Suggested reading: On Rueda de Casino: When Did It Become Just “Rueda,” Anyway?
In my last post, I talked about one of the biggest misconceptions about rueda de casino: that there is such thing as a dance called “rueda.” In a nutshell, the main point was that rueda is not a dance; it is the formation in which the dance of casino is done sometimes, but not the dance itself. For a more in-depth explanation of this, I strongly recommend you read that post, even before reading this one.
This post, thematically, will be similar: it will be about rueda de casino. Where it will bifurcate from the previous post on rueda de casino is that it will be less about the terminology itself, and more about how the dance of rueda de casino is perceived, and danced, outside of Cuba; it will then compare what happens with rueda de casino outside of Cuba, and what actually happens on the island. Lastly, I will conclude with some suggestions for improving your rueda de casino experience, based on the comparison previously made.
So first, let us talk about rueda de casino outside of Cuba. (To my readers, keep in mind that I live in the United States; therefore a lot of the things I say are based on what I see here; my knowledge of the scene in Europe is minimal, as I gather my information mostly through YouTube videos.)
When you first came into contact with casino, if you live in the States, chances are you did it through a rueda de casino class. Your first class was probably filled with clapping and jumping (“Un fly”), shouting (“Una bulla”), stomping (“Suénala”) and on top of all of this, you found yourself constantly switching from partner to partner (“Dame”). This was unlike anything you had seen before, as far as dances go, and you probably got hooked in the fun of it all. You found yourself laughing with the others as you all tried to figure out, and do, the calls. You came back the next class, and learned some more calls, and as you kept coming, your repertoire of moves to do in the rueda grew. Soon, you were going to clubs; you were doing this dance with other people who also knew it. And if you found yourself dancing out of town, you found, to your merriment, that you could also be part of a rueda with people you did not know because they were doing the same calls you had been taught. All of this should definitely ring a bell with most of you.
Now, I just commented on how you may have gotten started with rueda de casino as a way of bringing up some observations, all of which can be inferred from reading the previous paragraph:
Observation #1: You were only taught how to dance in the rueda formation.
Observation #2: It was a fun dance to do, and it was accessible, easy; it did not require a lot of technique to learn and memorize the calls.
Observation #3: The calls you learned happened to be calls which even people from out of town knew, which allowed you to join in any rueda, anywhere.
In short, when it comes to rueda de casino, many people think that it was an easy and fun group dance that they could be a part of anywhere, because the calls were the same everywhere.
Some, or all of these will hold true, depending on what dance group or academy you started with. We can divide these dance groups/academies which teach rueda de casino into three groups:
Group #1: The strictly rueda de casino group. This type group specializes in rueda de casino, not teaching their students that casino can also be done outside of a rueda format. Usually they (erroneously) call what they dance “rueda” and cannot dance casino outside of the rueda formation.
Group #2: The hybrid group. This type of group teaches not only to dance rueda de casino, but also casino outside of the rueda formation. We can further divide this group into two subcategories.
(A)The group that teaches to dance the same moves in the rueda than in partner work, thus having the only difference between the two being the lack of a rueda.
(B) The group that makes a distinction between formats by teaching different moves in the rueda and different moves during partner work.
Group #3: The salsa group. There are some American salsa groups which focus on L.A. or N.Y. styles which have a small curriculum for rueda de casino. This group behaves like Group#1 in that they strictly teach rueda de casino when they teach casino, yet they don’t fall in the same category because they are, inherently, a salsa dance group or academy, not a rueda de casino one.
With the groups divided thus, we can now proceed to which observations usually apply to which group.
Usually, all of the three observations apply to both Group#1 and Group#3.
Let’s recapitulate:
Observation #1: You were only taught how to dance in the rueda formation.
Explanation: Because Group#1 is a strictly rueda de casino group, they do not teach to dance outside of this formation (Observation#1). For Group#3 the story is a bit different: they do not teach to dance outside of the rueda formation because they already have a dance outside of the rueda formation: salsa. Salsa is what they focus their partner work on; rueda de casino—or “rueda,” as they call it—on the other hand, provides something different than 1-on-1 dancing.
Observation #2: It was a fun dance to do, and it was accessible, easy; it did not require a lot of technique to learn and memorize the calls.
Explanation: The very nature of a rueda de casino dictates that every single person in that rueda has to be synchronized with the rest of the group, otherwise the calls do not come together. If the turn pattern requires everybody to work together and not mess up, and one person or couple makes a mistake, that is it for that move. It simply does not coalesce. Group#1 and Group#3 usually solve this problem two ways:
- by keeping the moves simple and not too technical, and focusing on just “having fun.” I have found this to be the case specially with Group#3. Usually, the salsa academies which teach rueda de casino do so as a way to provide a dance that is not as technically challenging as salsa, or as space to just goof-off and just do whatever.
- by teaching moves that are 1-on-1 moves (think Setenta, Sombrero), as opposed to moves that can only be done in the rueda formation. What I mean by this is that there are some moves which are done in the rueda which do not necessarily require a rueda formation to do them. In other words, these are moves that are all about you and your partner, and do not include anyone else (again, think of Setenta or Sombrero). Therefore, by teaching 1-on-1 turn patterns in a rueda formation, if someone messes up, the move does not come apart, which cannot be said for rueda-specific moves such as “Dame” or “Puente,” which require everyone to do it right, or else it will not work.
To illustrate this point, take a look at this video. With the exception of the “Dames”, every single move they do is a 1-on-1 move that can be done outside of a rueda.
Observation #3: The calls you learned happened to be calls which even people from out of town knew, which allowed you to join in any rueda, anywhere.
Explanation: I do not want to point fingers, but in this instance, I have to. There is no other way I can explain this observation without talking about these two dance academies from Miami: Salsa Lovers, and Salsa Racing. These two dance academies, the former led by Rene Gueits, and the latter by Henry Herrera, introduced casino to the U.S. in the late 90s through a series of Salsa Congress convocations in Miami but, most importantly, through a series of DVDs which have been widely watched, spread, and replicated by many across the world. The most successful has been the Salsa Lovers DVDs:
These DVDs do not make a point to distinguish between casino and and casino done in a rueda formation. I would know because I watched them all. Rather, because they always emphasize the rueda, what most people take from the Salsa Lovers’ DVD series, as well as Salsa Racing’s, is that the moves they do are applicable to the rueda because they all have names which can be called.
Because these were the only DVDs which reached a national and international audience, many people who were finding casino for the first time, thought that the dance was self-contained to the moves that the DVD taught. Therefore, people thought all ruedas did or had the same moves. That’s why, when you go out of town, and people ask you to join them in a rueda, they expect that you know the same moves they do; or vice versa; you expect them to do the same moves you were taught.
That’s where the genius of this marketing strategy came in: it was able to spread a version of rueda de casino as if that was rueda de casino. And at the same time, by focusing almost exclusively on moves which were 1-on-1 moves, but done in rueda format, they made it accessible to everybody. Otherwise rueda de casino would draw a lot of people away, when people realize that they can’t do a turn pattern because someone in the rueda keeps making a mistake and the move does not come together (because, again, a rueda-specific moves requires everybody to do it correctly; think “Dame dos”).
I will go into more detail about this apparently monolithic version of rueda de casino further down below. But for now let me talk about the last group: Group#2.
Let us recapitulate: Group #2: is the hybrid group. This type of group teaches not only to dance rueda de casino, but also casino outside of the rueda formation. We can further divide this group into two subcategories.
(A)The group that teaches to dance the same moves in the rueda than in partner work, thus having the only difference between the two being the lack of a rueda.
(B) The group that makes a distinction between formats by teaching different moves in the rueda and different moves during partner work.
Group#2.A is, so to speak, the brainchild of the Salsa Lovers and Salsa Racing DVDs. Most of the moves they do in the rueda are mostly out of those DVDs. The only exception is that this group has realized that the moves on the DVDs are not specifically confined to the rueda formation because, again, they are mostly 1-on-1 moves which can be done outside of it. This is not to say that they do not teach rueda-specific moves, but it is not what they focus on, for the most part. With all of this said, we can conclude that Observation#1, logically, does not apply to them; though Observation#2 does to a certain extent because they keep the turn patterns accessible and simple. Observation#3 is a definite because they are using the same moves from the DVDs.
Group#2.B is the better informed of the two, and by far the best type of group—though the minority— if you want to learn how to dance casino. This group has gone a step beyond Group#2.A in that they have realized that a number of many other things can be done in a rueda that cannot be done in 1-on-1 dancing—essentially that they do not have to be the same dance—and decided to go in-depth with the rueda formation, making their own rueda moves which only work for their rueda. Typically, some of the members of this group —and definitely its top instructors—have traveled to Cuba and seen what rueda de casino is like there, realized that those DVDs they watched were only one small part of the picture, then returned home with that knowledge and made the necessary changes. One of the best group of this type in the U.S. is Rumbanana, based out of Oregon. Take a look at this video. They are doing rueda de casino, and they are doing a rueda specific-move that they themselves came up with.
Of course, you may have noticed that I am personally biased to prefer Group#2.B; there is a reason for that. And that reason is: this group dances rueda de casino in a way that resembles, more than in any of the other groups, how rueda de casino is danced in Cuba.
Let us take a look at this video, from the Rueda All Stars in Santiago de Cuba.
In this video you can really see what dancing in a rueda formation is really capable of doing. Yes, there are many 1-on-1 moves here (you can never get rid of those), but most of the turn patterns are rueda-specific. Take, for instance, the turn pattern which happens from 0:24 to 0:30. Imagine if instructors were to teach this move in their academies. They would spend a lot of time trying to make it come together because, again, everybody needs to get it right, and depending on the level of the students, the move may take more than one lesson to learn. So, right then are there, you see why the question of accessibility becomes paramount to instructors who are trying to make a viable business out of a rueda de casino class and get people to come to it. That’s why they resort to the Salsa Lovers DVDs, because that is the easy stuff that everybody can get. That is what is accessible to most people. It is the fool-proof formula.
But, I repeat, it is only one small part of the whole picture.
You see, Cuba is not a country where you can sit down in front of your computer, log on to the Internet, and look up rueda moves that other people from Cuba are doing. Though there are some basic moves that all ruedas share, like Dame or Enchufa because rueda de casino, in its very early stages (let’s remember that it began in 1957, give or take a year) was first spread from Havana to the many parts of Cuba through the people who volunteered to the National Literacy Campaign in 1961. When rueda de casino traveled outside of Havana, the majority of people who came into contact with it were given only a certain number of moves, which, by the way, did not even get the same names. For instance, what some people may know as “Exhibe,” others know as “Sácala.” And the famous, brand-specific “Coca-Cola” is actually known as a brand-less, generic “Botella” (bottle) in Cuba.
However, as the years passed, people began making moves of their own, and because there was no Internet at the time, no one had way of knowing the moves unless they personally saw them. More importantly, however, people began making their own ruedas, with moves which were specific to them. Soon, ruedas flourished throughout the cities. In one city you could have different ruedas, composed of different people, all of them with their own signature moves. That is, none of them would look alike in their execution of casino within the rueda formation. Granted, they all shared some common moves like the Dame and the Enchufa—they had to. But everything else was their own.
Let us see an example of this. Take a look at these two videos. Are these ruedas the same?
Again, though they share some common moves, these ruedas are not the same. They don’t look the same. You cannot say that they are doing the same moves in the two ruedas. And of course they are not, because these two ruedas have their own signature moves which they came up with.
And yet, here in the States, in every single rueda you do, no matter if you are dancing in or out of town, the moves they call are, most of the time, the same: Enchufla, Adios, Setenta, Sombrero, Siete, Coca-Cola, Kentucky, Montaña, Dedo. The list goes on and can be traced back to the Salsa Lovers and Salsa Racing DVDs.
That is the perception that we have of rueda de casino outside of Cuba: a dance with turn patterns that, once you learn them, can be used anywhere; a dance that you do just for fun, because these moves do not require a lot of technique to be done.
Everybody can join the rueda. C’mon in. It’s fun!
Well, yes…and no.
Don’t get me wrong, rueda de casino is fun. But there is so much more that we could be doing with it. The imagery that I always like to use is that we have an orange in our hands but we are not squeezing it to get the juice out.
Rueda de casino is not supposed to be so monotone. It is not supposed to have the same moves called all the time. In fact, ruedas are not supposed to be all-inclusive. Ruedas are supposed to be exclusive. That is how you get a really good rueda going. The people in the rueda do not have to rely on simple calls but rather they could take everything that this formation has to offer to create something new with it. Turn patterns that would leave those watching open-mouthed and wondering how it is possible that they are doing that. Wasn’t that your reaction that the Rueda All Stars had on you when you watched their video above?
That’s how ruedas are finally going to get some respect outside of Cuba, because, again, right now they are seen as something simple and fun that you can just join and goof-off in. And let me tell you, you are missing out on a lot of cool things for perceiving it that way.
Of course, making it harder and more exclusive means that not everybody would be able to join. And I get it: as sensitive as people are in the States, you do not want to be mean to someone new who wants to join the rueda. You don’t want to be the one to say, “Sorry, buddy, but this is our rueda. You can’t join because you don’t know our calls.” But how else is a highly-technical rueda de casino going to happen? Every time someone joins because they think they can “dance rueda,” the level goes down, and it goes back to Dame, Enchufla, Adios, etc. All those easy calls.
I, for one, want something more challenging.
My recommendation to people who really want to squeeze the juice out of the orange when it comes to rueda de casino is: find people who want to go beyond the simple rueda stuff and make your own rueda, with your own moves and your own calls. And those moves you make, make them rueda-specific.
More importantly: Be exclusive. That is the key to a great rueda de casino. (How you go about doing that, I’ll leave that up to you.)
Sounds harsh, I know, but when you find yourself having fun dancing your rueda in front of a group of people who are marveling how cool the whole thing looks, believe me, the reward is pretty kick-ass.
P:S. Please feel free to share your thoughts below in the comment section!
Son y Casino 
Daybert I could not agree more with you on the point of the calling of “exclusive” ruedas with a small group of people who can take on and execute more complex and interesting moves that go beyond the beginner, bread and butter turns. There’s a time for “all-inclusive” ruedas where beginners and everyone (I guess) can jump in, and give an opportunity for beginner students to practice and enjoy a rueda, I believe there is. There is also, however, a time when a small group of people who have danced together for a while and have learned or developed more advanced moves, should be able to call a rueda on the dance floor and complete a song without having to “dumb-down” the rueda to basic calls to accommodate the entry-level skills of beginners. I love beginners, I really do. But because of their limited knowledge and maturity in rueda moves and etiquette, I also harken in my beginner classes that, whenever at the club and they see a group form a rueda, they should NOT just immediately assume that 1) they can handle what will be called in the rueda; and 2) that the people starting the rueda up intend for it to be an open, all-inclusive rueda. I myself learned this lesson early on when I began learning how to dance Casino and in the rueda. I got told by a couple callers that I was not welcome in a particular rueda because they were going to call things that were beyond my abilities. Was I upset and embarrassed? A little bit embarrassed but I understood and accepted their wishes completely. And you know what, it made sense. As I watched they began calling turns, I realized within 30 seconds that this rueda was way beyond my knowledge and capabilities. It was appropriate, for the sake of the rueda’s ability to flow and work, that people like me did not come in and bring things down to a screeching halt. And that is why I explain to my students that before jumping into a rueda blindly, they should 1) observe it for a few moves and see how its moving and flowing; 2) if it looks manageable and they recognize what is happening, then maybe approach the rueda with respect and humility and ONLY with a partner!! (more on this point about people who shove themselves into a rueda partnerless); and 3) if, and only if, the rueda caller acknowledges and welcomes and invites them into the rueda (either by calling an “abren” or otherwise), should they then politely and smoothly take an open spot as it becomes open. But thanks for pointing out these all too-overlooked issues that come up in rueda formations.
Well said brother!
Hey … you mentioned us! Woohoo.
You guys deserved to be mentioned! I’ve always had great respect for the group and the way it teaches casino.
So glad I’ve had most of my casino experience with DC Casineros! I agree with what you wrote and was also grateful to Pirito for detailing rueda de casino etiquette. I never knew any of that before; I thought a single dancer could jump in any time and be a “shadow” and that a couple could always join in. I won’t be doing that in the future.
I see the “exclusivity” as analogous to customs I’ve observed in Hungarian villages. In some places, the men get together and “choreograph” their own version of the men’s dances. It would be totally out of place for a guy from another village, even one who knows the individual figures, to join in. There is a similar custom regarding women’s circle dances.
In Hungarian couple dancing, nearby villages may have nearly the same dance, but they’re called by different names. If someone went up to the band and asked for a dance by their own village’s name, there might be a great deal of confusion.
Great analysis once again Daybert, thank-you! At our social events it seemed logical to do as you and Piroto have suggested by having level-specific ruedas – we invite anyone and everyone up for beginners/basic level stuff where intermediate/advanced-level casineros can also join in for the social interaction; ruedas are great for encouraging social and dance interaction amongst people who otherwise may spend much of the afternoon/evening hanging out in their own small social group on opposite sides of the hall. At some point(s) in proceedings we also specifically annouce an intermediate/advanced level rueda – usually to a faster tempo song – to give dancers with more experience and skills a chance to be challenged by calls or call combinations that they may or may not have heard/seen before but should be able to follow if they are listening carefully enough! Improving at rueda de casino is a lot like improving at casino itself – you needs to keep practising and challenging yourself to do new and interesting things. And in rueda it needs to be practised as a group. That is also the difference between a living, evolving language like casino (whether in rueda or partner format) and other dance styles which have become entirely formulaic and leave no room for originality. And I suppose that the parallels between teaching dance as communication between individuals and teaching Spanish language to your students are not lost on you. When you described your satisfaction in hearing your students use the grammatical rules and vocabulary you have taught to them to communicate between each other successfully it reminded me of how dance works at its best. You’re doing a great job of encouraging excellence and improvement with blogs like this one, keep it up!
I feel so, so humbled that people are taking the time to read what I write on my blog. In this day and age, where everything seems to be so fast-paced, a 3000-word piece on rueda de casino may not be the thing you’d want to spend some time on. But people, from all over the world, are reading that piece, then going to other pieces and reading them as well. And then they are writing to me or calling me, commenting on the pieces, giving me feedback, sharing the pieces on their Facebook; and overall showing real interest in what I had to say. It feels extremely gratifying. But more than anything, It feels extremely humbling to find that there are many a number of people who believe I have something important to say, and encourage me to keep doing it.
Thank you all for the support, and all the time you have spent reading my pieces, commenting on them, sharing them, and giving me feedback. Seriously. Thank you.
Thanks so much for writing this piece. I couldn’t agree more. I would add that what seems to be missing here in the states is a fourth group (which really should be Group) that teaches casino mainly as a partner dance and then supplements that with instruction on how to dance in a rueda formation. Honestly, I feel like my own personal experience with casino dancing has been completely backwards. When I first saw people dancing in a rueda, I thought they were dancing salsa. Next, I learned to dance “rueda” and yes I thought it was an actual dance. Only as I’ve continued to take lessons have I learned that it is casino dancing that I have been dancing without really understanding it. It has been a frustration for me because I feel like I’ve been learning backwards. In comparing it to learning a language, I feel like I learned to write first, then read and only last am I learning to speak. So, all that to say, keep up the good work because your blog is helping us all be better dancers!
Thanks so much for your kind comments. I am glad you are finding the blog helpful!
I know such groups (the “fourth” group mentioned above) in Europe, and believe that it’s the norm in many countries on that continent.
I have visited academies that have separate classes for Casino, Rueda de Casino and also a specific class called “our representative Rueda de Casino group”, which targets the more advanced dancers who also go to international events together to study and perform, and represent the academy in local and international events.
My thoughts on the matter.
1. Going back to part I, if DJs shouting “let’s dance rueda!” and the majority of dancers not knowing what Casino is wasn’t bad enough, some “academies” have even gone so far as to say “you should always start with rueda because it’s easy, and when you get better you can advance yourself to dancing LA”.
So there are some ignorant people saying “when I grow up as a dancer, I would dance LA!”, because rueda is marketed as something “fun and easy that anybody can do”.
2. Dancing Casino in a Rueda format can be simple, fun and dynamic if you use simple moves, and that’s not a bad thing.
You can get great dynamics and musicality doing simple stuff, and your dance will be interesting.
3. If “infesting” everybody with the same calls and making the dance look like “simple and fun for everyone” is not bad enough, another problem with the “salsa lovers” (notice: not “casino lovers”, “rueda de casino lovers” or even “rueda lovers”…) and “salsa racing” (although less so) is that they teach most of the moves in quite a linear, rather than circular, fashion.
Maybe they found it easier for their “ruedas”, having everybody switch places in the exact same manner, as if on a line, but this has very little to do with Rueda de Casino and nothing to do with Casino dancing.
4. Yet another problem with those DVDs is that they have gone to the extreme on the other hand of the scale, and in their 6th and 7th DVDs (and in the “henrry’s turns” series of “salsa racing”) they teach overly complicated, long, repetitive and monotonous moves, and if that wasn’t bad enough, in some of those they use “LA style” moves, which are completely linear.
This makes 0 sense, and has nothing to do with Rueda de Casino and Casino dancing.
5. Where I dance most of the schools teaching “Cuban salsa & rueda” (nobody calls it Casino or Rueda de Casino, sadly…) 95% of the curriculum in “rueda format”, but mostly teach 1 on 1 moves and some basic “rueda only” moves (with the most complicated ones being “dame dos”, “amistad” and sometimes “puente”).
The result is that most of their students don’t dance Casino when dancing 1 on 1 (which is most of the time, as “Ruedas” have become rare in recent years), but rather dance “rueda 1 on 1”;
they mostly do stuff which has “rueda calls”, always finish moves with Dilequeno, always do “guapea” (in a weird, linear manner, with the body movement of logs floating up the river…) in place after each Dilequeno, and do all the moves as if they are in a “salsa lovers rueda”, almost dancing on a line, switching places in 90 degree angles…
6. I haven’t seen any body dance Rueda de Casino with any moves beyond “intermediate” level for years.
This really frustrated some of the more advanced dancers who do like dancing Casino in the Rueda format, but get bored of doing only simple moves time and time again.
7. It’s quite sad, but most people are not aware of a wonderful DVD series made in Cuba and released before the “salsa lovers” and “salsa racing” DVD series, in 2000 and then in 2002.
It’s called “salsa a la Cubana”, produced by Eric Freeman (salsaville.com), and shot entirely in Cuba with Cuban dancers from La Habana and Santiago de Cuba, including such folks as Yanek Revilla, Yoannis Tamayo, Madelaine Rodriguez and Mario Charron.
My friends and I learned a lot from this series!
thank you for deep analyze..but you had showed only ‘show style ruedas’ from Cuba…but there is social rueda as well..I advise videos from ‘club 1830 Havana-los jardines de tropical’ .. they do ruedas with very common and ‘easy to do’ calls, not specific ruedas.. so, at the TV show ‘bailar es algo mas’ you can see pick-up ruedas at the end of the show. this style is party style rueda..rueda de casino is not only party style of course, you can go deep and every group can create their own moves as well..But first, it should be ‘cathcy’ party style…
Regards from Turkey..
There is really nothing that says ruedas should be anything. You can do with the rueda formation what you want, and people certainly do this. I’m just showing people other ways in which ruedas can be done. And of course, you have to take into consideration where I’m writing from: the U.S., where what people perceived as rueda is vastly different from the perception at the other end of the Atlantic. Thanks for reading.
Excellent article. Some personal observations I would like to touch upon.
1) Conflict arises when someone from group #1 tries to dance with group #2, which inevitably happens because group #2 has more complicated rueda moves and dance rueda more often. Of course, they would never consider themselves beginners, because they have done that “una bulla”, “dame” and “un fly”. They all consider themselves “intermediate”. But when they come into a rueda, it is clear by the swinging arms and large stomping steps that they are casino beginners. So, now I am starting to say you must be an “advanced” casino dancer to enter some of our ruedas just to get people with some actual casino dancing experience. Again, the dumbing down because people don’t know that casino can be danced in a couples format. Then, these “intermediate” dancers will be in the advanced workshops at next Salsa Congress. We joke about this type of dancer : a man with a thousand moves, but none of them work.
2) Because the lesson that group #1 offers, which like you said doesn’t require a lot of technique, leads many people to think that casino or Cuban style doesn’t require a lot of technique or effort. In this article, it says “Cuban style salsa dancers do not always stay on the 1 beat and tend to stray depending on where the music takes them.” as if dancing to the music would somehow takes them away from the 1 beat. http://www.torontodancesalsa.ca/articles/The-Different-Styles-Of-Salsa.php . Therefore, many NY/LA schools treat casino is an add-on to their existing classes. Something like a party trick to say, “Look what else you can do with salsa !”. No wonder they offer this as a free class at a nightclub, because it seems like a salsa activity that everyone can participate in.
3) Rueda attracts a lot of people who are not exactly that interested in casino. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because it is similar to country square dances or the old European court dances. From how group #1 teaches it, it appears simple and fun. Let’s face it, in the social world of salsa, there is a lot of discrimination about who gets asked to dance or accepts a dance based on dance ability, age, and physical attractiveness. A lot of people go to clubs and never get asked to dance or they ask several people to dance and they get turned down a lot. In rueda, you don’t mind dancing with a terrible dancer because with a simple “dame”, they are gone. Don’t have a partner? Just insert yourself as the “ghost” dancer in the rueda and you will get one sooner or later.
4) Yes, I used to call those calls the “Miami calls”. Those schools used to have long list of calls you would need to now, if you want to be called “intermediate”, “advanced” or a “master”. Quite arbitrary because I am sure most of the Santiago All Stars would probably qualify as only “intermediate”. Some people want to standardize casino rueda calls, so you dance rueda in Nuremburg, Germany if you want. Does it really matter if you know all the calls from a particular school in Nuremburg? (Or from anywhere for the matter?) Could a Santiago All Star jump in know all the calls? I doubt that. How would you even do that? An international body of casino rueda? Would you call it rueda de casino “international style” like in Latin Ballroom?
5) But then you can get into that game of which calls are more authentically Cuban. A losing battle in my opinion. I even called calls that I learnt in Cuba in Canada and then Cubans in Toronto will say that they aren’t Cuban. How would they even know that? How would they know a move that the guy from Holguin Forever made and named off the top of his head unless they were practicing with Holguin Forever in 2013? You are right about rueda not as “monotone” as people think it is. There is so much inventiveness, vitality and ingenuity in the rueda moves from the Bailar Casino show that it could fill ten Salsa Congresses.
I heard a Latin American woman say to me that she doesn’t like Cuban style salsa, because everything is choreographed. To her, in other salsa styles moves are improvised with lots of spontaneity with passion and soul, etc., etc. Again, she confuses rueda with Cuban style. (I guess in her mind if two Cubans are at a salsa concert, love the music and want to dance, they must wait until another Cuban couple shows up before they can attempt any dance step).
But I guess from the ruedas she sees in North America, perhaps you can see her point of view. Many dancers who learn from group #1 or any group that is learning casino through the rueda format can’t dance outside the rueda. They need someone to call a move for them to dance. Dancing one-on-one requires too much thinking. Too many quick decisions. If they do manage to do a one-on-one dance, they just the rueda moves they learned “dedo, setenta, enchufla doble”, etc. in a very mechanical manner, one after another.
Well, someone needed to vent. 😀 But seriously>> great input, Joseph. I feel the same way, and it IS a shame that that “rueda” is what people are being introduced to, and that’s as far as they will go with that.I think, for casino to grow as a dance (and be more respected) it certainly needs to be taught more often as a partner dance rather than in the format of a rueda, where, as you mentioned, the decision making is taken away from the dancers. Thanks for reading!