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DANZA CHARANGUERO
Popular Dances of Cuba Demonstration

genres:  Danzón, Son, Mambo, Chachachá
video type:  Demonstration
runtime:  73 minutes
location:  Havana, Cuba
producer: Boogalu Productions

Danza Charanguero is a spirited celebration of Cuba's popular music and dance heritage focusing on the danzón, son, mambo, chachachá, and salsa-casino. It is these evocative music and dance genres that, in different eras, have erupted onto the world scene, making Cuba one of the few countries whose music and dance has become adopted and practiced internationally.

Filmed in a beautiful outdoor patio in Old Havana, this relaxed party-performance features a gathering of seasoned "charangueros" (music and dance enthusiasts) drawn from the professional and aficionado dance world of Havana. Inspiring the party is the legendary twelve member orchestra "Estrellas Cubanas", with their classic charanga sound of violin, flute, piano, bass, and percussion.

Video Chapters
genre - song - composer
• contradanza - La Comparsa - Ernesto Lecuona
• danzón - Virgin de Regla - Pablo O'Farrill
• son - Tocoloro - Arsenio Rodriguez
• chachachá - Goza Conmigo - Tregar Otton
• son - El Paralitico - Miguel Matamoros
• bolero - Si Te Contara - Félix Reina
• mambo - Mambo America - Antonio Sanchéz
• danzón - Fefita - José Urfé
• salsa-casino - La Escoba Barrendera - Rodulfo Vaillant
• danzón - son - conga - Popurrí Cubano - various

Featured Dancers
male dancers:
Domingo Pau Despaine
Ricardo "Santa Cruz" Gómez
Dionisio Paul
Juan Garcia Fernández
Isaías Rojas Ramirez
Carlos Pérez Estrada
Aurelio Calderin

female dancers:
Zoila Rizo Sánchez
Miriam Izquierdo
Alicia Santo Soto
Yacelis Sánchez
Llousi Mabel Gutierrez
Dolores Perez Herrera


Reviews
Brian Dring, Beat Magazine, March 2007
The DVD Danza Charanguero (Boogalu Productions) is the label’s latest release exploring the Cuban music scene. Similar to previous releases which capture live performance in the exotic-looking outdoor patios of Old Havana, this one features the twelve- member orchestra Estrellas Cubanas playing styles like the danzon, son, mambo, chachacha, and salsa.

What is different about this film is its focus on the dancers and in particular the dance moves, with closeups of footwork and posture. This was of particular interest to someone like me who has attended salsa and merengue classes taught by instructors from Puerto Rico. In comparison, the Cuban style is more relaxed and covers a broader array of styles. Similarly, the musical accompaniment relies heavily on the classic charanga sound with violin and flute rather than the louder horn and percussion sections most commonly seen in stateside salsa or merengue bands. Of all dance styles presented in this film, it was the salsa casino that appeared to be the origin of what we know as ‘salsa.’

Live performance footage is interspersed with commentary provided by dancers, the orchestra’s bandleader, and an extended monolog from former director of the Cuban National Dance Company who explains the differences between the son and danzon in terms of dancer intimacy, as well as how European salon dance forms evolved over time to include elements of African rhythm and movement.

Sue Miller, Bandleader Charanga del Norte
" Danza Charanguero" is an informative and charming presentation of the various styles of traditional dance music from Cuba. Top Charanga band Estrellas Cubanas play music in styles such as contradanza, danzón, mambo, chachachá, son, bolero and casino accompanied by professional dancers from the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba amongst others and also by amateur dance enthusiasts from the Asociación Cubana de Amigos del Danzón.

Cuba’s popular dance styles evolved alongside the music and this symbiotic relationship is beautifully illustrated by this DVD as you can clearly see the relationship between the different styles of the music and the dancers’ feet. For example dance enthusiast Carlos Pérez Estrada, in his interview, explains that in order to dance danzón you really have to listen to the music, listen out for the three introductory parts (in the ‘paseo’ couples circulate with fans (‘abanicos’) and meet and greet each other) before dancing in couples to the more open ‘cha’ section.

There’s much to offer both the musician and the dancer in this DVD as there are close-up shots of the dancers’ footwork as well as the musicians themselves and although the basic steps for each of the styles is present throughout, all the couples have their own different interpretations of the dances and are not formulaic. Musically the styles are exemplified by classic compositions by Félix Reina (a famous violinist and previous director of Estrellas Cubanas), Ernesto Lecuona, Pablo O’ Farrill, José Urfé and Arsenio Rodriguez. The string section is one of Havana’s finest with players such as Wenceslao Rodriguez, Arsel Depestre, Ricardo Cortés and Santiago Linares and the rhythm section swings to the impressive timbale playing of Zenen Arrascaeta who is great to watch and whose rim shots and ‘abanico’ figures are to die for! The Thelonius Monk style playing of pianist Marco Jorrín is crisp and melodic and his solo on Lecuona’s Comparsa is quite simply beautiful.

A stand out on this DVD is the singing of Ernesto Oviedo de la Portilla, who introduces all the numbers and also gives interviews about the history of Estrellas Cubanas, his own musical background and about Cuban dance music today and before the revolution. His rendition of the bolero ‘Si Te Contara’ is both passionate and elegant - a dignified and moving performance that clearly illustrates why he is one of Cuba’s finest singers of traditional Cuban music.

There is also an in-depth interview with Juan Garcia Fernández, former director of the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional, who outlines the development of Cuban dance music from the contradanza to the danzón and the influence of the son on the charanga formation.

The interview with dance aficionado Carlos Pérez, with his friend Aurelio nodding in agreement in the background struck me as particularly Cuban and reminds me of the wonderful clientèle that come to all Charanga matinée performances at the many Asociaciones Culturales in Cuba. Here, often on a Sunday afternoon, dapper gentlemen in waistcoats and panama hats and ladies in pretty dresses still, even today, dance flirtatiously and elegantly to danzón, chachachá and pachanga.

This DVD will be of great interest to all musicians and dancers interested in Cuba’s popular music dance styles - highly recommended!

Fabio, SalsaIsGood.com
Boogalu Productions have made a considerable effort in recent years to document a large section of the Cuban dancing and music tradition and made it available to the outside world; this is a great service to dancers, and especially to US dancers who rarely travel to Cuba. If you can not afford to travel to Havana, this DVD offers you the possibility of tasting a social dance evening which, for the lovers of raw dancing, is much better than the many expensive shows for tourists you may see nowadays in the trendy night clubs in Havana. In actual fact, what is contained in the DVD is hard to find even if you do travel to Havana, since the producers have made an effort to reunite in a single venue a band and several dancers with considerable knowledge of some 80 years of Cuban music; here, they attempt to re-create the atmosphere which has characterised Havana popular culture for several decades. This is by no means easy to find in Havana today in standard tourist circles.

This DVD covers several dances, starting as far back as Contradanza, passing through Danzon, Cha Cha Cha, Bolero, Mambo, and reaching Salsa Casino, a certain chronological progression of what made today’s salsa,. The dancers stick to a very traditional style of dance (remember they try to show it to you as it was done then), which means very simple steps and no turns or complicated figures. There are interesting things to pick: you will clearly see how in the days of Contradanza, Danzon and Bolero, ‘africanity’ was still seen as something to transcend, so no hips movement for the women and a very elegant and restrained posture for the men. You will then see some resemblance of more modern style taking shape through Cha Cha Cha and Son, and we can start to notice where Dile Que No and other simple crucial elements come from. You may then get a shock in seeing Mambo.. well, the way they danced it then was VERY different from what we intend for mambo today, as popularised by the NY tradition, but then we reach more familiar territories with Casino etc..

Interviews with the musicians and dancers tell us about the days gone by and give other interesting aspects of the cultural background.

Fran Chesleigh, NY dance teacher and historian
Part of my habit as an experienced dance teacher is to continually examine and learn from the traditions of the past, so I that I can more accurately pass such information along to my students. Recently, I purchased a DVD, titled Danza Charanguero, from Boogalu Productions, a company, which offers a wide range of DVDs, CDs and books about the music, dance and culture of Cuba. I expected this DVD to be an entertaining visual and musical experience, but for me it proved to be much more than that. As I watched the deceptively simple, rhythmically precise, musically transcendent dancing of these social dancers in Cuba – many of them from the older generation, I was immediately transported back to the 1940”s and ‘50’s here in New York, when the goal of all elite “Latin” dancers was to dance contratiempo (or as we then called it “on two”) – in accordance with what we were taught was the prevalent style in Cuba at that time. This special way of responding to what we in the United States called “Mambo” (Cubans called it “el son” or simply “el sistema cubana de bailar” – the Cuban method of dancing) was quite difficult for most of us to learn, and good role models were hard to find. But we persevered until finally we were able to consistently maintain the rhythm in this unique way. For those of us who succeeded, we achieved ecstasy every time we hit the dance floor. For people who hadn’t yet found the right count, those who didn’t give up in frustration felt they were on a mission to press doggedly on until at last they got the right rhythm, and “joined the club.” Sometimes it took months, sometimes years. But we wanted it, and we got it!

Today, dancing contratiempo has been all but completely lost (at least in the United States). But here it is again for everyone’s viewing pleasure. If you want to see where our current “salsa” tradition originated from, just watch and learn from this DVD. I’ve held screenings for some of my students, so they could see for themselves what the older generation had to offer, and I think some of them are finally realizing just how important it is to keep this priceless tradition alive. is to keep this priceless tradition alive.

As if that isn’t motivation enough for owning this gem of a DVD, there are three absolutely must-see interviews with leading exponents of Cuban music and dance: Carlos Perez Estrada, an engaging, passionate social dancer of the older generation, who stills lives and breathes dancing: Ernesto Oviedo, son of the famous tresero Isaac Oviedo and singer with Estrellas Cubanas (the band which provides the wonderful, timeless live music for the DVD); and Juan Garcia Fernandez, former director of Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba – whose expertise in the history of Cuban music and dance is unparalleled, and whose generosity in describing the evolution and technique of Cuban dancing is nothing short of a priceless gift.

In the past, I’ve searched far and wide for examples of the true contratiempo style, and until now have found only a few meager examples here and there. But with this DVD we suddenly have not only an extended look at the actual style, we have actual, in-depth interviews clearly providing a detailed explanation of the music and dance. What a rare find. If you really want the truth about “Latin” dancing, it’s right here!