Cuban Band to Make Genoa Citizens Dance Rumba

(Prensa Latina – Cumbancha) Havana, Cuba – The Cuban group Clave y Guaguancó will take the rumba to the Italian city of Genoa, where it will perform in November. Rumba music, encompassing yambú, guaguancó and columbia, will add Cuban flavor to the nights in Genoa, where the 13 Cuban musicians and dancers will perform. With cajas or cajones (boxes), claves, drums and cowbells, the musicians will take to the Italian city a genre marked by the black presence in Cuba, including a choir on its first part.

Other instruments used are the “quinto” and the spoons, often used to play over the cajonesThe yambú, Cuban researcher Argeliers León wrote, is a slower rumba, in which dancers imitate the conduct and movement difficulty of elderly people.

On guaguancó, the musicologist stated: “The opening part of the chant is long and takes the shape of a long story, which often deals with an event or a person (…) The couple starts a play of attraction and repulsion (…) until the man makes a pelvic thrust forward.”