It’s been a few months since my last post on London’s Afro Cuban Music Night and I’ve wanted to do a piece highlighting images of dance. The following three photographs allude to dance using fragmentation – parts of the body to suggest the whole. The dancer is an Italian called Cesare.
In the photo below you can see Cesare’s red scarf employed in dancing rumba. Cuban musician Gerardo de Armas is playing the Cajon, a box-shaped percussion instrument played with the hand that is used in Cuban rumba sessions as well as other genres such as Afro-Peruvian and flamenco.
Cesare’s red scarf also features in the image below, Gerardo is playing congas.
Fragmentation of movement combined with percussion and song. Dave Pattman is on cajon, and you can see from his gaze that he is looking up at the dancer.
One of the reasons I like this image is that it confirms the interconnected, inseparable relationship between song, rhythm and dance in this genre of music. In Western culture we often approach these subjects as isolated entities.
The next photographs all feature dance teachers in action. One of the first Afro Cuban dance teachers in London, writer and polymath Mario López-Goicoechea, plus Cuban artist Luanda Pau Baquero now based in London and Danielle Satsias director of Havana Londres:
Here’s another photo where dance, percussion and song all come together. Vicky Jassey can be seen leading the singing to the right of Luanda:
Participation is actively encouraged at the Afro Cuban Music Night and the images below feature Silvia and Sandra dancing:
The Afro Cuban Music Night takes place the first Monday of each month and is currently held at Vogue Fabrics, 66 Stoke Newington Road, N16 8BX, beginning with a dance class taught by Luanda Pau at 8.30pm
Links:
Mario López-Goicoechea’s blog
Luanda Pau artist page on Facebook