Casino Is Not “Cuban Salsa”: The History of Cuban Social Dance
Son, Casino and Rueda de Casino, told through the people and communities that shaped them.
If you arrived here searching for “Cuban salsa,” there is a dance with a name of its own to discover: Casino. At DC Casineros, we use Son Cubano, Casino and Rueda de Casino because their names connect movement to Cuban history and to the people who have kept these traditions alive.
To understand that history, we must look beyond famous orchestras and spectacular stage performances. We must also listen to the bailadores: the people who danced at parties, learned from friends, taught their children, formed ruedas and passed their knowledge to another generation.
Why the names matter
Son and Casino are related dances with distinct histories. Rueda de Casino brings couples into a collective dance, responding to a caller and coordinating figures and partner changes.
“Cuban salsa” is a commercial label that misnames Casino and obscures its Cuban origins. We address that label here to challenge it and give the dance, its creators and its tradition bearers their proper recognition. Dáybert Linares, writing in Son y Casino, argues for retaining Casino’s name because of its earlier Cuban history and its own movement vocabulary. Our approach is to call the dances by their own names: Son Cubano, Casino and Rueda de Casino. Casino is a style of Son, not a style of salsa. Its history belongs to a Cuban dance lineage that includes Danzón and Cha-cha-chá. We do not call Casino “Cuban salsa.” For DC Casineros, that commercial label obscures Cuban history and denies recognition to the dancers, musicians and communities who created and continue to carry these traditions. We use the phrase here only to challenge the label and explain the dance’s real name and roots. 1
Son: a foundation and a living dance
The company’s presentation places Casino within a longer history that includes Danzón, Son and Cha-cha-chá. These dances deserve attention in their own right. They should not appear only as steps on a ladder leading to a newer dance. 2
In Son, watch how partners connect, travel and interpret a musical phrase. Son y Casino’s discussion of learning Son highlights the paseos, or traveling passages, that can also enrich Casino. Shared movement helps us recognize a relationship between the dances without making them interchangeable. 3
Historical footage can show more than a pattern’s shape. It can reveal how someone listens, how a couple moves together and how individual style develops. The dancers’ names and stories belong beside those images.
Víctor Zapata — Son Tradicional
Casino grew in Cuban social life
Accounts of Casino’s beginnings place its emergence in the social clubs and recreational dance spaces of 1950s Cuba. Linares’s historical summary, drawing on researcher Bárbara Balbuena, connects the name with Havana’s Club Casino Deportivo and describes the influence of earlier Cuban partner dances. 4
An origin story also needs the memories of dancers who were there. Dates, venues and descriptions can differ between accounts. Rather than reduce a community’s creativity to one inventor or one definitive evening, we will place documented history alongside identified dancers’ recollections.
Cuban Social Dance on Film: Cuba Baila (1960)
This film offers a window into Cuban music, movement and social life around the period in which Casino emerged. Watch the partner connection, steps and relationship to the music. A film scene is one historical example; it does not establish a single origin for a community’s dance.
Rosendo, Caruca and Para Bailar
The dancers who brought Cuban movement to television belong in this history by name. Director Pedraza Ginori’s records for Para Bailar list Caruca Rodríguez and Rosendo González, of the Ballet de la Televisión Cubana, in programs recorded on January 15 and March 5, 1983. His February 19 program record also lists a Casino dance competition. These records place named artists and Casino within a documented television setting. 7
In a 2018 interview with Mayán Venero for EnCASA, Caridad Rodríguez—Caruca recalled the satisfaction of teaching rhythms to the contestants on Para Bailar. The interview also documents her partnership with Rosendo and her work as a teacher and organizer of Ruedas de Casino internationally. Her account reminds us that the television story is also a story of artists teaching and passing on knowledge. 8
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.
Casino in Competition and on Television
Casino’s story extends from social gatherings to public competitions and television. Further below, the documentary account of La Rueda de Guanabacoa connects a community’s practice with Bailar Casino. The recording here shows a Rueda de Casino competition at La Tropical, according to its uploader.
The people who carried the dance
Yanek Revilla: An Artist Who Shaped a Generation
For DC Casineros, Yanek Revilla stands among the defining Casino dancers of the early 2000s. His musicality, partner connection and teaching remain part of the artistic conversation we want students to encounter. That assessment comes from our company’s experience and appreciation of his work.
The organizers of Nordic Salsa Camp document Yanek’s leadership of Sabor DKY, a group from Santiago de Cuba, and the group’s participation in their 2011 and 2012 camps. Their artist profile describes teaching and performance across Son, Rueda de Casino and Afro-Cuban dance. Read the organizer’s artist profile.
Explore our Artistic Board and the teachers and collaborators who connect this knowledge with our company’s daily practice.
Eric Turro Martínez: knowledge from Guanabacoa. In a 2024 interview with Charles Ferrer, translated and edited for Son y Casino, Turro identifies himself as a casinero since 1979 and dates his professional dance career to 1984. His account connects dance to community life and insists on listening to the music that movement answers. This is a dancer describing his own experience, an essential voice alongside written histories. 5
Eric and Chantal Turro Martínez — Son Cubano
La Rueda de Guanabacoa: a community’s story. Eric Johnson and Sarita Streng’s documentary, La Salsa Cubana, follows this group and its participation in Bailar Casino. Johnson explains that the film’s title addresses a general audience; it does not rename the dance. 6
Los Tradicionales and the older generation. The filmmakers discuss their connection to 1960s dancing and Pepe Argote’s observation about generations adding to what they inherit. These voices help us approach tradition as knowledge carried by people over time. 6
These accounts show why a dance history needs named dancers, places and personal testimony alongside descriptions of movement.
Watch La Salsa Cubana, the full-length film shared by co-director Eric Johnson · Read the filmmakers’ conversation with Son y Casino.
Watching history, learning to listen
As you watch, notice the partnership, the movement through space and the relationship to the music. Listen to how dancers describe learning and whom they credit. A performance shows what someone does; a personal account helps us understand how that knowledge traveled.
Our purpose is to bring these people and their contributions into view, including stories too rarely heard outside their communities. Learning Son, Casino and Rueda de Casino means learning from those who carried them to us.
Continue with our companion article, Before Salsa: The Cuban Music Behind the Name, and explore the dancers’ first-person accounts linked here.
Continue the Story
Before Salsa: The Cuban Music Behind the Name · Cuban dance and music learning guide · Join a class
Sources and Further Reading
- Dáybert Linares: Is Casino a “Style” of Salsa Dancing?
- DC Casineros: Historia y evolución de la danza popular cubana y su música, company educational presentation.
- Dáybert Linares: Why Every Casino Dancer Should Learn to Dance Son, Too.
- Dáybert Linares: The Dance of Casino: A Brief History and Definition, citing Bárbara Balbuena.
- Eric Turro Martínez interviewed by Charles Ferrer; translation and editing by Dáybert Linares, 2024.
- Son y Casino: Q&A with Eric Johnson and Sarita Streng, directors of La Salsa Cubana, 2017.
- Pedraza Ginori: Para Bailar production records, 1983, published in his 2015 memoir.
- Mayán Venero: interview with Caridad Rodríguez, EnCASA, November 2018, page 17.