Pilón Popular – Dance
Pilón is a cheerful Cuban dance and music from the early 1960s, created by composer Enrique Bonne and singer Pacho Alonso, both from Santiago de Cuba. The arms imitate pounding coffee in a pilón (wooden mortar).
- Origin: according to EcuRed, Bonne founded the group Tambores de Oriente in 1961, with congas, bocú, catá, tumbadoras, bells, chekerés and the corneta china. He proposed the new rhythm to his childhood friend Pacho Alonso. The first recording was Baila José Ramón (1964); with Rico pilón by Pacho Alonso and his group Los Bocucos it broke through, and it became popular at the 1965 Havana carnival. Wikipedia says the 1950s.
- Name: according to EcuRed, after the pilón, the hollowed log in which peasants pounded coffee; according to Wikipedia, after the town of Pilón on the south coast. Wikipedia gives the movement as pounding sugarcane, but according to Bonne's biography the dance depicted stirring a vat of roasting coffee beans.
- Music: in 4/4. The piano imitates the Oriente barrel organ, and the stroke on the paila sounds as if coffee is being pounded; tumbadoras and double bass do the same. The rhythm later influenced many Cuban and Latin jazz musicians.
- The basic step: right, left, right; on the strong fourth beat a change step with the left foot back, then the same starting with the left. A variation lifts the knee on the fourth beat. The arms are rounded, the right above the left, with the accent on the fourth beat.
- Legacy: pilón was very popular for a time, but according to EcuRed it did not become a folkloric dance.