I have given up.
Despite years of trying to inform and educate people about the dance of casino, it is almost impossible for me to navigate social media now without seeing a post or a video about Cuban salsa (thanks, algorithm!). The term has caught on like wildfire and spread across the globe. And it makes sense. The moniker has a twofold effect: it draws people in by appealing to something they know (salsa dancing), and it ignites their desire to experience something exotic (Cuba). You put these two things together in a capitalist market that cares nothing for culture or authenticity (so long, bachata and kizomba!), and you have a winner.
I should have realized this was a losing battle from the beginning. There are more people who take up dancing because they want to have a good time, make friends or meet new people–heck, even get a cardio workout–than those who do it because they care about culture, and actually understand how their careless consumption of a foreign, cultural product can reshape it abroad. It’s the battle of the few against the many. It always has been. And we all know how those typically end.
So I have given up trying to fight the term “Cuban salsa”; trying to get people to call the dance by its given name: casino; trying to get people to not dance casino as if it were on1 or on2 salsa; trying to “fix” things.
The term is here to stay, whether I like it or not. So I have accepted it. That’s why I have given up trying to get people to not use it.
That, and another, more important reason.
Cuban salsa, as it is being taught and danced in many places around the world, has now become more than a synonym for casino. It might have been an interchangeable term at the beginning (and that is what I was personally fighting at first). With time, however, what is known as “Cuban salsa” has–as I argued it predictably would–morphed into something else.
In other words, I have given up on trying to fight the term “Cuban salsa” because Cuban salsa has effectively become a separate dance from casino.
And that’s actually…good news.
Before I get to those, first, let’s understand what Cuban salsa actually is. Many of you who are reading this might be, at this point, confused with the terminology. So let’s clear that up before I get into what embracing Cuban salsa as its own dance means, moving forward, for the dance of casino.
As I explained above, Cuban salsa was, at first, used as an interchangeable label when selling/marketing casino dance classes outside of Cuba–and even in Cuba, once enough tourists started pouring in, wanting to learn the “Cuban salsa”1. To say “Cuban salsa” was to say “casino”, though of course, not many people were actually saying “casino” because apparently people can only think of poker and money upon hearing this word but seem to have forgotten that “salsa” was originally associated with food and it was only through contextualization and proper exposure that people began to understand that it could also be something else because c’mon folks people are not stupid and can figure out for themselves that the same word can mean different things in different contexts and oh if only we used the word in the right context we could–
I digress.
At any rate, the terms were used interchangeably for a while, much to my chagrin. And while in Cuba this does not create a problem because there is nothing else that is danced to “salsa music” besides casino, outside of the island, there were two very well-known American (U.S.) styles of dancing (on 1 and on 2; or LA- and NY-styles, respectively).
As casino gained traction outside of Cuba, it had to insert itself within a market that was already saturated with salsa classes. And to sell, teachers and schools had to do what most people do in a competitive market: establish a point of reference, and then differentiate yourself from it enough that it looks like you’re offering something different. So teachers and schools sold salsa classes, a concept with which people already were familiar, but with a twist. This salsa was Cuban.
The interchangeability of the terms–and at times the complete erasure of the word “casino”–was a marketing strategy at first. A way to get people in the door. Once in, many teachers actually taught casino, even if they did not explicitly state it.2
At the beginning, anyway.
You see, the people that came to Cuban salsa classes came because the idea of the class itself played with what was familiar to attendees. In other words, most people who came to those Cuban salsa classes already knew how to dance salsa, and thus came expecting to continue dancing it.
And it just so happens that salsa (as most of you know it, anyway) is danced in a line.
Teachers teaching casino under the term “Cuban salsa”, then, were faced with a choice. Because the students who came into their classes were, by and large, accustomed to dancing on the slot, the teachers either could: a) attempt to reprogram these people to dance differently (i.e. not in a line) because casino is not a linear dance–and thus run the risk of losing their business once the students realized that this was most certainly not what they had thought it would be; or b) make adjustments to what they were teaching so that people learned to dance something that felt familiar, but distinct enough to validate them going to a Cuban salsa class (as opposed to a regular salsa class) because it was the new thing in town. These small adjustments could have been as simple as a Dile que no being changed for a cross-body lead (to create familiarity); or dancing in a line but doing a Dile que no (to create novelty).
The ways in which instructors adjusted, reshaped and transformed how they danced casino and how they taught casino are many, so I am not going to start listing them here. What is important to understand from this is that the moment that these small adjustments began, well, there was no stopping what would–predictably–happen next:
People dancing salsa…with (Afro-)Cuban concepts.
And of course! You cannot expect to call something “Cuban salsa” and it not be danced like…well, salsa.
So that is what “Cuban salsa” is: linear salsa dancing, but with (Afro-)Cuban elements or influences. If you think about it, it makes sense. In Europe and the U.S., where Cuban salsa became most popular, salsa is danced in a line. Add to it a Dile que no, an Exhíbela (which breaks the linear paradigm); add to it a vacunao, a decontextualized step from an Orisha deity, and voilà: Cuban salsa. Semantically speaking, it makes perfect sense to me.
What does Cuban salsa look like? Well, the best way for me to describe it is to show you. To that effect, take a look at this video from Wílmer and María. These two are, in my opinion, the clearest example of what Cuban salsa is. They have been doing salsa with elements of casino and Afro-Cuban dances for more than a decade now. Indeed, the following video of theirs is, at the time of publishing this post, 11 years old.
I cannot state with certainty that Wílmer and María were the very first to elevate this fusion at Cuban dance events, since other, contemporary-to-them figures who were doing the same thing come to mind (Seo Fernández, Barbarita Jiménez, Roly Maden, Maykel Fonts, Nano, Yoandry Villarrutia, Yanet Fuentes, just to name a few). But I think it is pretty safe to say that many have followed in their footsteps.
Now, some of you who watched the video might be asking yourselves, “But isn’t what Wilmer and María are dancing called “Timba”?
Well, yes. Many people would call it “Timba” nowadays (even if the video is 11-years old). I have extensively written about this so-called “Timba” dance, and you can read all about it here (I do strongly recommend reading that post if you have not done so already). For the purposes of this post, I would just say that what is happening between “Timba” and “Cuban salsa” is what happened between “Casino” and “Cuban salsa”: they are used interchangeably. “Timba” is a repackaging of the term “Cuban salsa”. Anyone doing a “Timba” class is pretty much doing what Wilmer and María (and the many others I named along with them), were doing 11 years ago–and calling it “Cuban salsa” then.2
There are also the people who fall somewhere in the middle, and I would argue that those are the vast majority. That is, they are not as linear in their dancing, but they most certainly retain some of the mannerisms of the linear salsa aesthetics (“pretty” hands, “soft” leads) as well as some key core concepts. For instance, you might see leaders lead a cross-body lead here and there, or lead lots of spins; followers stepping in place when the leader is doing a giro (as opposed to walking to the Caída position); followers flexing their knees, in constant anticipation of a spin (spins are not that common in casino), or constantly styling; dancers doing a forward-and-back basic in open position while holding each other with two hands, exactly like in salsa dancing; the lack of mobility within the room as not as many paseos are used; the absence of the Enchufla por la derecha, one of the most important casino basic moves, and which I have covered in this video.
(As a quick side note: This group of people is heavily influenced by the Miami-based dance schools, Salsa Lovers and Salsa Racing, which taught salsa structured through the rueda. I wrote at length about the specific influence of Salsa Lovers in how casino was reshaped abroad and how many people are following what Salsa Lovers did, even if they are unaware of it. Hint: if you use the name “Coca-Cola”, instead of “Botella”, you have certainly been influenced by them. Additionally, I have often used the term “Miami-style salsa” to describe what this school did. Read more about this here. )
All of this said, the truth of the matter is: whether people dance as linearly as Wilmer, María, et. al., or use the circular paradigm more sparingly while still retaining many technical staples of linear salsa dancing; whether we call it “Cuban salsa” or “Timba”…none of this is authentic to Cuba.
With this, I do not mean to devalue the dance. In case you place value in whether a dance is authentic or not, let me assuage your fears. While Cuban salsa (or Timba) is not authentic to Cuba, it is authentic to the dance scene that has developed outside of Cuba, a result of a fusion of idiosyncrasies and styles that coexist outside of the island. All I am saying is that the dance is not authentic if Cuba is the source of authenticity.3 And that’s a valid thing to say. It is also very valid to like to dance it, as I have extensively argued in this post.
Cuban salsa, or Timba, was the (unintended?) consequence of a confluence of factors, among which I see: faulty marketing strategies, lack of understanding of the context into which casino was being inserted, greed, indifference to culture, and the absence of a robust pedagogical paradigm.4
Yet, at this point, it doesn’t matter how any of this happened. “Cuban salsa”, or “Timba”, is here to stay. Thousands of people flock to workshops and classes offering this dance, to later on replicate what they saw there on the dance floor. And so it continues spreading. It is simply impossible–and absurd–to pretend this is not happening. So I have opted for acknowledging reality.
And like I said in the beginning of the piece: this is actually good news.
Here is the thing, now that there is a very popular, very clear example of what is not authentically a Cuban dance, it opens the door to provide and market a counter-proposal! A more authentic-to-Cuba option. The real deal.
Casino.
Because the differences between Casino and Cuban Salsa are so patently clear–and I do hope that you can see them as clearly as I do when you compare the two videos I have provided–then people have a point of reference of what casino is, and what casino is not.
It is no longer a matter of endlessly debating on the Internet about whether or not people are dancing casino “correctly” (i.e. authentically). If we understand what has happened to casino and many other authentic dances like bachata and kizomba outside of their authentic places of origin, and if we understand what “salsa” means outside of Cuba (i.e. on1, on 2), then any of these discussions are moot.
To me, that’s very liberating.
When I see a video of Cuban salsa (labeled or danced as such), I do not think of how much they are not dancing casino. It is clearly not casino. It is Cuban salsa! It is salsa, the salsa that everyone dances in a line, but with Cuban influences. Of course it will be different than casino. The name itself says it!
“Oh, and by the way, since you are interested in Cuba, did you know about Casino, a dance from Cuba?”
How is that for a sales pitch?
Probably not that good. I wrote the first thing that came to mind in the spur of the moment. But I bet you can come up with something better.
Because Cuban salsa is now so popular, it is really easy, now more than ever before, to actually market casino dance classes. You simply acknowledge that both exist, you make a case for the authenticity of what you are teaching, and let people make up their mind. The free market will do the rest.
The intention is not to put anyone out of business, but rather to give people an informed choice. People would now be aware of what Cuban salsa actually is–an artist-created version of salsa dancing, with Cuban influences, not a dance authentic to Cuba. In this sense, casino teachers may actually get more people coming to their classes, as these people now seek what they understand to be authentically Cuban. If they do not, well, that’s fine, too! People are entitled to like whatever they like, though I’d argue that their reasons for going to a Cuban salsa class in the first place had little to do with actually being interested in Cuban culture. But again, that’s okay! Everybody has their reasons. And like I said earlier, Cuban salsa (or Timba) is also authentic to the dance spaces in which it was created. Just not to Cuba.
And so my advice for teachers who seek to teach casino is this. When students do come, teach casino. Don’t waver. Teach casino. Call it “casino” unapologetically, so that they can do it, too. Invite them to explore with you all the nuances that the dance has to offer. Remind them that casino is enough as its own dance. It does not need to be fused with anything. It is beautiful as its own dance; it is highly technical and complex as its own dance; it is fun, rewarding, and full of gozadera as its own dance.
Most important of all, teach them to love casino for what it is:
An authentic Cuban dance.
Notes:
- Cubans in the island use the name interchangeably, for reasons I have extensively explained in this post. Of course, in Cuba, we don’t say “Cuban salsa”. It’s redundant when you are in Cuba. As such, many Cubans would refer to what they dance as salsa, knowing unmistakably that it is casino. ↩︎
- A good example of this is my friend Julio Montero, a Cuban teacher residing in Canada. He actively markets his classes as “Cuban salsa”, but he is very much teaching casino. He is using the terms interchangeably. ↩︎
- It is interesting to note that, different from “Cuban salsa”, “Timba” (the dance) can stand on its own as a term without the nationality adage. It was born within the Cuban dance community abroad–as opposed to Cuban salsa, which inserted itself within a pre-existing salsa community abroad, from which it needed to differentiate itself. Hence no need to say “Cuban Timba”. ↩︎
- Another way of looking at this is through the example of Rumba. Rumba music is derived from western Africa, yes, but it is not authentically African. It is authentically from Cuba. Rumba music is a combination of African-derived percussion and Spanish-language lyricism and meter. The convergence of these things did not occur anywhere in Africa (that is why Rumba music does not exist in Africa), but it did occur in Cuba (because, you know, colonization and slavery). In fact, the tumbadoras–the very drums used to produce the Rumba sound–were created in Cuba! To say that Rumba is African music, therefore, would bypass–and erase–what actually happened in Cuba. Rumba is not all of the sudden invalid as a musical genre because it derives influences from Africa but is not authentically African. ↩︎
- This is even a problem in Cuba, as casino in the island is learned empirically. It has not been traditionally part of any dance curriculum in the National School of Arts, from which many of the dancers who now live and teach in Europe and the U.S. studied, or any of the other higher-education institutions in Cuba. ↩︎
Son y Casino 
Very interesting points, but just to add:
The use of Afro-Cuban elements, and Casino / not Casino, are distinct and non related things.
The linear dance with spins and hand flapping you referred to as “Cuban salsa” was (as you probably know quite well yourself) born in Miami during the early 2000th, created by “salsa lovers” and “salsa racing” dance studios to be competitive in the linear show dance US market.
In Europe most teachers (Cuban and local) don’t dance like that, at least from my experience at festivals and venues alike.
They mostly dance Casino, at the core.
But with time (last decade or so), started adding elements of carious Afro-Cuban dances.
Thus, I think we have two distinct categories here:
Casino and “Miami style”, and both can be embellished with elements of other Cuban dances, but in a manner independent of each other.
As “Afro-Cuban” became the trend in recent years, we have seen it being used in various couple dances, for example “NY on2”, without any relation to the dance being Cuban or not.
Ref. your Note 3 above. This is a very clear and succinct point. Every school that advertises that they’re teaching Cuban social dance should include it from now on.
I am having trouble thinking of who needs the super strict distinctions between casino and cuban salsa. I am a cuban ex-pat, and as such, both during my childhood in cuba and with my family in Miami I subscribed to your philosophy of
“Cubans in the island use the name interchangeably, for reasons I have extensively explained in this post. Of course, in Cuba, we don’t say “Cuban salsa”. It’s redundant when you are in Cuba. As such, many Cubans would refer to what they dance as salsa, knowing unmistakably that it is casino.”
When I read articles like this, I get a sense of angst, the reason being that then I encounter people that cite a teacher or article to tell me that what I am dancing isn’t casino. I am introspective, and I try to figure out why, and then the reasons are “you take backsteps”, “ypu don’t always pivot on the 4 and 8”, etc. Which are all things that family members born, raised, and taught in cuba do.
So, how do we reconcile a huge variety of dance styles on casino across the cuban population, given that casino in the states has a seemingly strict set of rules and a MCC/CPT bias?
That’s a good point. Casino has no “strict rules” of how it should be danced. I imagine that Cubans danced it in various styles and still recognized it as “casino,” along with the Afro-Cuban influences.
I do see Miami as a separate style. And what I mean by Miami is a linear version of Casino, that definitely looks – to me – more linear than what the author referd to as “casino.”
Thank you for all this info. I am happy to recognize that I mostly dance the casino way, while I learned it from France just before COVID and keep it on via youtube for a while and now back on track.but hey I guess I was influence by a great teacher chocolate from Montpellier Yann kiterani.
This was interesting. I’m more of a cross-body guy but the roots of different variants of Salsa is no-doubt a little complex. Marketing has no-doubt had a massive impact on how people teach and refer to variants of salsa.
I’ve just discovered your blog and thanks for the previous information you share about cuban culture.
In my country they do seem to use casino/salsa cubuna as synonymes though it is seems to be inspired by the miami style you described. Somehow sad to see that casino is not really teached.