Cuban Culture - Casino Dancing

Casino is a Cuban ballroom dance that emergedas the favorite ways of recreation and of socially
during the late 1950s due to the evolution andrelating among the different strata of society. Casino
integration of other musical genres and modalities,dancing is danced with greater or lesser skills by
such as the danzón and the danzonete. As a dance,children, young people and adults in the most diverse
it reflects greatly the character of the Cuban peoplespaces, no matter how large or limited.
and constitutes a synthesis of the characteristics ofThis style has been danced with all the musical
the Cubans; it is a summary of all the components ofgenres or variants in fashion that for its rhythmic
this nation.structure or musical tempo permitted to perform the
Casino is considered the last ballroom dance createdbasic steps, which has allowed Casino dancing to stay
by the Cuban people. It came up like an anonymousalive in the taste of the dancers. Nevertheless, there
dancing manifestation harbored in the cores of theare many elements that have contributed to the
urban popular classes. It is a dance to enjoy alone orspreading of Casino in Cuba and abroad; the growing
in couples, it is not identified with any religious ritesinternational popularity of Salsa music being among
and its movements do not have particular meanings.the most important. Identified as the Cuban way of
The contemporary dynamic is reflected today in thedancing Salsa, Casino has become the ideal vehicle for
great creativity and liberty of the dancers whenenjoying this form of music, something not
choosing their corporal and spatial movements.paradoxical at all if taken into account that the Cuban
Nowadays, Casino dancing constitutes the ballroomSon is the origin for both manifestations.
dance with greater validity in Cuba, which adds moreYoung people and adults from different parts of the
followers by the minute, and it is a socio-culturalworld have shown interest in learning how to dance
event that has influenced directly the development,Casino in the "same way Cubans do"; something quite
creativity, and diversity of the music that one cancomplicated because the cubanía, of paramount
dance to in our country from the late 1950s up toimportance to master this dance, is what Cubans
the present. This give-and-take between popularconvey with their gestures, attitudes, feelings,
music and ballroom dancing has been of the greaterthoughts, and soul. In Cuba, rumor has it that one is
importance in order to satisfy the taste of theborn dancing Casino, so he or she who does not
Cubans of "dancing nicely"; and above all, in order todance Casino is not a Cuban.
maintain for several generations these two elements