Tumba Francesa Afro-Cuban – Dance

Tumba francesa is music and dance that French colonists and their enslaved people brought to eastern Cuba after the Haitian Revolution: West African music, mainly from Congo and Dahomey, combined with French salon dances. UNESCO recognised it in 2003 as a masterpiece of intangible heritage.

Origin

After the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), French colonists settled with their enslaved people in Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba. On the coffee plantations, the enslaved adopted "aristocratic" influences from their masters, such as the French contredanse. They first held their celebrations on the coffee drying floors; later sociedades arose, organised on the model of the French nobility, with a "king" or president and a queen. The word tumba is Congolese and means "party".

The roles

  • Mayor or mayora de plaza: leads the dance.
  • Composé: the lead singer, who tells in Creole what happened in their land.
  • Reina cantadora: leads the chorus; the cantadoras sing in French, Creole and Spanish.

The four toques

  • Masón: eight couples, with forms from European salon dances such as the minuet and the contredanse. There are two steps: the basic step and the deslizado, which resembles the arrollao of the Santiago conga.
  • Yubá: follows the masón and is considered the most important part; one or more couples dance free choreographies.
  • Frenté: the man is central; the most important couple improvises to the strokes of the drums.
  • Cinta: only in Santiago, a couple dance around a pole with coloured ribbons.

Clothing and instruments

The women dancers wear long dresses and colourful headscarves, with necklaces and fans; the men wear white shirts and trousers. The instruments are the catá, the premier (the largest drum), the bulá and the second (together the tumbas), the tamborita and the chachás.

The sociedades

Three sociedades remain: La Caridad de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba (since 1862, first called Lafayette), La Pompadour (Santa Catalina de Riccis) in Guantánamo (since 1902) and Bejuco in Sagua de Tánamo (Holguín).

📝 Sources