The Wonderful Dance of Cuba!
#SoundSundays
As a part of #SoundSundays, we’re energizing you all with sounds of the world! Whether this is music, slam poetry, or even dance routines, we’re transcending the boundaries of the world to bring you straight to others.
Explore the Heritage of Cuba
Cuba is a country rich with artistic expression; their dance and music is especially appreciated.
Located 90 miles away from the American coastline, this Caribbean country floats as a neighbor to The Bahamas, Jamaica, and the island of Hispaniola (home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Spanish colonization remained until the Spanish-American War of 1898, leading to it’s condition as a de facto protectorate of the United States in 1902. Political unrest and instability led to the land’s changing of hands to the dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1952, and by 1959, led to a further regime change under the leadership of Fidel Castro.
Since 1965, Cuba has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba, participating in some of the greatest geo-political crises brought about by the Cold War conflict. In recent times, things are changing.
Two weeks ago, President Obama visited Cuba, signaling a serious commitment to the ending of America’s Cold War policies hoisted upon the Cuban peoples. For years, Cuba’s isolation of Cuba has been largely ineffective.
As the White House reports:
Decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our objective of empowering Cubans to build an open and democratic country. At times, longstanding U.S. policy towards Cuba has isolated the United States from regional and international partners, constrained our ability to influence outcomes throughout the Western Hemisphere, and impaired the use of the full range of tools available to the United States to promote positive change in Cuba. Though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, it has had little effect — today, as in 1961, Cuba is governed by the Castros and the Communist party.
We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse. We know from hard-learned experience that it is better to encourage and support reform than to impose policies that will render a country a failed state. We should not allow U.S. sanctions to add to the burden of Cuban citizens we seek to help.
Cultural Lineage
A part of Latin America, Cuba stands as a country of multitudinous backgrounds and beliefs.
Stemming from a series of three distinct cultural groups that have grown in a large amount, Cuba has been filled with:
- The aboriginal Taíno and Ciboney peoples who occupied the island prior to colonization.
- The Spanish colonizers themselves.
- The introduction of African slaves to the population years following colonization.
This sort of multiethnic lineage has helped craft the Afro-Cuban heritage we can see in their art forms today. We can particularly see the effects of these cultures on the Cuban people in their dance.
This #SoundSunday
partake in the Afro-Cuban dance styles of this country!
It starts with the contradanza, 19th Century.
Starting in the 18th Century, Cuba’s peoples began to slowly mix the French contradanse with traditional dances of the Indigenous American peoples, native to the island. This resulted in a form of dance called Contradanza.
An internationally popular style of music and dance, contradanza began to take off in Cuba during the 19th century. It came to be known as habanera, the dance of Havana (although it was adopted by the Cuban peoples as such much, much later). The contradanza became the parent style for a number of Cuban dances such as danzón, mambo, and the cha-cha-chá.
As the official musical genre and dance of Cuba, Danzón, a spawn of contradanza took a hold in the latter end of the 19th century. A mix of African rhythm and dance created this fusion of European and African influences: by 1879, danzón had emerged as a distinct genre and furthred the development of other dances such as the mambo and cha-cha-chá.
The Mambo is a musical form and dance style that developed originally in Cuba — the word, “mambo,” actually means, “conversation with the gods,” in Kikongo, a language spoken by many of the Central African slaves taken to Cuba. By the 1950s, publications in places as far as New York City began to run articles on the, “mambo revolution.”
In 1954, a diversion from the traditional mambo dance had spread through Havana. Known as the Cha-cha-chá, a simpler type of mambo, this dance became widely popular throughout Cuba, Mexico, and New York City, before spreading through Europe.
Of the other dances and musical styles to be found in Cuba, there is the bolero, salsa, and even Cuban ballet. Salsa dancing originated in New York in the mid-1970s; evolving from the earlier forms of mambo and cha-cha-chá, salsa began to incorporate elements of swing dancing and hustle into its fold. Adding in bits of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Caribbean dances, salsa was born.
The other two mentioned styles, bolero and ballet, are significant pieces of Cuban culture. Bolero of Cuba is not the same as the Spanish bolero, identified by it’s slower 2/4 time. In the 19th Century, in Santiago de Cuba, a group of musicians who moved around earned their living by singing and playing the guitar; the trovadors of Cuba were practitioners, and were identified by a) singing songs of their own composition, b) accompany their vocals with their guitar, and c) poetically handle their songs. This was the best fit for the singers of boleros, sones, and other Cuban styles. Bolero is known as a predecessor (along with son) for the dance known as bachata.
The last topic to cover in dance is Cuban ballet. While not originating from this country, it’s become culturally significant: the Cuban National Ballet School, located in Havana, has approximately 3,000 students and is the biggest ballet school in the world. It’s just one of the many ballet schools across the country.
With all of this, we hope to introduce you to the dances of Cuba and hope you find an interest to pursue more of this culturally rich locale! There are so many more styles, lyrics, rhythms, and blues to be found — why not take it upon yourself to do some more research! This was made to be an introduction to the world of Cuban arts more than anything. Take a note from them and learn more about their culture:
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