Arará

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.

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

  
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Yemaya

Yemayá is the mother of all Orishas and the ruler of the sea. Her dance is one of the most visually beautiful in the repertoire — expansive, flowing, and in constant, wave-like motion.

Chango

• Orisha of thunder, lightning, fire, drumming, kingship.
• Toques: Chachachá, Alujá, Obakoso.
• Strong, fiery, powerful rhythms — central to batá tradition.

Obatala

Obatalá is the Orisha of purity, wisdom, and creation — the father of all Orishas and the owner of all human heads. His dance is the most controlled and technically demanding in the repertoire: slow, smooth, and dignified beyond measure.

Ebbioso

• Origin & Names – Fon thunder-god Hevioso / Xevioso (Benin) → merges with Yoruba Ṣàngó → carried to Cuba as Ebbioso / Ebioso.
• Domain – lightning, thunder, rain, and swift divine justice against deceit or wrongdoing.
• Symbols & Colors – double-headed axe, “thunder-stones,” red-and-white palette.
• Diaspora Spread – venerated in Cuban Arará ceremonies; also honored in Haiti, Trinidad, and coastal West Africa.
• Ritual Expression – call-and-response songs (“Ebbioso Kawo”), powerful drum-and-dance sequences with stamping, plus offerings for rain and protection.

Afrekete

Afrekete (also spelled Afreke) is a deity in the Arará tradition — Cuba's Fon and Ewe-derived religious system, brought by enslaved people from the Dahomey kingdom (present-day Benin) and neighboring regions. In the Arará cosmological framework, Afrekete is the equivalent of Yemayá in Santería: a female deity associated with water, the sea, and the generative powers of nature.

Asojano

Asojano is the Arará name for the deity of disease, healing, and the earth — one of the most powerful and feared figures in the Afro-Cuban religious world. He is known as Babalú Ayé in Santería, as Sakpata (or Sopono) in Dahomean Vodou, and under various related names in Haitian Vodou. Across all these traditions, he governs the same terrible and merciful domain: illness, epidemic, the skin, and the earth that receives the dead.

Babalú Ayé

Babalú Ayé (also known as Asojano in some lineages) is the Orisha of healing, disease, and the earth. He governs illness — particularly epidemic diseases of the skin — and has the power both to afflict and to cure.