Cha-cha-chá Salon – Dance
Cha-cha-chá is a Cuban dance and music that violinist Enrique Jorrín created, according to EcuRed, as early as 1948, based on the danzón. La engañadora became a huge hit in 1953. The name comes from the shuffling sound of the dancers' feet.
- Origin: according to EcuRed, Jorrín saw that many dancers struggled with mambo, and created a new rhythm "for the Cubans who can't dance mambo".
- The dancers: at the Silver Star society, on the corner of Prado and Neptuno in Havana, and later in all the city's dance halls, dancers worked out steps to fit the new rhythm. They shuffled left and right on "one, two; one, two, three", and that sound gave the dance its name.
- The step: four beats, like the music, with two slow and three quick steps, plus a pause. Its main feature is the hip movement.
- The music: played by charanga orchestras (flute, violins, piano, bass, güiro, timbales); the güiro seems to say "cha-cha-chá".
- Worldwide: internationally known from 1951; in the mid-1950s, according to Wikipedia, cha-cha-chá replaced mambo as the most popular dance in North America. Today it is part of ballroom competitions in the Latin American category.