The rumba is a dance that rivets its image on the mind. Holding much history, it has been and is a dance of oppositions: love and hate, hostility and harmony, sensuality and prudence. Musically, it taps into the realms of technicality and improvisation. The dance and music is a marvel, leaving a lusty taste in its trail so that a natural tendency towards it never fades.
The origins of the rumba stem from Africa. The steps and song of traditional rumba may have begun as remembered pieces of dance from the Ganga or Kisi people in Cuba, generalized groups of West Central African descent.
Some prospect that the Sara peoples of northern Nigeria are the originators of rumba, a similar dance is of rows of boys in front of rows of girls, approaching one another in movement and then separating. In present-day Zaire, a traditional BaKongo dance called vane samba appears to directly link to rumba’s progenitors. A characteristic highlight occurs when the bodies of a dancing pair meet, or almost meet at the navel. This movement mirrors the rumba’s vacunao, a prominent feature in some forms of rumba.
The name rumba possibly derives from the Spanish language, the word rumbo translates to route, rumba translates to heap pile, and rum is of course the liquor popular in the Caribbean. Any of these words might have been used descriptively when the dance was being formed. The name has most often been claimed to be derived from the Spanish word for carousel, or festival.
Rumba developed in the 1850s and 1860s among free black slaves gathered to express their struggles with one another. Following the abolition of slavery in Cuba in 1886, poor Cubans dealt with a society still emphasizing color and class, by...
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...national dance. As a native Afro-Cuban simply put, “This will never die. Nothing can stop it” (Farr 80).
Works Cited
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Farr, Jory. Rites of Rhythm. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.
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Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle, Oxford: James Currey, Princeton, NJ: M. Weiner, 2000.
Moore, Robin Dale. Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in
Havana, 1920-1935. Diss. U of Texas at Austin, 1995. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1995. 9534899.
Roy, Maya. Cuban Music. Trans. Denise Asfar and Gabriel Asfar. London: Latin America Bureau, 2002.
Cuba is considered one of the places where African music has been most fully preserved. Within this island nation there exist many secular and religious genres of Afro-Cuban music. These genres are associated with the spread of palo monte and santeria—two of the many neo-African syncretic religions in the New World (Den Tandt and Young 251). The idea of syncretism—a mixing of the beliefs or practices of different groups—is very popular in many aspects of analysis of the New World’s Africanization. With respect to religion, the term refers especially to the combining of characteristics of native...
“Cuba - A Case of Communist Take-Over.” The New York Times Magazine July 1961: 59-64 Guido, Jessica.
Rostas, S. (2009). Carrying the world: The concheros dance in mexico city. (pp. 21-209). Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Marcus Garvey once said, “The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness,” exemplifying not only that the African blood that flows through our veins is indeed wonderful, but is more a national treasure than a national tragedy. Countries across the world, in some form have been altered by the touch of the African influence whether that is socially and/or culturally. The same fate lies with the islands of the Caribbean, especially the island of Puerto Rico located in the Greater Antilles. Of all the African influential branches, Puerto Rican music would be one social phenomenon to be ultimately shaped and modified by African influence directly. Beginning with the African slaves, this paper covers the musically genres created over time containing West African elements, as well as covering the ways in which the Puerto Rican society influenced the music as well as how the music effected the society. This paper will also include the ways in which African descendants in Puerto Rico [musicians] would rise to fame despite existing in an era of open racism. Ultimately, explaining how the music and the people go hand in hand.
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The rumba is a dance and music genre that originated in Cuba in the mid 1800s. It has often been compared with North American blues, as it was a vehicle of protest and expression among the working class poor of places of Cuban and African decent. The rumba is a combination of percussion and vocal ensemble, and was often a community event where many were encouraged to participate.
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