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Music and Dance in South Louisiana's Cuban Community By Tomás Montoya González with contributions from T. Ariana Hall. Translations by Lori N. Tyler, Guillermo Cabrera Rojo, and T. Ariana Hall Cuban Migration to Louisiana: Race, Identity, And Generation Nightclubs, Music, And Dancing He goes onto the describe the scene in the Gentilly neighborhood in New Orleans: In the same period of time, music bands such as Cubanola, founded by Jose D'Páez, Los Sagitarios, and Los Catrachos Boys became popular. José D' Páez came to Louisiana from Cuba in 1982 after living in New York and Miami. He says, "I decided to stay here because there was an interesting and very active music scene. Consequently, I formed a band named Cubanola. Rolando Castro helped me to form the band by giving me the instruments we needed. After playing with Cubanola until 1985, we split up and I started playing with Rítmo Caribeńo." Other noteworthy singers from this time include Tito Albizur, Rubén Gonzáles, and Rafael Hernán. Not all the musicians in these bands were Cubans, but the basic Latin music repertoire was based on Cuban genres. Some more recent New Orleans Latin bands with Cuban members and influences include Abatar, directed by Geovanis "Dongo" Palacios, Fredy Omar y su Orquesta with Geovanis Palacios and other Cuban musicians, AshéSon, directed by Javier Olondo and Dongo and Los Pingus directed by Alejandro Bernabeu. There are also local musicians, like Michael Skinkus, who have gone to Cuba to study Cuban music in-depth. Geovanis Palacios, better known by his nickname Dongo, was raised within Afro-Cuban folkloric traditions. Arriving in the United States as a Balsero in the 1990s, he lived in several cities within the United States and finally settled in New Orleans, where the weather and music scene are more like what he left in Cuba. Javier Olondo had a very different path to New Orleans. He was born in Houston, Texas. Even though it was very unusual for the period, he and his Cuban family decided to go back to Cuba, reversing the immigration process. When Javier arrived in Cuba as a child, he embraced Cuban culture immediately. He earned a graduate degree in classical guitar. In the early 1990s, he moved to Europe to continue his musical studies. In 2000, he returned to the United States and settled in Louisiana, where he teaches guitar, gives salsa lessons, and leads the band AshéSon with Geovanis Palacios.
Over the last few years, a loose network of public gathering spaces for Cubans in the greater New Orleans area has included certain nights like Copacabana, Tomatillo's, Ray's Boom Boom Room, Blue Nile, Café East, Ray's Over the River, Banks St Bar, Lazzizas and Ray's Boom Boom Room, but this network is unstable and always shifting. Cubans also come together at larger Latino events. Among the currently active Latin music bands, only AshéSon and Los Pingus have exclusively Cuban repertoires. The rest of the active Latin bands incorporate Cuban music into their repertoires to varying degrees. Additionally, there are some New Orleans English and Spanish language radio stations that feature some Cuban music in their Latin music programs like WWOZ 90.7 FM's Saturday morning program with Yolanda Estrada and WFNO 830 AM La Fabulosa's weekend traditional Latin music program. Dance is an important component of Cuban culture. There are a few Cuban Salsa dance instructors that live in the greater New Orleans area. People from different origins and nationalities have established an active Latin dance network. Two Cuban dance instructors include Javier Olondo, a classically trained guitarist, and Aurelio A. González, a trained dancer and the current coordinator of cultural activities for the Cervantes Hispanic-American Art Foundation. Aurelio has formed a core group of Salsa students that serves as a social network for Cuban music and culture. This network of Salsa dancers is an important channel for spreading Cuban cultural influences throughout present day South Louisiana. Over the last two decades the movements of Cuban casino, known as salsa outside of Cuba, have evolved in response to the emergence of a new style of Cuban dance music called timba. Javier Olondo and Aurelio González incorporate some Cuban timba dance movements into their repertoire.
While the musical differences between salsa and timba have been described, it will be helpful to explore the differences of their dance movements. Timba movements have more of an emphasis on upper body and torso movements than salsa. This is attributed to the strong Afro-Cuban rumba dance influences in timba. The multiple layers of percussion patterns characteristic of timba also comes from rumba. In timba the male dancer takes a stronger lead than in Salsa and the couple tends to mark the basic step from side to side, with less autonomous movement for the female dancer. In salsa the couple tends to mark the basic step back and forth and the female dancer has more opportunities for individual improvisation within the partner moves. Timba also places more emphasis on salsa suelta or freestyling, where the two dance partners let go of each other's hands and freestyle dance together. The female timba dancer has opportunities for improvisation during this salsa suelta or freestyle portion of the dance. Musically, timba fuses a myriad of influences from traditional Cuban genres, all the way to Reggae and Hip Hop. Reggae and Hip Hop influences in Timba dancing are apparent as well, especially in (but not limited to) the salsa suelta freestyling. NEXT - Conclusion |
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