History of Rueda de Casino

Other dances

Last Updated on Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:20

RUEDA DE CASINO or RUEDA CUBANA

Rueda de Casino or SALSA CASINO is a form of dance used in Cuba.
Part of a training cycle of several couples who, guided by a "leader", make figures (turns) and changes of partners. You could say that is like a dance and that all participants should know the turns and commanding voices of his "Leader".

Its origin is taken from the French Contradanza that in the eighteenth century were fashionable and much loved in Cuba in the dance company. Transmitted from generation to generation of dancers of CASINO, that uses this form of group dancing in line with the turns and steps from the casino getting to the emerging RUEDA CASINO.

In the late'60s, when the famous are caught again by the name of SALSA, CASINO wheels are also popular. As an own experience in 1970 I could dance on the most famous wheel of Havana (the Wheel of "Bear") at the Patrice Lumumba with superstar music of Los Van Van Juan Formell. RUEDA was also danced in "La Tropical", "Tropicana Gardens, Casino Deportivo" and "School of Havana."

To dance WHEEL at least you need two pairs to a number of twenty or thirty, and that men are aware of the turns that the so called "Leader" would shout. For the wheel to be good is not important to do many laps, or it will become very long and tedious but the skill of the "Leader" of trying to send with grace and creativity adorning the controls with sentences or short stories, eg. "Punishable" is misbehaves at home, "Give me another" I do not like this, and so on, to make spicy, lively and dynamic the wheel.

It's much more fun when they are nice and many couples as the "Leader" will try to send or "singing" turns a bit confusing for the couples to make mistakes. That is where the skill of the participants, who will try to do something similar to what the "Leader" has sang, the most typical is that "losing out" (ie, the couple who made a mistake leaving the wheel) and this gives you competitive air and responsibility to the participants.

To enter into a wheel you have to ask permission to the "Leader" and the entry is approved or not. If the couple entered from another group, in the following round the "Leader" wants to sing it out them diplomatically (order) a turn that only members of his wheel know so that the couple will make a mistake and leave the dance.

The wheel is a social phenomenon or group, a dance of "Neighbourhood" or areas of residence in Europe could say school of dance. Since each "neighbourhood" has a favourite "Leader" back their private voices and variations, and other fantasies that differentiate it from another round of another area or "District", which is used in Cuba holidays or Carnivals RUEDA a "challenge" to dance another round, and where there are fewer mistakes and greater fluidity and beauty will be the winner.

In Cuba, the "graduation" of a casino dancer is to dance in a wheel; it must first fully master all the peculiarities and turns CASINO.