Nineteenth century: collective figures before Rueda de Casino

In nineteenth-century Cuban contradanza, a leading couple could introduce a figure for the others to repeat. Cadena, ocho, rueda and cedazo organized the dancers’ shared movement. Graciela Chao traces that collective vocabulary through later Cuban ballroom traditions. Rueda names a circular formation; its earlier uses belong to this longer history, while Rueda de Casino names the particular dance that developed in the 1950s. Contradanza’s figures and the leading couple.

Matanzas, 1879: danzón and the movement of the couple

In Matanzas in 1879, Miguel Faílde’s Las Alturas de Simpson became a musical landmark of danzón. Its dance vocabulary organized the couple’s movement through paseo (traveling), tornillo (turning together), marque (redirecting a turn) and caja or cajón (a square pattern). Partners could travel and rotate while maintaining a closed connection. These patterns continued into Son Urbano and Casino, adapted to different rhythms, speeds and group arrangements. Movement descriptions, pp. 10–13.

The musical history continued through José Urfé’s El Bombín de Barreto in 1910 and Aniceto Díaz’s danzonete Rompiendo la rutina in 1929. Listen to these works alongside earlier Cuban contradanza and danza in the Smithsonian Folkways collection and historical notes.

Son: a foundation and a living dance

Son carries rural and urban dance traditions. In rural Son montuno, lateral steps, flexed knees and the linked-arm action called sacando agua del pozo give the rhythm bodily expression. Son Urbano incorporates the paseo and cedazo from danza and danzón. Its energy can range from measured, close partner work to faster dancing with more figures and open exchanges. Graciela Chao on Son’s movement.

From danzón to Son Urbano: name the figures

As Son entered urban ballrooms, dancers combined its movement with figures from danza and danzón. The couple also began opening its hold while keeping one hand connected: one partner could turn beneath the joined arms or travel around the other, with a hand change behind the back. These semi-open figures expanded what a couple could do beyond turning together in a closed embrace. Casino inherited that capacity to open, redirect and reconnect the partnership. Son’s partner figures, pp. 12–13.

Chao’s comparison of Cuban ballroom dances traces these relationships. Names and executions can change between generations and schools; the connection lies in how dancers reorganize a movement for a new setting.

Cha-cha-chá: different footwork, a connected history

Cha-cha-chá became internationally popular in the 1950s. Its characteristic triple step belongs to a five-step sequence. Casino uses three alternating weight changes and a pause. Hearing and dancing that difference makes the relationship clearer than treating the names as interchangeable.

By 1956–1958, cha-cha-chá dancers were forming circles with a guide. Their vocabulary included Camínala y regresa, Paséala, Abre y cierra and Adentro y afuera. Some ruedas kept the original partners. Abre y cierra continued as Pa’ti pa’mí in Casino; coordinated figures and the three-step opening helped shape its rueda. Follow the movement vocabulary.

Partner-changing cha-cha-chá practices form part of this transition. Earlier ruedas could also retain the same partners. In Rueda de Casino, coordinated calls and exchanges make the changing relationships between couples part of the dance.

1957–1961: Casino Deportivo and the growth of the rueda

In 1957–1958, Juan Gómez Barranco, “Juanito el Abuelo,” and other young dancers at Havana’s Casino Deportivo were opening their partner connections and exchanging partners. A request such as dámela turned a social exchange into part of the dancing. Rueda del Casino took its name from the club; Casino’s name belongs to that dance community. Juanito’s firsthand history.

After 1959, new social spaces helped Casino spread. In 1961, former private clubs became workers’ social circles. Patricio Lumumba and Félix Elmusa became meeting places for casineros; guides included Joaquín Roche, “El Oso,” Juanito Gómez, Rosendo González and Armando Paso. Students, schools and workplace gatherings carried the dancing beyond one club. Ofelia Bárbara González Medina’s community history.

Why the couple and the rueda belong together

The couple and the rueda share a spatial logic: the center organizes orientation, pathways and arrivals. When a couple dances alone, that logic continues in its travel and changing direction. “Circular” describes relationships and pathways as well as the group’s visible circle.

A turn changes the couple’s orientation; a traveling figure changes its place on the floor. In a rueda, both must leave the dancers ready for the next call or exchange. The same spatial vocabulary remains available when a couple dances independently: paseo and saloneo carry the partnership across the floor, while turns redirect that travel. Closed, open and caída positions change the relationship between the partners without making the dance a fixed circular track. ²

Cuban Social Dance on Film: Cuba Baila (1960)

1970s: Casino enters professional dance training

During the 1970s, Casino joined the folklore program at the elementary stage of Cuba’s professional dance training. Cuban ballroom dances also formed part of study in ballet, contemporary dance, music and theater. Practical training was connected with the history of Cuban dance folklore. At the Escuela Nacional de Danza, teachers including Teresa González, Sara Lamerán, Inés Marchena and Roberto Chorens taught the generation to which Bárbara Balbuena belonged. Casino’s inclusion brought an existing social practice into the preparation of future performers and teachers. ⁹

1970s–1980: Los Hermanos Santos, rumba and Casino

Ángel Santos is a major figure in the development and international teaching of Casino. Emerging from Cuba’s dance culture of the early 1970s, Los Hermanos Santos brought a powerful rumba vocabulary into partner dancing. Ángel and his sister won the annual Para Bailar competition in 1978, bringing their interpretation of Casino to a national television audience.

Born in Santiago de Cuba in 1955, Ángel grew up in Los Hoyos and later Los Sitios in Havana, both communities with deep rumba traditions. He began dancing with Jóvenes del Progreso at thirteen. That formation shaped an influential approach: rumba’s body movement and improvisation became part of his Casino, alongside the traveling and partner connection inherited from Son. His example helped other dancers expand their expressive possibilities.

In the 1980 performance with Orquesta Revé, watch the transitions between connected partner dancing and moments when the dancers separate to interpret the music individually. Shoulder and torso movement, changes of level, playful exchanges and footwork carry the rumba influence through the performance. The couple keeps a shared musical conversation even when the hand connection opens.

His career continued through stage work and teaching abroad. A July 2001 Tignano festival program presented Ángel with Dayami Couret under the Los Hermanos Santos name; in 2007, Ángel and Blanca Pérez taught Casino to Sting and Trudie Styler in Havana. The history reaches beyond one television appearance into decades of transmitting Cuban dance.

Ángel Santos on his dance formation and rumba influences · His 2007 interview · Los Hermanos Santos in Tignano, 2001 · Hear the Revé connection in the music history.

1978–1983: Para Bailar, Rosendo and Caruca

Para bailar, created by Eduardo “Cachito” Cáceres Manso, first aired on June 10, 1978. Its amateur-couple competition brought social dancing to a national television audience; Ángel Santos and his sister won its 1978 annual competition. Production history.

In the early 1980s, Caruca Rodríguez and Rosendo González, of the Ballet de la Televisión Cubana, brought Cuban dance to Para Bailar. They appeared in programs recorded on January 15 and March 5, 1983; a February 19 program also featured a Casino dance competition. Television brought artists and social dance into the same public conversation. ⁷

Caridad Rodríguez—Caruca taught rhythms to the contestants on Para Bailar, work she remembered with satisfaction in a 2018 interview. Her artistic partnership with Rosendo and her international teaching and organization of Ruedas de Casino carried that knowledge from television into other dance communities. ⁸

Early 1980s: rumba, Son and Rueda de Casino with Ritmo Oriental

Music and dance developed together on Cuba’s stages and dance floors. In Cuidado con la Percusión, the dancers combine elements of rumba, Son and Rueda de Casino. Watch for individual body expression, connection between partners and the organization of the group, and how those resources respond to the orchestra’s changing rhythmic energy.

In 1981, La Ritmo’s singers echoed percussion bloques through choreography. David Calzado later carried that experience into Charanga Habanera’s stagecraft. Explore that choreographic connection.

Hear how Ritmo Oriental helped lay the musical foundations for timba.

From the 1990s onward: Casino in the global dance market

International classes, festivals and tourism created new markets for Casino from the 1990s onward. The accounts below examine how that circulation affected teaching, the dance’s name and the visibility of Cuban knowledge.

The Special Period and the tourist economy

Cuba announced the Special Period in 1990 as the Soviet bloc collapsed. International tourism became a priority for earning foreign currency. Joint-venture hotels had already opened in Varadero in 1990, connecting Cuban state enterprises with foreign investment. Dance work developed within these changing economic pressures. María Dolores Espino’s analysis of tourism during the Special Period.

In Casino de Cuba: Historia, Parte 4 — Decadencia, Luis Ayllón criticizes the commercial repackaging of Casino, especially its sale under the familiar name salsa. He connects that loss of identity with the tourist market and the way teaching travels abroad. Culture as a business, from 2:05 · Selling the name, from 4:57.

When the experience takes priority over learning

In a 2018 Havana group lesson, anthropologist Ruxandra Ana observed dancing interrupted for posed photographs. Her ethnography also examines advertising that turns Black Cuban dancers into fantasies of pleasure for foreign visitors. This example shows how a tourist experience can organize what gets taught and how dancers are represented. Read Ana’s study, published online in 2025.

Los Hermanos Santos show how rumba and Afro-Cuban movement can enrich Casino through partnerwork and individual improvisation. These contributions connect living traditions with the freedom of dancers to create.

Continue with tourism, musical images of Cuba and the international market.

After the 1990s timba boom: Adalberto Álvarez brings the couple back to the floor

During the 1990s timba boom, the excitement around orchestras and their stage performances could turn a dance gathering toward watching the band. Adalberto Álvarez championed a renewed place for Casino and dancing in couples. The relationship between musicians and bailadores mattered: the orchestra played, and the dancers answered through their movement, their partner connection and the rueda.

In 2003, Álvarez and television director Víctor Torres developed a new Casino television project, announced with live orchestras and ruedas for that summer. His album Para bailar casino supplied its musical rallying cry. Álvarez also headed the organizing committee of the international Casino gathering scheduled for August 8–11, 2003, in Matanzas and Varadero. Adalberto announces the 2003 project.

In Decadencia, Luis Ayllón tells a story of inspiration traveling back to Cuba: after appearing in Japan and judging a dance competition there, Álvarez returned with an idea and approached Víctor Torres. In Ayllón’s telling, an international encounter helped motivate a project devoted to Cuban social dancing at home. Ayllón recounts the Japan visit, from 10:18.

Another generation connects with our own company history: Amanda Gill’s 2004 Rueda performance in Havana on Para Bailar Casino, before she founded DC Casineros in 2005.

January 2006: Rueda de Casino through the generations

Led by Pepe Argote, this demonstration brings older casineros, adult dancers and children into one shared tradition. The founding generation connects with dancers who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s and with children learning at the turn of the century. The rueda makes that transmission visible: people of different ages share its calls, changing partnerships and circular movement.

That continuity also runs through La Rueda de Guanabacoa, whose rehearsals, families and television competition became the story of the documentary La Salsa Cubana. Filmmakers Eric Johnson and Sarita Streng encountered the group in late 2003 and began preproduction in 2004. The filmmakers on Guanabacoa and Casino.

For dancers carrying Casino into 2025 and beyond, this history matters. A contemporary performance grows from the partner communication and community learning that earlier generations passed on. Continue with Adalberto’s music and the bailadores.

Competition archive: Rueda de Casino at La Tropical

Casino moved from social gatherings into competitions and television, while community groups continued to shape the dance. The video below shows a Rueda de Casino competition at La Tropical. Later in this article, La Rueda de Guanabacoa carries that community story into Bailar Casino.

Casino remembered by its first-generation dancers

Alan Borges and Alicia Sardiñas, first-generation casineros, collected dancers’ memories in Historia del baile y la Rueda de Casino-Salsa, published by Ediciones Cubanas in 2012. They appear with Joaquín Roche, “El Oso,” on Zenaida Romeu’s television program Otros tiempos. Their book.

June 2004: the reunion that became a book

Some of the dancers barely recognized one another. In June 2004, Borges and Sardiñas reunited with around twenty early casineros; embraces and recollections brought their younger days back. The gathering prompted their book. Interviews changed some of their own assumptions, as different dancers remembered different parts of the story. Caridad de la Cruz contributed old club photographs and recalled more than a hundred dancers; Carlos Cortés kept expanding a list as names returned to him. Remembering became a collective undertaking. The authors’ introduction and acknowledgments.

Fiestas de quince—fifteenth-birthday celebrations—were one setting where young people learned to move together. In the late 1950s, danzón choreography for these celebrations included figures remembered as Voy arriba, Voy abajo, Enróscate and Derecha–izquierda. The figures organized forward and backward travel, couple rotation and box patterns within a group. The dancers explain and demonstrate the figures, from 5:41.

A gesture becomes a figure’s name

One recollection on Otros tiempos links a movement they knew as abre y cierra—open and close—and a dancer remembered as Pedrito. His head gesture suggested saying “no”; their account connects that gesture with the name Dile que no. Hear the naming anecdote, from 9:09.

El Oso listens for the next call

When Zenaida Romeu asks whether a rueda follows a predetermined sequence, El Oso answers with the caller’s experience: the next choice arises as he dances. Associated with the rueda at Patricio Lumumba, he describes the happiness of directing a group that responds immediately. The guía, director or capitán must choose while listening, dancing and keeping the couples together. The others know the figures, but they do not need to know his next choice in advance. Their shared knowledge makes collective improvisation possible. El Oso on directing a rueda, from 14:08.

Alan Borges and Alicia Sardiñas in conversation with Radio Canada International, September 18, 2017 · Explore the program’s demonstration of a tiempo and contratiempo.

Bárbara Balbuena: keeping music and movement together

Bárbara Balbuena Gutiérrez learned danzón with her musician grandfather, graduated as a dance teacher and performer in 1978, and joined ISA’s teaching staff in 1991. Her books include El casino y la salsa en Cuba (2003). Her teaching connects history with bodily knowledge: musicians respond to dancers, and dancers draw on a growing movement memory when they improvise. That exchange keeps Casino alive across generations. Balbuena on dance, music and teaching.

Yanek Revilla: An Artist Who Shaped a Generation

Yanek Revilla became an important reference for the company’s teaching in the early 2000s, through his musicality, partner connection and approach to Casino.

Yanek led Sabor DKY in Santiago de Cuba, teaching and performing Son, Rueda de Casino and Afro-Cuban dance. The group took part in Nordic Salsa Camp in 2011 and 2012, carrying its work to an international dance community. Sabor DKY artist biography.

Son Urbano from the 1980s to today: Juan Carlos Pacheco and Elisa Burgal

From the 1980s to the present, Juan Carlos Pacheco and Eric Turro Martínez have helped develop and transmit Son Urbano through performance and teaching. Their work carries an older Cuban partner-dance tradition forward, connecting generations of bailadores with dancers learning Son today.

Pacheco, known as El Sonero, trained with Silvio Stevens, celebrated as El Rey del Tornillo. He has performed with Buena Vista Social Club musicians and Septeto Habanero. Explore Pacheco’s artistic lineage and teaching.

Elisa Burgal brings her own history to this partnership. She performed with Silvio Stevens alongside Compay Segundo in Madrid on April 28, 1998, taking Cuban dance from Havana’s hotel stages to international concert halls. Read the contemporary concert review.

Pacheco’s teaching with Damarys Farres continues that transmission in the United Kingdom. Their January 24, 2026 Son workshop brought together partner connection, traveling technique and named figures such as El Borracho and El Lisiado. Explore the workshop’s movement vocabulary.