Cuban Casino Style Salsa
Cuban Style Salsa – aka Casino This type of salsa is more relaxed and casual, exuding a cool attitude. It is danced “on 1”, but it is not linear, rather, rounded. This Salsa is danced to traditional Cuban music. 17) Cubans tend not to use a generic term like 'salsa' to identify their popular dance or music. They distinguish between their dances as they invented many of them including: danzon, son, changui, mambo, cha cha cha, pilon, mozambique, conga, and casino. Many Cubans say that casino dance or timba music is just the modern style of Cuban son. Cuban Casino style Salsa dancing Historically, Casino traces its origin as a partner dance from Cuban Son dancing, and its rhythmic body motions from Afro-Cuban Rumba heritage. Son is considered an older version and ancestor to Salsa. Cuban-style salsa, also known as Casino, is popular in many places around the world, including in Europe, Latin America, North America, and even in some countries in the Middle East such as Israel. Dancing Casino is an expression of popular social culture; Latin Americans consider casino as part of social and cultural activities centering. Dissonant Harmony was right, I was referring to the difference between the 'original' Cuban Casino and Miami Casino/'Cuban Salsa' (not the 'slot' style but the 'triangular' one). Wol already gave an answer hinting into the right direction.
Cuban Salsa is one of the most dynamic and important musical phenomena of the 1900s. In many Hispanic communities, it remains today the most popular style of dance music. Salsa represents a mix of Latin musical genres, but its primary component is Cuban dance music. The roots of salsa originated in Eastern Cuba (Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo) from the Cuban Son (about 1920) and Afro-Cuban dance (like Afro-Cuban rumba). There, Spanish and Afro-Cuban musical elements were combined, both in terms of rhythm and the instruments used. By mid-century, this music came to Havana. Cuban and Puerto-Rican musical communities in New York merged the aforementioned Cuban as well as Puerto-Rican musical styles with modern influences, particularly American jazz and popular music heard on the radio - and Salsa was born. It then spread back to the South and gained popularity in many Latin countries. On different locations, the musical style evolved differently. After the North-American influence, Cuban salsa was born in - you guessed it - Cuba.
The key instrument that provides the backbone of a salsa song is the clave. It is often played with two wooden sticks (called clave) that are hit together. For salsa, there are four types of clave rhythms, the 3-2 and 2-3 Son claves being the most important, and the 3-2 and 2-3 Rumba claves. Most salsa music is played with one of the Son claves, though a Rumba clave is occasionally used, especially during Rumba sections of some songs.
Cuban Casino Style Salsa Ingredients
Cuban Casino Style Salsa Chips
There are other aspects outside of the clave that help define Salsa rhythm: the cowbell, the Montuno rhythm and the Tumbao rhythm. The cowbell is played on the core beats of Salsa, 1, 3, 5 and 7. The basic Salsa rhythm is quick, quick, slow, quick, quick, slow, usually danced on beats 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7, which are very similar to the beats of the cowbell. Recognizing the rhythm of the cowbell, the conga drums or the piano can help one stay on Salsa rhythm.
Cuban Casino Style Salsa Ranchera
Don’t worry if these terms sound like a foreign language to you! We’ve all been there. Sometimes it helps the beginner dancers to have a clear idea of the melodic and rhythmic structure in Cuban salsa so that they can synchronise their movement with the music. The more you dance, the less you need to focus on these technical details. At some point, you realise that your body just feels the music and instinctively does the movements that fit well with the rhythm and melody. It just takes some practice, like everything in life.
Now I found this interesting video on youtube that I really like a lot. We usually talk about Salsa/Mambo NY style salsa on most of these articles, and I thought it might be nice to show a good clip on how other salsa styles look like. Now, I have posted some videos previously on how cuban rueda salsa looks like - however this video is a better representation on how the Cuban-Salsa style partnering dynamic works. Most of the dance is very circular in comparison to regular salsa which is a slot-dance. Additionally the cuban-style of salsa integrates a lot of Casino rueda aspects as well as some cumbia aspects (specifically the back-to-back step). Anyways, since I'm in LA for the congress, I'll keep this article short - so enjoy the video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDUC2_0u8zE