working-class dance halls whose name derives from the French 'gaffe'. From the 1930s to the 1950s, big dance orchestras modelled on the American bands, led by figures such as *Severino Araújo* and his *Orquestra Tabajara*, played a repertory mixing samba, choro, bolero, maxixe and baião for couples dancing an elegant, acrobatic samba de salão. Marginalised by bossa nova and rock, the style survived through dance academies and was revived by modern big bands such as *Banda Mantiqueira*, whose arrangements renew the classic gafieira book.