Rueda Hand Signs (Part 23) Sombrero Con Plancha

Sombrero is one of the archetypal moves of Cuban salsa which is immediately recognisable. It is one of the only moves that is performed in almost exactly the same way across the globe and is a clear indication of a couple dancing Cuban salsa when watching various salsa styles being performed in a busy club or social event. It is one of the few Cuban salsa moves that share the same name across most Rueda groups and even the hand sign is fairly consistent internationally with only small regional variations. What is more remarkable yet from a hand sign perspective is that it is probably the most well-known hand sign in the Cuban salsa spectrum to the point where it is often one of the only hand signs Cuban salsa dancers know. Even dance schools where Cuban salsa moves are not signalled tend to know the Sombrero hand sign over and above even more basic moves such as Vacilala, Pimienta, Dile Que No, Enchufla etc.

Plancha is a category of moves that precede Cuban salsa and is one of the common elements seen in Son Cubano. Plancha – literally meaning “Plank” - is a move where one partner freezes completely leaning slowly onto their other partner so that it looks like they are an immobile object in the process of falling over similarly to the practice of planking (a fad that became internationally popular in 2009). Even though it is a relatively old dance elements it is not often seen on the dance floor and is therefore often mistaken as an innovation rather than something that has been around long before Cuban salsa became popular. Similarly it is often one of the first Son Cubano elements Cuban dancers outside of Cuba are exposed to through the popularity of Cuban salsa due to Son Cubano itself being rarely taught and performed internationally. There are many ways to include Planchas into Cuban salsa but Sombrero Con Plancha is often the starting point for many dancers as it is relatively simple and well supported, so not too uncomfortable or dangerous for beginners contrary to some of the more difficult Plancha moves.

The hand sign for Sombrero con Plancha consists of the various hand signs for Sombrero (tapping the head with your free hand – see Rueda Hand Signs Part 3) and the hand sign for “Con” which is the moving together of the thumb and index finger of the free hand. This is then followed by the hand sign for Plancha which is a diagonally upwards facing hand to signal a plank lying in an elevated position.


The word “con” is optional both in the name of the move as well as the signal.

To see a video of the move Sombrero Con Plancha as well as the hand sign, please click on: https://youtu.be/qGfy2judI4k

Rumba (Part 6)

It is not only the name Rumba that was misused when it got introduce to Western culture but also the spelling of Rumba as Rhumba, which many musicologists agree was a mistake when the name first got imported into North America. It was justified a posteriori as a means to distinguish between the dance and the music or between the Westernised dance and the original Rumba complex developed in Cuba. In reality, however, both spellings were common for both dances as well as the music until it became more clearly defined.

The dance itself which started off as a modified version of a slow fox trot danced to “peanut vendor” style music went through a period of Americanisation by simplifying Cuban dance elements for American consumption until it became known as American rumba in the 1940s. However, Americans did not hold a monopoly on rumba and disagreements emerged as early as 1931 between Germany, France, England and America on how Rumba should be danced and which rhythm should be adopted. While many teachers advocated their Rumba as a closer interpretation of the Cuban model, in essence, no country achieved in assimilating a dance that resembled any of the actual Cuban dances. I.e. the rhythm of rumba became heavily debated with various schools citing eye witness accounts of Cubans dancing “off-beat” vs. “on-beat” but failing to capture the essence of concepts such as a tiempo and contratiempo.

It has to be noted at this stage that while the history of International Rumba is marked by mistakes and ignorance there were certainly some genuinely interested aficionados who travelled to Cuba and studied the music and dance in an attempt to accurately reflect Cuban dances abroad. Even in today’s world this is not an easy task to achieve given the lack of documentation and language and culture barriers that surround Cuba but in the early 20th century before the advent of modern technologies such as easily accessible recording devices, this was an even harder task to accomplish. Adding to that the fact that even Cubans, today as well as in the past, disagree in many aspects on how certain dances are supposed to be performed and there are many regional differences that make it impossible for foreigners to agree on a common systematic guide that describe any one of the Cuban dances in its entirety.

Rumba (Part 5)

As discussed in the previous post in this series, the word Rumba was misused to market the song “The Peanut Vendor” around the world which became very popular. Once the damage was done promoters and marketers were quick to use this confusion to their advantage. “Rumba” as a word was seen as having more marketing potential than the word “son” which sounded too close to the English words “song” and “son” (male child). The word rumba sounded exotic and gave Westerners the sensation of dancing a scandalous “black dance” while at the same time not being exposed to the actual African influenced music or dance that defined Rumba in reality.

 
As the intricacies and complexities of Cuban music were not understood abroad it was easy to say and remember the word Rumba for anything that came from the island and soon it became a general description for Cuban if not Latin music lumping together such diverse groups of music as son, danzon and bolero much to the dismay of Cuban scholars who had to watch the degradation of their culture from the sidelines. This can be seen by the extract of the book “Música popular Cubana” by Cuban author Emilio Grenet Sánchez whose translation by R. Phillips reads:

“Our neighbors of the North think that our musical genre consists exclusively of the rumba. And even the rumba, embodying in gesture and sound our most outstanding vitality, has been divested of its true spirit and made effeminate in the same manner as the Argentine tango with which our rumba has been confused. The result is something alien to us a superficial, false and unexpressive dance.”

While Americans and Europeans thought they were listening to Rumba and dancing Rumba, the above extract very nicely illustrates how well Cubans, the inventors of Rumba, thought they had achieved that goal. What followed was a period where the moniker Rumba became associated with almost any type of popular Latin music similar to the way the term salsa is misused today (i.e. see the blog series “salsa leeches on this subject) and the dance that originated in son became something entirely different particularly in America where they merged it with a slow foxtrot making it easier to pick up the dance. Many artists tried to climb on the “Peanut Vendor” bandwagon by copying Azpiazú’s style labelling their music as “rhumba” in turn and the musical movement that ensued and which was in essence still based on son was mislabelled rhumba craze or rhumba mania.

Rumba (Part 4)

Before I write about the rumba complex I want to analyse the difference between international dance forms that claim the title “Rumba” and the original Cuban dances as it is a great source of confusion even for people who actively try and make sense of the terminology. The biggest culprit of world-wide confusion around the subject is also the most documented and internationally famous dance which is also known by the description “Ballroom Rumba”, “International Rumba”. “Rhumba” (with an h) or “Latin Rumba”. Many of these descriptions can be combined to form extended descriptions such as “International Ballroom Rumba”, “Ballroom Latin Rumba” still referring to the same dance.

What is paradox about the history of Ballroom Rumba is the fact that even though it takes its name from a Cuban category of dance (Rumba) and is in fact based on a Cuban dance, it is not actually derived from Rumba but rather from the Cuban dance Son Cubano. The reason for this blatant affront to Cuban culture lies in a deplorable oversimplification of Cuban music which started with one of the most famous pieces of music ever created by a Cuban musician (Moisés Simons) called “El Manisero” or “The Peanut Vendor” in English. The song has been recorded more than 160 times and was the first authentic Cuban song that was played live in the USA when Don Azpiazú and his Havana Casino Orchestra performed at the New York Palace Theater in 1930. Unfortunately, when the recording was released in the U.S. by Victor Records it was categorised as rhumba-fox trot using not only the completely wrong musical category to describe this song but also misspelling rumba with an h.

It is lost in history as to who started to write rumba with an h or who first categorised other Latin songs under this name but certainly from the moment Victor Record adapted this approach to “The Peanut Vendor” the mistake was irreversible. The song became such a hit that for most people in the western world it was their first exposure to Cuban culture but instead of identifying it with son-pregón which would have been the correct musical category to choose they started thinking of this as rumba.
While this mistake was an act of complete ignorance at inception there is some evidence to suggest that even before “The Peanut Vendor” was mislabelled some North American sources were aware of the fact that the category “Rumba” for Latin music completely misrepresented a number of differing musical styles. However, the commercialisation of this misnomer certainly reached a tipping point when this single sold over a million times making it the first million-selling record of Latin music.