What is "bolero"

Bolero \Bo*le"ro\, n. [Sp.] (Mus.)

1. A Spanish dance, or the lively music which accompanies it.

2. A kind of small outer jacket, with or without sleeves, worn by women.

kind of Spanish dance, 1787, from Spanish, probably from bola "ball" (and perhaps with reference to "whirling motion"), from Latin bulla (see bull (n.2)). In reference to a type of short jacket, it is recorded by 1864.

n. 1 a lively Spanish dance 2 a type of short, buttonless jacket or blouse, open or tied in front and ending at the diaphragm

1. n. music written in the rhythm of the bolero dance

2. a short jacket; worn mostly by women

3. a Spanish dance in triple time accompanied by guitar and castanets

Bolero dancer by Toulouse-Lautrec
Marcelle Lender in Chilperic - Hervé, 1895]]

Bolero is a genre of slow- tempo Latin music and its associated dance. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.

The term is also used for some art music. In all its forms, the bolero has been popular for over a century.

1. Carpentier, Alejo 2001 [1945]. Music in Cuba. Minneapolis MN.↩

Boléro is a one- movement orchestral piece by the French composer Maurice Ravel (1875–1937). Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian actress and dancer Ida Rubinstein, the piece, which premiered in 1928, is Ravel's most famous musical composition.

Before Boléro, Ravel had composed large scale ballets (such as Daphnis et Chloé, composed for the Ballets Russes 1909–1912), suites for the ballet (such as the second orchestral version of Ma mère l'oye, 1912), and one-movement dance pieces (such as La valse, 1906–1920). Apart from such compositions intended for a staged dance performance, Ravel had demonstrated an interest in composing re-styled dances, from his earliest successes – the 1895 Menuet and the 1899 Pavane – to his more mature works like Le tombeau de Couperin, which takes the format of a dance suite.

Boléro epitomises Ravel's preoccupation with restyling and reinventing dance movements. It was also one of the last pieces he composed before illness forced him into retirement. The two piano concertos and the Don Quichotte à Dulcinée song cycle were the only compositions that followed Boléro.

Bolero may refer to:

Bolero is a 1984 American romantic drama film starring Bo Derek, and written and directed by her husband John Derek. The film centers on the protagonist's sexual awakening and her journey around the world to pursue an ideal first lover who will take her virginity.

Despite minor commercial success, the film was critically panned, earning nominationa for nine Golden Raspberry Awards at the 5th Golden Raspberry Awards and "winning" six, including the Worst Picture.

Bolero is a 1934 American Pre-Code musical drama film starring George Raft and Carole Lombard, and directed by Wesley Ruggles. The movie was a rare chance for Raft to star and to play a dancer, which had been his profession in New York City, rather than portraying a gangster. The film takes its title from the Maurice Ravel composition Boléro (1928). The supporting cast features William Frawley, Ray Milland and Sally Rand.

Bolero (1975-1986) was a dressage horse and an influential sire. He stood .

Bolero, is Mr. Children's 6th studio album and was released on March 5, 1997. The album debuted at the number-one position on Oricon weekly charts, with the first week sales of over 1,734,000 copies. It sold over 471,000 copies in the next week, but was ranked at No. 2 on Oricon charts, being replaced by Globe's Faces Places.

Bolero is a fashion and lifestyle magazine based in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Boléro, Op. 19, was written by Frédéric Chopin in 1833 and published the following year. It is one of his lesser-known piano pieces, although it has been recorded numerous times.

The overall key of the Boléro is difficult to establish. It was often listed as Boléro in C major - A minor, as the work opens with three unison octaves in G (dominant chords of C major) in fortissimo, then a lengthy Introduction in C major, moving to A minor for the Boléro proper. It is interrupted by sections in A major, A-flat major and B-flat minor before returning to A minor. It ends triumphantly in A major (parallel major).

The work was dedicated to the Scottish-born but half-French Mademoiselle la Comtesse Émilie de Flahaut, then aged only 14. She was later to become Countess of Shelburne.

The apparent inspiration for the Boléro was Chopin's friendship with the French soprano Pauline Viardot, whose father, the famed Spanish tenor Manuel García, had introduced boleros to Paris by the time of Chopin's arrival there. His biographer Frederick Niecks speculated that it was inspired by the Bolero in Daniel Auber's La muette de Portici (1828).

Despite the ostensibly Spanish flavour of the piece, it has been described as a polonaise in disguise, or a boléro à la polonaise, as its rhythms are more redolent of the national dance of Chopin's homeland than anything Spanish. It was written five years before Chopin first visited Spain (1838). Many people today claim it as the "only Polish Bolero ever written".