The majority of the move names for this dance are in Spanish
as a lot of the moves were invented by Latin-Americans. Keeping with this
tradition even if a move is invented by a non-native Spanish speaker it is
given a Spanish name. Dancing far away from Cuba but hearing the Spanish names
brings people closer to the Cuban origin and most people like the foreign,
exotic sounding words much better than the translation into their mother
tongue. Clever marketers have long been trying to capitalise on this effect
giving everything a Spanish name including the title of the dance itself even
when the original name of the move was actually an English word. Most famously,
the move “fly” has in some regions become “mosca” or “mosquito” as people misunderstood
the etymology of this move and wanted to use a Spanish rather than English
sound for their rueda calls (more on this in a later post).
I have listened to heated discussions on whether it is
correct to say Cuban salsa or salsa cubana or any of the many derivatives.
People argue vehemently that one name predates the other or that a certain name
is just a marketing scheme whereas theirs is the true name of this dance. Purists,
however, would argue that all of these names are wrong and the only thing this
type of dance should be called is “Casino”.
“Salsa” was a term coined in the USA in 1970 to describe a dance
that had been significantly influenced by a Cuban dance called Casino which was
created in the 50s. Various styles of salsa emerged since its creation i.e. NY
style, LA style etc. which have been compared to the original dance form “Casino”
that was danced to the same type of music. Juxtaposing these dance forms
created a new term for Casino called “Cuban Salsa” which was easier to market
to the international dance community that enjoyed a hype around anything salsa
related at the time while being relatively ignorant to Casino, the true origin
of this popular dance form.
To this day most Casino classes around the world advertise
their dance as “Cuban salsa” or a derivative thereof with consumers being
relatively ignorant of the fact that they are dancing, in fact, Casino. Maybe
the strangest thing I have heard in this spectrum was the dance being referred
to as “Casino salsa” which is both an anachronism as well as a pleonasm if we
are to understand that Casino can now be called Cuban salsa. Is it therefore
incorrect to call the Casino dance anything but Casino? More on this to follow
in a later post…
