Danza

For other uses, see Danza (disambiguation).
A (c. 1900 - 1915) Puerto Rican Cuatro
Music of Puerto Rico
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Danza is a musical genre that originated in Ponce, a city in southern Puerto Rico.[1] It is a popular turn-of-the-twentieth-century ballroom dance genre slightly similar to the waltz.[2] Both the danza and its cousin the contradanza are sequence dances, performed to a pattern, usually of squares, to music that was instrumental. Neither the contradanza nor the danza were sung genres; this is a contrast to, for example, the habanera, which was a sung genre. There is some dispute as to whether the danza was in any sense a different dance from the contradanza, or whether it was just a simplification of the name.[3] Through the first part of the 19th century the dance and its music became steadily more creolized. The music and the dance is creolized because composers were consciously trying to integrate African and European ideas because many of the people themselves were creoles, that is, born in the Caribbean; accepting their islands as their true and only homeland.

Some well-known composers of danzas are Manuel Gregorio Tavárez,[4] "The Father of Puerto Rican Danza",[5] and Juan Morel Campos, considered by many to have raised the genre to its highest level.[6] Others are Cuban Ignacio Cervantes, and Curaçaoan Jan Gerard Palm.

  1. ^ Semana de la Danza. Travel & Sports: Puerto Rico. Retrieved May 7, 2010.
  2. ^ Celebrations in Ponce. Tina Cohen and Ron Bernthal. Off the Beaten Path:Puerto Rico, a Guide to Unique Places. Fifth Edition: 2007. Page 90. Retrieved 8 December 2013.
  3. ^ Léon, Argeliers. 1974. "De la contradanza al danzón". In Fernández, María Antonia (ed) Bailes populares cubanos. La Habana
  4. ^ "Manuel Gregorio Tavárez" Archived 2013-06-23 at the Wayback Machine. Puerto Rico Encyclopedia
  5. ^ "Manuel Gregorio Tavárez" Archived 2013-10-21 at the Wayback Machine The Home of Puerto Rican Danza
  6. ^ "Juan Morel Campos" Archived 2011-07-28 at the Wayback Machine Puerto Rico Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 7, 2010.