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The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance, and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European music. Due to the syncretic nature of most of its genres, Cuban music is often considered one of the richest and most influential regional music in the world. For instance, the son cubano merges an adapted Spanish guitar (tres), melody, harmony, and lyrical traditions with Afro-Cuban percussion and rhythms. Almost nothing remains of the original native traditions, since the native population was exterminated in the 16th century.
The tres is a three-course chordophone of Cuban origin. The most widespread variety of the instrument is the original Cuban tres with six strings. Its sound has become a defining characteristic of the Cuban son and it is commonly played in a variety of Afro-Cuban genres. In the 1930s, the instrument was adapted into the Puerto Rican tres, which has nine strings and a body similar to that of the cuatro.
Danzón is the official musical genre and dance of Cuba. It is also an active musical form in Mexico and Puerto Rico. Written in 2
4 time, the danzón is a slow, formal partner dance, requiring set footwork around syncopated beats, and incorporating elegant pauses while the couples stand listening to virtuoso instrumental passages, as characteristically played by a charanga or típica ensemble.
Contradanza is the Spanish and Spanish-American version of the contradanse, which was an internationally popular style of music and dance in the 18th century, derived from the English country dance and adopted at the court of France. Contradanza was brought to America and there took on folkloric forms that still exist in Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Ecuador.
Baile folklórico, "folkloric dance" in Spanish, also known as ballet folklórico, is a collective term for traditional cultural dances that emphasize local folk culture with ballet characteristics – pointed toes, exaggerated movements, highly choreographed. Baile folklórico differs from danzas and regional bailes. Although it has some association from “danzas nationalists". Folk dances", that is, "dances that you will find in the villages, not on stage" were researched and disseminated by Alura Angeles de Flores. Each region in Mexico, the Southwestern United States and Central American countries is known for a handful of locally characteristic dances.
Ignacio Cervantes Kawanag was a Cuban pianist and composer. He was influential in the creolization of Cuban music.
Rumba is a secular genre of Cuban music involving dance, percussion, and song. It originated in the northern regions of Cuba, mainly in urban Havana and Matanzas, during the late 19th century. It is based on African music and dance traditions, namely Abakuá and yuka, as well as the Spanish-based coros de clave. According to Argeliers León, rumba is one of the major "genre complexes" of Cuban music, and the term rumba complex is now commonly used by musicologists. This complex encompasses the three traditional forms of rumba, as well as their contemporary derivatives and other minor styles.
Viengsay Valdés is a Cuban ballerina. Since 2003, Valdés is the Prima ballerina and since 2019 she is the Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Cuba.
Federico Arístides Soto Alejo, better known as Tata Güines, was a Cuban percussionist, bandleader and arranger. He was widely regarded as a master of the conga drum, and alongside Carlos "Patato" Valdés, influential in the development of contemporary Afro-Cuban music, including Afro-Cuban jazz. He specialized in a form of improvisation known as descarga, a format in which he recorded numerous albums throughout the years with Cachao, Frank Emilio Flynn, Estrellas de Areito, Alfredo Rodríguez and Jane Bunnett, among others. In the 1990s he released two critically acclaimed albums as a leader: Pasaporte and Aniversario. His composition "Pa' gozar" has become a standard of the descarga genre.
Danza Contemporanea de Cuba is a contemporary dance company based in Havana, Cuba, combining modern American theatre, Afro-Caribbean dance styles and classical European Ballet.
Manuel Saumell Robredo, was a Cuban composer known for his invention and development of genuinely creolized forms of music. For this reason he gets the credit for being the first to cultivate Cuban musical nationalism, and is of similar standing to Glinka who initiated Russian musical nationalism with A Life for the Tsar at about the same time.
Miguel Faílde Pérez was a Cuban musician and bandleader. He was the official originator of the danzón, composer of the first danzón, Las alturas de Simpson, and the founder of the Orquesta Faílde.
Cuban musical theatre has its own distinctive style and history. From the 18th century to modern times, popular theatrical performances included music and often dance as well. Many composers and musicians had their careers launched in the theatres, and many compositions got their first airing on the stage. In addition to staging some European operas and operettas, Cuban composers gradually developed ideas which better suited their creole audience. Characters on stages began to include elements from Cuban life, and the music began to reflect a fusion between African and European contributions.
Claudio Brindis de Salas Monte was a violinist and double bass player who directed the most famous Cuban dance orchestra of his day. His band, the Concha de Oro, founded in the early 19th century, was the most popular band of its time. It played the dance music of the epoch at the balls of the island's aristocracy: contradanzas, minuets, rigadoons, quadrilles, lancers, waltzes. Concha de Oro was basically a típica, or wind orchestra, which was sometimes augmented to 100 players for special occasions such as fiestas.
Cuban culture encompasses a wide range of dance forms. The island's indigenous people performed rituals known as areíto, which included dancing, although little information is known about such ceremonies. After the colonization of Cuba by the Spanish Kingdom, European dance forms were introduced such as the French contredanse, which gave rise to the Cuban contradanza. Contradanza itself spawned a series of ballroom dances between the 19th and 20th centuries, including the danzón, mambo and cha-cha-cha. Rural dances of European origin, such as the zapateo and styles associated with punto guajiro also became established by the 19th century, and in the 20th century son became very popular. In addition, numerous dance traditions were brought by black slaves from West Africa and the Congo basin, giving rise to religious dances such as Santería, yuka and abakuá, as well as secular forms such as rumba. Many of these dance elements from European dance and religious dances were fused together to form the basis of la técnica cubana. Cuban music also contributed to the emergence of Latin dance styles in the United States, namely rhumba and salsa.
After its arrival in Cuba at the end of the 18th century, the pianoforte rapidly became one of the favorite instruments among the Cuban population. Along with the humble guitar, the piano accompanied the popular Cuban guarachas and contradanzas at salons and ballrooms in Havana and all over the country.
Loipa Araújo is a Cuban ballet dancer, ballet master, and teacher of ballet. Along with Aurora Bosch, Josefina Méndez, and Mirta Plá, she is regarded as one of the "four jewels of Cuban ballet". Nicknamed the "Cuban muse of Marseilles", Araújo is considered to be "one of the best ballet teachers in the world today". She was a principal artist with the Cuban National Ballet.
The bowed string instruments have been always present in Cuba since its discovery, first as the viol or bowed vihuela and at a later time as the Italian violin. As other instruments and the culture in general, also the violin enjoyed in Cuba a period of great relevance during the 19th century. The violin was part of the instrumental ensembles that accompanied the Contradance and the Dance, the first Cuban musical genres, as well as other subsequent genres as the Danzón and the Cha cha cha. The violin also intoned some of the most beautiful melodies composed in Cuba, such as "La Bella Cubana" by José White. At all times, the Cuban violinists have been prominent representatives of the Cuban music throughout the entire world.
Margot Rojas Mendoza was a Cuban pianist and teacher of Cuban-Mexican origin. She performed as a concert pianist in New York, Mexico and Cuba for several years before turning to teaching. Several of her pupils became distinguished musicians.
Candita Batista was a Cuban singer, known internationally as an exponent of Afro-Caribbean music. In the course of her career she travelled worldwide and appeared with Nat King Cole, Charles Aznavour, Lola Flores and other stars.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Silvina Fabars Gilall". Enciclopedia de Historia y Cultura del Caribe (in Spanish). Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Comité Científico Técnico General de la enciclopedia. Archived from the original on November 28, 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - 1 2 3 Díaz Rondón, Francisnet (19 December 2014). "Silvina Fabars, una diosa de la danza". Vanguardia (in Spanish). Havana, Cuba. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
- 1 2 "Silvina Fabars, Premio Nacional de Danza 2014" (in Spanish). Havana, Cuba: Cubadebate. 19 April 2014. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
- 1 2 3 Sánchez, Martha (3 January 2014). "Silvina Fabars: an eternal queen of movement". Miami, Florida: On Cuba Magazine. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
- 1 2 3 Camejo, Katia (7 May 2014). "Silvina Fabars, the Ebony Goddess". Translator: Fanego, Pedro A. Havana, Cuba: Radio Cadena Habana. Archived from the original on 3 January 2016. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
- ↑ Orovio 2004, p. 148.
- ↑ Vasallo, María del Carmen (7 May 2012). "Conjunto Folklórico Nacional: medio siglo en la escena" (in Spanish). Havana, Cuba: Cuba Sí. Retrieved 6 February 2016.