Cuba - Lonely Planet [39]
Most Cuban dances are connected with a specific genre of music. Rumba is a music style of Afro-Cuban origin in which the rhythm is provided by drums, maracas and a singer. Accompanied by one of three sexually-charged dances, the music provides for a hypnotic and dazzling spectacle that evokes the spirits of Santería orishas (deities) who take possession of the dancers and fuel further drumming frenzies. Varieties of rumba dances include the pedestrian yambú, the faster guaguancó and the acrobatic columbia. The latter originated as a devil dance of the Náñigo rite, and today it’s performed only by solo males.
Imported into New York in the 1920s, rumba took on big-band credentials and developed into mambo under the influence of Afro-Cuban jazz. Mambo, in turn, sprouted its own distinctive dance pioneered by Cuban bandleader Pérez Prado in the late 1940s. As that was too difficult for many North Americans to master, violinist Enrique Jorrín developed a more straightforward mambo offshoot known as the chachachá in the early 1950s and the craze swept America.
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‘Described as ‘a vertical representation of a horizontal act,’ Cuban dancing is famous for its libidinous rhythms and sensuous close-ups.’
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On the opposite side of the coin sits danzón, a European-influenced ballroom dance that was derived from the French contredanse and the suave strains of the Spanish-influenced habanera. A bandleader known as Miguel Failde was responsible for developing the first danzóns in the late 1880s when he added syncopated rhythms and a provocative pause to the basic steps. Danzón was in vogue from 1880 until 1940, during which time it was progressively Africanized developing such exciting offshoots as charanga and danzón-chá. It still has a strong influence on Cuban popular music today.
Cuban ballet is synonymous with prima ballerina Alicia Alonso. Now well past her pointe days, Alicia cofounded the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1948 and her choreography is still in heavy rotation – classic stuff such as Don Quixote and Giselle, with few surprises save the powerful dancers themselves. The Festival Internacional de Ballet de La Habana (see boxed text,) takes Havana by storm in October every other year, when you can see a Swan Lake matinee and an evening performance of Carmen – a ballet junkie’s dream.
Original Cuban theater is limited, but the Cubans showcase excellent interpretations of classic foreign works including Lorca’s plays and Shakespeare’s comedies. Havana’s theaters also put on surprisingly edgy (and funny) comedy shows, professional rumba dancing and music performed by the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba (founded in 1962), and some fantastic children’s theater – most big towns have a Teatro Guiñol (puppet theater).
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Music
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FOLKLORIC ROOTS
MAMBO & CHACHACHá
SALSA, TIMBA & JAZZ
LOS TROVADORES
RAP, REGGAETÓN & BEYOND
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‘In Cuba the music flows like a river,’ wrote Ry Cooder in his sleeve notes to the seminal Buena Vista Social Club CD, ‘It takes care of you and rebuilds you from the inside out.’
Rich, vibrant, layered and soulful, Cuban music has long acted as a standard-bearer for the sounds and rhythms emanating out of Latin America. From the down-at-heel docks of Matanzas to the bucolic local villages of the Sierra Maestra, everything from son, salsa, rumba, mambo, chachachá, charanga and danzón owe at least a part of their existence to the magical musical dynamism that was first ignited here.
Aside from the obvious Spanish and African roots, Cuban music has intermittently called upon a number of other important influences in the process of its embryonic development. Mixed into an already exotic melting pot are genres from France, the US, Haiti and Jamaica. Conversely, Cuban music has also played a key role in developing various melodic styles and movements in other parts of the world. In Spain they called this process ida y vuelta (return trip) and it is most clearly evident in a style of flamenco