Casa de la Música
Casa de la Música is the premier live music venue in Havana for contemporary Cuban dance music. With locations in Miramar and Centro Habana, it became the central stage for Timba in the 1990s and remains essential to Havana's live music scene.
During the 1990s — the Special Period following the Soviet collapse — Casa de la Música became the heartbeat of the Timba explosion. The major bands of the era performed here regularly:
- NG La Banda (El Tosco's group, pioneers of Timba)
- Bamboleo
- Charanga Habanera
- Paulito FG
- Manolín "El Médico de la Salsa"
The venue's format — live band, dancing audience, intense crowd–band interaction — was perfectly suited to Timba's call-and-response energy. The musicians would direct the dancers, the dancers would push the band, and the music escalated in real time.
Two Locations
- Miramar — the larger of the two, associated with international-level shows
- Centro Habana — more neighborhood-level, rawer energy
Significance for Dancers
For dancers studying Cuban popular dance, Casa de la Música represents the ideal context: social dancing to live Timba, where the band communicates directly with the floor and the despelote style evolved organically.
The contradanza is the first music that truly sounded Cuban: a European dance form into which 19th-century Cuban composers worked the habanera rhythm and the cinquillo. Contradanza is the name of both the music and the dance.
Lees meer >Dances
- Danzón – The quintessential Cuban ballroom dance, elegant and formal, often seen as the "national dance of Cuba."
- Danzonete – A sung variant of danzón that became popular in the 1920s–30s.
- Cha-cha-chá – Created in the 1950s by Enrique Jorrín while playing with a charanga; specifically designed for charanga orchestras.
- Pachanga – A playful dance and rhythm from the late 1950s/early 1960s, closely linked to charanga bands.
- Mambo (in its earlier Cuban form) – Before the big-band New York mambo, charangas also played early mambo-style danzones.
- Charanga is a Cuban ensemble style and musical tradition that dates back to the early 20th century. It became especially popular in the 1940s–50s and played a crucial role in the evolution of salsa, timba, and Latin jazz.
Lees meer >Timba is the music this site is dedicated to exploring. It emerged as a distinct genre in the late 1980s and crystallized in the early 1990s — born in a moment of social crisis, built on the full accumulated history of Cuban music, and still evolving today.
Lees meer >Cuban Dances Originating in Havana
Havana, the cultural heartbeat of Cuba, played a central role in the creation and evolution of several iconic Cuban dances. Some were born directly in the capital, while others were transformed there into the forms we know today.
Lees meer >Despelote is the most explosive individual dance style in timba — a full-body release of energy that happens during the high-intensity bomba sections of a timba song.
Lees meer >A Cuban popular dance music genre that emerged in the 1980s–90s
- emerged in the 1980s–90s
- influenced by songo, rumba, funk, blues, jazz, pop, rock and Afro-Cuban rhythms.
- Known for complex rhythm shifts, aggressive bass lines, and high energy that push dancers to improvise.
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