Dancing the cha-cha-cha
All night long and early mornings too
eyesonsuriname
Amsterdam, June 16 2025–Uno, dos, três. One, two, three, Mercedes counts to the rhythm of a Cuban melody on her small portable radio. She teaches modern Cuban dance here in the first capital of Spanish Cuba, founded in 1589, now the number 2 city and the heart of the new sound: merengues, guarachas, boleros and cha-cha-chas.
A $5 dance class can last up to three, sometimes four hours. The house in which Mercedes teaches belongs to a friend, Roberto, who also teaches modern Cuban dance in Calle J (J Street), but took a day off.
Canadians and Europeans alike have been flocking to Santiago to dance their days and nights away ever since Ry Cooder immortalized the new Cuban sounds with his 1998 Grammy-winning album and songs of all kinds that he called the Buena Vista Social Club performances.
Mercedes apologizes for the sheer amount of money it is not allowed to charge: an average Cuban earns no more than $10 to $12 per month, although anything available in stores with a coupon is subsidized. Compared to such monthly salaries, her income is huge and “anti-democratic.”
“What can I do,” she said, “we have to make a living somehow. Everything is controlled by the state, so in theory we should be able to survive. But if we don’t improvise, we don’t do it.”
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At La Casa de la Trova (The House of the Minstrels), in a beautiful old building in downtown Santiago, several bands, including an all-female band, start playing occasionally at 10 in the morning, stopping only for lunch. Visitors mainly listen to music, but sometimes start dancing wildly.
The House of the Minstrels also functions as a social meeting space where Cubans of all ages meet tourists or each other to have a drink and exchange the latest news or gossip. The entrance fee is one dollar. Many Cubans who can’t spare a dollar watch the musicians perform and dance in the streets from the open windows.
The music continues until 10 o’clock in the evening. After 1 am, professional dancers from clubs such as the Lido join in and perform the most enchanting stunts and new dance techniques for small tips. The fun lasts until 3 am. All band members are employed by the state.
Julian also works in the Lido. His great-grandfather wrote the first copyrighted bolero in 1883 and named it “Tristeza” (“Sorrow”); It made him a hero. Julian enjoys the status of a well-known Cuban music historian. He is a journalist for the Cuban state radio and writes texts that reporters can read on the air.
He has won four awards – two Cuban and one in Spain and Mexico. He always returned to Cuba from his travels abroad, and because of this and his great-grandfather’s national fame, he is paid three times the minimum income – the equivalent of about $30 a month.
Unfortunately, he has to type his radio scripts on old, outdated Soviet typewriters that don’t always perform. They still need ribbons, and there are no typewriter ribbons left in the country. Inventive as the Cubans are, Julian puts two blank sheets of paper in the machine with a sheet of carbon copy in between, with the printed side down.
The carbon print on the bottom sheet should be enough for the newsreader to do his job, “but we run out of carbon paper,” he laments, “and if the presenter can’t read my text, they reduce my income by a substantial factor.”
Cuban music is historically rich and has received new influences from the swarms of tourists who come to dance. It has roots in French and British colonial music, as well as Spanish and Portuguese, plus several strong African elements.
In the 1940s, Cuban music gained notoriety in the United States when big bands like the Perez Prado band swept Americans off their feet. In the early 1950s, big bands such as the Sonora Matancera from the province of Matanzas and singers such as Celia Cruz, Bienvenido Granda and Alberto Beltran were famous worldwide. Generations of pre-Elvis Presley and pre-Bill Haley Americans have grown up with Cuban music.
Cuban musicians toured and conquered the world. In Cuba they were immortal. After the revolution was declared in January 1959, leader Fidel Castro banned certain types of music. Some musicians were persecuted as ‘anti-revolutionary’.
“The musicians and artists fled the country, often to the United States, but also to Spain and Mexico,” Julian said. “They were called really bad names and considered serious traitors.”
Listening to contemporary musicians, who greet tourists at the airport at 8 a.m. with their mesmerizing music, and others performing all day at La Casa de la Trova, one thing is clear: they don’t seem to know their cultural heritage and roots.
That part of their history is denied.
No one here knows that Mrs. Cruz died in New York two years ago and that 125,000 visitors attended her vigil there. Or that her body was flown to Miami, where another 100,000 people came to pay respect.
“Our cultural heritage has been erased from history,” said an elderly man and former musician. “This also applies to other parts of our rich history. Young people don’t know where they come from, and I wonder if they know where they are going. I doubt it.”
Unsolicited, he tells how he worked on a farm all day and was paid with two mangoes. He holds them high. “This is what we used to feed pigs when I was young,” he said. “I’m not surprised that they charge you so much money for those dance lessons.”
He said that special attention should be paid to the skills of the dancers. “Because of the situation, everyone wants to leave our beloved island. And because they dance so well, the foreign ladies sometimes give them a ticket to Canada or Europe, where they finally learn about their cultural heritage.
“But it is really time to learn more about our political heritage. That too has been completely erased and serves only those who benefit from us, not those who have dedicated their lives to the revolution.”