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Matheus Lincoln Borges dos Santos

Professor Paul Wiita
PHY 401
7 September 2015
Physics, Samba and Sertanejo: how Physics explain these Brazilian dances.

Introduction
Through music and dance, we can learn much important information about a country. The
history of them brings information about traditions, immigration, social transformations
and, development of art. One of the characteristics of the Brazilian people is the
happiness and sometimes this happiness is associated with their dance. Brazil is a huge
country with dozens of regional dances. Most of them are the result of influence by
European immigrants mixed with traditions from the native Brazilians and Afro
Brazilians. Two important dances in Brazil are Samba and Sertanejo. Native Brazilians
and slaves from Africa created samba in the 19th century. Sertanejo is a rural dance with
influence from Portugal and American Country. These types of dance have different types
of rhythms, but many similarities in their movements such as jumps, spins and balance
control. Dance can be a good and entertaining way to have a healthy life, but can be
dangerous too. To have a healthy practice of dance it is necessary to understand the forces
that act during the dance in our body. For that we need to analyze the dance with the
Physics eyes. In this article, we analyzed some aspects of Samba and Sertanejo to
understand and apply concepts of classical mechanics such as Coriolis force,
conservation of angular momentum and center of gravity.

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Sertanejos spin using the audience as reference frame

Sertanejo is a Brazilian salon dance. Most of the time, the couple dance with two
steps left and right (2x2) or two steps right and one left (2x1). To make the dance more
beautiful and difficult, the couple make spins together. Three steps make up the basic spin
in Sertanejos dance. First, the man extends his arms to put the woman as far as possible
than him. After that, the couple start a clockwise movement. In this movement, the man
becomes the center of rotation and the woman is turning around him. While she turns
around him, he contracts his arm to bring the woman close to him. When the couple is
close again, they return to dance in a 2x2 or 2x1 form. (Giffoni, 1964)

Figure 1: Sertanejos spins.

Fonte: http://cdn.x2n.com.br/~finaerica/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/sertanejo.jpg

During this movement, the audience sees an interesting effect. When the man
begins to bring the woman next to him, the audience sees the rotational speed increase.
The first thought that we have is that the couple increases their velocity, but when we

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analyze this movement, we figure out that this increase of speed occurs naturally. This
occurs through the conservation of angular momentum.
The angular momentum is the quantity associated with the momentum due the
rotation or revolution of a body or particle. We can first think of a car and a truck, each a
speed of 70 miles per hour. In case of crashes into a wall, automatically we answered that
the truck will cause more damage than the car. This occurs because the linear momentum
of the truck is bigger than the linear momentum of the car. This example is good for us to
understand linear momentum. The angular momentum is an analog to linear momentum,
but it works in particles that have a rotational or revolutionary movement.

Figure 2: Vectors at rotational movement

Fonte:http://teleformacion.edu.aytolacoruna.es/FISICA/document/teoria/A_Franco/solido/teoria/solido9.gif

The angular momentum is defined by the cross product of the position vector of
the particle by its linear momentum. The position vector is related with the distance of
the particle to the center of rotation, or the radius of the rotation. The linear momentum is
the product of speed versus mass of a body. The unit of angular momentum at
International System of Units (SI) is kg.m^2/s. (Tipler, 1999)

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(eq. 01)
During Sertanejos spin, the audience can see the angular velocity increase, and we
already affirmed that this occurs naturally. At systems that do not have an external torque
involved, the angular momentum is conserved. It means that the value of the cross
product does not change. When the man brings the woman to close him, he decreases the
radius of the movement. The decrease of the radius is compensated with the increase of
the angular velocity. The audience in an inertial reference frame think that the dancers
increase their velocity during the movement. However, the audience just saw the
conservation of the angular momentum.

Sertanejos spin using the man as reference frame

We analyzed what happened during the spin using the audience as a reference
frame. During the movement, we know that the man turning around himself and the
woman turning around him. The second matter that we will analyze is what will happen
if the man is the reference frame? The first big change is the fact that now we have a
non-inertial reference frame. Different that the audience, the man is in movement during
the spin.
At the beginning of turning, the dancer stands with arms outstretched holding the woman.
As he brings the woman close to him, reducing the distance between them, he feels his
angular velocity increases. The audience also sees this fact. However, as the dancer tries
to bring the woman next to him, he will feel the action of a centrifugal force from his
frame. The dancer will have to make a force against to this since his intention is to bring
the woman close to him. In addition, the dancer will have to do a force to prevent your

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arms rotate around your body. The woman is being pulled toward the center of rotation
has a non-zero speed toward the center, this makes the dancers arm tempted to turn. If
the arm turns, the dancers will lose the control of the dance. To prevent this, the man
needs to produce a lateral force to his arm to cancel the force that is trying to cause
twisting his arm. The force that induces the twisting dancer's arm is called Coriolis force.
Coriolis force was described the first time by the engineer and scientist GaspardGustave Coriolis in 1835. It is a pseudo force or a non-inertial force that can be perceived
at a rotating reference frame. This force causes Coriolis Effect. This effect is a deflection
at the movement of objects in rotating frames. If the reference frame has a clockwise
rotation, a deflection to the left can be seen. At counter clockwise rotation, the deflection
occurs to the right direction. Coriolis force acts in a perpendicular direction to the
rotation axis and velocity of the particle. Coriolis force (Fc) can be determinate if the
mass are multiplied by the cross product of the velocity (v) and angular velocity ().
(Bhatia, 1997)
(Eq. 02)

Samba, high heels and the center of gravity

Samba is a rhythm and dance created by the influences from native Brazilians and Afro
Brazilians. There are many types of Samba, but in most of them, a woman without a
partner performs the dance. (Giffoni, 1964) This dance is very popular during Carnivals
parade, when the women perform this dance for a long time. During the parades, women
wear a very tall high heels to dance. After that, some of them have pain in their legs and
lumbar region. In the past, dancers believe that these problems were caused by the dance

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and the long time of the parade. Actually, these problems are a result of the disconnection
of the center of gravity (CG) and the center of mass (CM) of the human body.
(Conceio, et all. 2010) The CG is a point that the force of gravity is applied. Actually,
all of particles in a body suffered the action of the gravity force. The CG is the
geometrical approach to simplify and understand the results of the gravity in a body.
(Tipler, 1999) The average human body has its CG at the hip region. This is based when
the body is a normal position. At the normal position, the weight of a person is distributed
among the muscles of the calf, heel and, toes. At normal position, the CM and CG are
located at the same point.

Figure 3: The CG of human body

Font: http://underpop.online.fr/b/biomecanica-da-musculacao/musculacao-27.htm

When a woman wears a high heel higher than six centimeters occur a variation of
the tibial support angle. This variation causes that the calf muscles and heel experience an
overload. This variation also causes the pressure that the body weight makes towards to
the ground is concentrated on tiptoe. The redistribution of the weight force causes the
body's center of mass has been offset from the center of gravity. (Conceio, et all. 2010)

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Mass center is the point where it can be considered that a body mass is applied for the
purpose of forces interactions studies. (Tippler, 1999)

Figure 3: The CM and High Heels

Font: http://creofire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Correct-Posture.jpg

The body needs to re-distribute the effect of the gravity along of the new CM. This new
distribution causes a stress at the legs muscles and spine. The constant uses of high heel
can bring many orthopedics problems in the future.

Conclusion
Physics is one of the natural sciences. It means that it is possible to see its concepts,
theories and application in the entire world. The entire world does not mean just the
physical places, but meaning that is possible to see Physics at sports, health, society and
even in art. This perception is important to understand that Physics is not an isolated
island, but a bridge able to connect different matters. The analysis of the dance through

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the Physics is important to break some misconceptions about the movement during the
dance. It is also important to understand the Physical conceptions such as Coriolis force
and the conservation of angular momentum with a real and interesting example. Other
important discussion about dancing and other physical activities is the impact of them in
the human body. Physics can explain how shoes, movements and forces intensity during
physical activities can affect the muscles. If this knowledge will use by health
professionals, many answers about How healthy is it? can be produced.

References
Bhatia, V. (1997). 8 - Rigid-body Dynamics. In Classical mechanics: With introduction to
nonlinear oscillations and chaos (p. 365). London: Narosa.
Tipler, P. (1999). Physics for scientists and engineers (4th ed.). New York: W.H.
Freeman/Worth.
Conceio, G., Silva, J., & Jorge, F. (2010, April 1). MODIFICAES ANGULARES
DA PELVE, TORNOZELO E CENTRO DE GRAVIDADE COM USO DE CALADO
DE SALTO ALTO. Perspectivas, 155-162.
LEMOS LFC, TEIXEIRA CS, MOTA CB. A review about center of gravity and body
balance. R. bras. Ci. e Mov 2009;17(4):83-90.
Giffoni, Maria Amlia Corra. Danas folclricas brasileiras e suas aplicaes educativas.
Ed. Melhoramentos, 1964.