Casino Pseudospanish (Part 1)

When dancing Casino, particularly in Ruedas, we often hear different words for the same move, especially when dancing in different geographical areas. However, one thing that they all have in common is the fact that a large proportion of the names are in Spanish. This is one of the many aspects that has increased the popularity of this dance internationally as it provides a common platform for people around the world to understand each other and communicate basic Rueda commands without the need for dancers to speak the same language as the caller.

Spanish being the language spoken in Cuba, was the original language used to name Casino moves and this tradition has been followed to this day even when moves are invented in non-Spanish speaking countries, aside from a small number of exceptions.

That being said, many names have evolved over time to mean something different in the dance context than the literal translation of the Spanish word. Examples are the move “vacilala” which can literally be translated as “to tease her” but has evolved in a Casino context to mean “show her off” or “check her out”.

Moreover, some Cuban Spanish words have a different meaning to begin with compared to the equivalent word in other Spanish speaking countries. I.e. the move “tarro” means “affair” in Cuban Spanish and “head” in most other Spanish speaking countries. When the move is called in a Rueda we effectively move from one partner to the next. This is taken to mean that we are cheating on our current partner by dancing with the next partner, so it is the Cuban Spanish meaning of the word “tarro” that gives the move its humorous context.

Finally, the fact that Ruedas have to be called quickly while music is playing in the background has led to a number of names being shortened leading to certain names not making sense from a grammatical perspective or even just in terms of their literal meaning. I.e. the dance formation “Tiempo España” can literally be translated as “Time Spain” which are simply two nouns juxtaposed that would be hard to understand without analysing the history of this move and the expression on its own is clearly wrong in terms of grammar. However, the move refers to the time of Spanish colonial control when Cubans observed the close hold Spanish people adapted when dancing western dances which became popular in Son Cubano and eventually led to the close-hold form of Casino. The name of the move is therefore a shortened version of a description such as “Close-hold formation as was observed at the Time of Spanish colonial control when Cuban dance forms were influenced by dance forms from Spain – a sentence that would be impossible to convey in a Rueda other than condensing it to a short-form version such as the name we are familiar with today.

Salsa Leeches (Part 4)

In the previous post of this series I described some of the biggest lies out there that have enabled promoters to put Kizomba into the salsa category in recent years. While the blatantly wrong statements such as “Kizomba is a Latin dance” are easy to spot for any serious dancer, there are many discussions around this topic which are subtler, having proponents and opponents in both the salsa and the Kizomba community alike. Some of these are further discussed in this post:

4. Salsa dancers welcome the variety Kizomba introduces and the contrast between these two dances makes it an ideal addition to the various songs played at salsa nights. Maybe the juxtaposition of such completely different dance forms does bring joy to some people similarly to sport combinations such as chess-boxing that have indeed gained popularity. Variety and contrast is certainly something that can have an attraction to some people, however, I do reject the sentiment that the majority of people paying for a salsa social night are pleased when they are being forced to break their vibes and feelings to make room for an entirely different and unrelated dance form that completely disrupts the flow of the ambience. Other dance forms do perfectly well without the need of unrelated dance styles being mixed into the flow so why should this be different for salsa? I.e. you would never hear a Jive dancer complain that there is not enough Flamenco going on at a Jive party and salsa in itself is already such an intricate balance of influences from other dance forms that its mastery can easily provide days of entertainment that can be as varied as the creativity of the dancers permit. Finally, if variety is indeed a concern then why not play some more songs that are actually related to salsa such as Cha-Cha-Cha, Mambo, Son Cubano, Rumba etc.

With Kizomba and salsa being as different as they are, they tend to attract completely different personalities and styles of dancers and even though there are an increasing number of people who dabble in both dances, the connection to the partner and music is completely different. While I know more and more people who enjoy salsa and Kizomba separately, few of them enjoy the emotional roller coaster of constantly alternating between salsa and Kizomba songs on the same night.

5. A lot of people who dance salsa also dance Kizomba hence there is a clear correlation between these dances and they should be pooled together.

Wrong. A lot of people who enjoy dancing either salsa or Kizomba enjoy dancing in general. Hence, they might be willing to try out other forms of dances even if they are completely unrelated (although most likely they would prefer related dance forms). It is as a result of constantly pooling these two dances together that people dancing one dance are exposed to the other and the more events they attend where both forms are mixed the more they will try and learn both in order to get the chance to dance all night. I.e. without the bundling of these dance forms in the first place very few people would ever have the idea to dance these two styles together and similarly if instead of Kizomba every salsa promoter would suddenly start to play Hip Hop for a significant part of the night then more and more people would be willing to learn salsa and Hip Hop. It is therefore the pooling of the dances that generates the number of salsa dancers who also dabble in Kizomba and vice versa rather than a significant amount of people coming up with this particular combination independently and then demanding a salsa/Kizomba social night to experience it with others.

  

6. Salsa being the dominating social couple-dance form internationally should take less known dance forms under its wing to give people a chance to experience something new that they would otherwise not come across.

Fair enough, this is an argument that has its merits. Few people outside of the Dominican Republic would know much about Merengue if it was not for the fact that Merengue has been show-cased around the world via the “salsa” platform. However, surely this type of behaviour needs to be done in moderation before it takes away from the main purpose of the event which is salsa dancing. I.e. if you went to a Bon Jovi concert where Bon Jovi got to perform for only half an hour while other less known bands were filling the evening that is classified as a “Bon Jovi” concert then more than a few disgruntled fans would demand their money back yet in the salsa community this seems acceptable. Given all the allowances salsa events have already made for songs and dances other than salsa over the years no-one can accuse the salsa community of not being welcoming to new dance styles but at a point where these dance styles become popular to a degree that they attract a significant amount of dancers then they need to establish their own events rather than paying back the salsa community by taking an ever increasing chunk of the night whose marketed purpose is salsa dancing. 

Additionally, there are a plethora of beautiful dance styles out there which are not promoted in any way but deserve just as much attention and admiration as the ones that have become popular in recent years. So rather than just promoting the current fad why not promote something different, original, completely new or old and forgotten? In the end, what gets promoted in salsa events over time does not follow any logical structure other than promoter’s projection of profitability. At the same time there are plenty of dances that are completely ignored which are closely related to salsa in terms of the way they feel or the way the music sounds or in terms of their cultural or historical paths etc.

 

Speed of Salsa Songs

The speed of any song irrespective of the type of music is usually called “tempo” meaning “time” in Italian. Generally, we measure tempo by BPM meaning beats per minute. Without going into technical aspects of musical theory, we can think of one beat as one step in salsa (except for the 4th and 8th beat where we usually pause, at least in the beginning stages). The fastest salsa song that I know of is called “El Rey Del Timbal” by Tito Puente. Generally, Tito Puente's songs are extremely fast but this one surpasses all others with a tempo of 356BPM (5.9 beats per second!). This means that if you want to dance to this song you have to complete the full 8 count in 1.3 seconds.

By comparison, some of the slowest salsa songs out there are below 120BPM which run at only a third of the above speed, meaning that you will have to step 3 times as much to El Rey Del Timbal in the same time compared to a song you may find in an absolute beginner’s class.

While it is possible to find such extremely slow or fast salsa songs, they are nonetheless rare as most dancers will enjoy their dance best when the tempo is somewhere in the range 160–220BPM. This is of course completely subjective and various people have different preferences but most salsa songs produced and played in clubs around the world will be in the above range.

This has practical reasons as people will simply get too exhausted dancing at higher speeds for a long period of time and when songs are too slow it is easy to get lost and lose the rhythm. I.e. In order for the tempo to be suited well for dancing, the realisation of the rhythm it produces should not take much more than 2 seconds which is the duration of our conscious presence. If more time passes then most people without musical training or a good musical memory will find it difficult to maintain the rhythm.

When reading sheet music, it is customary to describe the tempo in Italian words as many of the most important composers of the 17th century (which is when tempo indications became popular) were Italian. While these tempo indications were historically applied to classical music predominantly, they are still often used in musical analysis and for general musical notation. It is important to note that some of the BPM definitions for tempo markings have significant differences when comparing them across different time periods and/or different countries. The below table is therefore only a rough guide which quotes approximate BPM ranges based on the lowest and highest boundaries these markings have experienced regionally over time.

Slower tempo markings than the ones shown in this table exist but they are largely irrelevant in terms of salsa music as such slow tempos would hardly ever be prevalent in salsa songs.

Tempo Markings	Meaning	BPM
Moderato	moderate	92–120
Adagio	at ease	56–124
Allegretto	moderately fast	104–120
Allegro moderato	close to allegro	116–120
Animato	animated, lively	116–126
Allegro	quick speed, fast	120–180
Andante	walking pace	76–152
Assai	quite fast	138–152
Vivace/Vivo	lively, fast, brisk	144–176
Vivacissimo	very fast and lively	172–176
Allegrissimo/Allegro vivace	very fast	172–176
Presto	extremely fast	160–208
Prestissimo	even faster than Presto	200+

It can therefore be seen that most salsa songs are in the presto or prestissimo category which in itself is an indication that salsa is a very fast dance form.