14ymedio, Havana, 6 May 2024 — Cuba broke the world record this Sunday by bringing together the largest number of people simultaneously dancing casino style and surpassing the number of choreographic wheels, dancing in unison to the beat and cadence of the son, a musical genre with origins and tradition in Cuba.
More than 1,500 people successfully passed the casino dancing test for nine minutes in squares and parks in the provincial capitals and municipalities throughout the country, according to preliminary data from the judges who evaluated this event held on Cuban Son Day.
The international project ‘Returning to the Son Dancing Casino’- coordinated through the Ministry of Culture – led to this initiative which finally met the goal of replacing Venezuela in the world record of popular and sports dances that country has held since 2022.
La Piragua, an emblematic site for the Havana dancers, was the epicenter of the capital’s event that brought together hundreds of casino dancers
La Piragua*, an emblematic site for Havana dancers, was the epicenter of the capital’s event that brought together hundreds of casino dancers (casineros) with a white and blue dress code.
The months-long preparations for the casino dancers represented long hours of rehearsals, visits to dance academies, as well as training of the people in charge of their organization.
The dance competitions were also recorded. From the west: Artemisa, Pinar del Río and Matanzas, from the eastern side: Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Guantánamo and Granma, and the central cities of Cienfuegos and Camagüey.
The casino arose spontaneously in Cuba at the end of the 50’s during the last century as a form of entertainment for the couples dancing together or in a collective circle with a mixture of steps, variants and figures from an entire chain of Cuban ballroom dances that preceded it, such as urban Havana son and chachachá.
The casino emerged spontaneously in Cuba at the end of the 50’s during the last century as a form of entertainment for couples dancing together or in a collective circle
The casino wheel appeared when couples began to interact with one another, even swapping partners during the dance, made up of two or more duets that perform choreographic evolutions under the orders of a leader.
It was danced for the first time on the circular floor of Havana’s Club Casino Deportivo, and that is where the name of this style of social dance comes from, which has maintained its popularity and preference among Cubans, and the reason it is considered a contender to form part of the nation’s cultural heritage.
The international boom of this dance since the late 70s was a determining factor in the spread of casino dancing outside Cuba’s borders, where it has thousands of followers in the Americas, the Caribbean and other areas of the world where it is recognized as “Cuban salsa”.
*Translator’s note: La Piragua is a large plaza-type open space along Havana’s Malecon overlooked by the Hotel Nacional.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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