Nigeria - place

Danzón

Danzón was the first national dance of Cuba — the form that unified the island's popular music identity in the late 19th and early 20th century, and the ancestor of mambo, cha-cha-chá, and ultimately timba.

Rumba

Rumba is the most African-rooted of all Cuban music and dance forms — born in the streets, courtyards, and docks of Havana and Matanzas in the late 19th century, with no European instruments, no salon setting, and no pretense of European propriety.

Rumba

Rumba is the most African-rooted of all Cuban music and dance forms — born in the streets, courtyards, and docks of Havana and Matanzas in the late 19th century, with no European instruments, no salon setting, and no pretense of European propriety.

Rumba

Rumba is the most African-rooted of all Cuban music and dance forms — born in the streets, courtyards, and docks of Havana and Matanzas in the late 19th century, with no European instruments, no salon setting, and no pretense of European propriety.

Rumba

Rumba is the most African-rooted of all Cuban music and dance forms — born in the streets, courtyards, and docks of Havana and Matanzas in the late 19th century, with no European instruments, no salon setting, and no pretense of European propriety.

Rumba

Rumba is the most African-rooted of all Cuban music and dance forms — born in the streets, courtyards, and docks of Havana and Matanzas in the late 19th century, with no European instruments, no salon setting, and no pretense of European propriety.

Cuba

Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and the birthplace of some of the world's most influential music and dance traditions. African, Spanish, and French cultural streams collided here over centuries of colonial history, producing an extraordinary creative culture that exported itself across the globe.

Matanzas

The following dances have their origin in Matanzas:

• Rumba
• Yambú
• Guaguancó
• Danzón
• Abakuá

• Arara

  
  Lees meer >

Nigeria

Nigeria — home to the Yoruba, Igbo, and Efik peoples — is the single most influential African source for Afro-Cuban religion and dance. Enslaved Yoruba brought to Cuba preserved their cosmology through Santería, and their descendants' dances remain at the core of Cuban folkloric and popular movement vocabulary today.

Nigeria

Nigeria — home to the Yoruba, Igbo, and Efik peoples — is the single most influential African source for Afro-Cuban religion and dance. Enslaved Yoruba brought to Cuba preserved their cosmology through Santería, and their descendants' dances remain at the core of Cuban folkloric and popular movement vocabulary today.

Cameroon

The Cameroon–Congo region was home to the Bantu and Kongo peoples whose descendants were brought to Cuba as enslaved people, primarily between the 17th and 19th centuries. Their cultural heritage survives in Cuba through Palo Monte, and in the dances Makuta and Yuka.

Orishas

Afro-Cuban Orishas are deities from the Yoruba religion, brought to Cuba through the transatlantic slave trade, who embody natural forces and human traits, and are honored through music, dance, and ritual in Santería.

Egungun

Egungun is the Yoruba masquerade tradition honoring the collective ancestors — the Egun, the dead who remain present and active in the lives of the living. In Cuba, the Egungun tradition survived within the broader world of Santería (Regla de Ocha) and the related Arará and Abakuá communities, though in a form shaped by the specific conditions of the island.

Abakuá

Abakuá is a male secret society that originated in Cuba in the early 1800s, specifically in Regla, Havana, in 1836. It was created by enslaved and free Afro-Cubans who brought traditions from the Ekpe societies of the Efik, Ibibio, and Ejagham peoples in the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon.

Changó

Changó (also written Shangó) is the Orisha of thunder, lightning, fire, and dance. He is one of the most powerful and widely venerated Orishas in the Lucumí/Yoruba tradition.

Yemayá

Yemayá is the Orisha of the sea and the mother of all Orishas. She governs the saltwater ocean and all living things within it. As mother, she is nurturing, protective — and when angered, devastating.

Percussion Instruments

Cuban music is built on percussion. The extraordinary density and variety of Cuban rhythmic culture reflects the meeting of West and Central African drumming traditions with Spanish, Haitian, and creole musical practices over four centuries. The instruments below form the core percussive vocabulary heard across Son, Rumba, Timba, Danzón, and their descendants.

Batá

The batá drums are a set of three double-headed hourglass-shaped drums central to Yoruba religious tradition and Afro-Cuban sacred music (Lucumí / Santería).