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Documentaries

Home > Resources > Documentaries

A list of documentaries

  • Musica Cubana - A Story to be Told (2019)
  • A Tuba to Cuba (2018)
  • Buena Vista Social Club: Adios (2017)
  • Havana Club Rumba Sessions: La Clave (2015)
  • La salsa cubana (2011)
  • The Black Roots of Salsa (2010)
  • El Benny (2006)
  • Evolution of Cuban Music (2004)
  • ParaĂ­so (2003)
  • Cuba Feliz (2000)
  • Son SabrosĂłn: Antesala de la Salsa (1999)
  • Congo Religion in Cuba (1999)
  • Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
  • Yo Soy Del Son A La Salsa (1996)
  • La Rumba (1978)
  • Y Tenemos Sabor (1967)
  • Nosotros La MĂșsica (1964)
  • Tam Tam origen de la rumba (1938)

Home

Dance
Dance

  • Cuban rumba
    Cuban rumba

    Cuban rumba is an Afro-Cuban music and dance genre characterized by complex rhythms, call-and-response vocals, and expressive, often flirtatious movements, rooted in African and Spanish traditions.

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Music

  • Examples
    Examples

    This section is dedicated to the musical magic of timba"> Timba and Salsa, specifically designed for dancers who want to deepen their understanding and connection to the music. We will take you on a journey through the rhythms, melodies, and musical structures that make these genres so unique.

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Artists
Artists

The people and groups behind Cuban music and dance — individual figures and the ensembles they built.

  • Figures
    Figures

    Musicians, composers, dancers, scholars, and filmmakers whose work is referenced throughout this site — the people who made Cuban music and dance what it is.

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  • Ensembles
    Ensembles

    Orchestras, conjuntos, charangas, and ensembles whose music shaped Cuban dance — from the classic son sextetos of the 1920s to the timba"> timba bands of the 1990s.

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  • Dancers
    Dancers

    The dancers who defined how Cuban popular dance looks and moves — performers and teachers who shaped the vocabulary of timba"> timba, casino, and Afro-Cuban dance on stage and on the social floor.

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History
History

Cuban music and dance did not evolve in a straight line — it grew in layers, with African, European, and Indigenous traditions colliding, merging, and transforming across four centuries. This page traces that evolution from the earliest colonial forms through to timba"> timba.

  • NengĂłn and ChangĂŒĂ­
    NengĂłn and ChangĂŒĂ­

    Before son, before danzĂłn, before any of the named genres — there was NengĂłn and ChangĂŒĂ­ in the mountains and valleys of eastern Cuba (Oriente, especially GuantĂĄnamo province). These are the oldest surviving roots of Cuban popular music.

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  • Contradanza
    Contradanza

    Contradanza

    The contradanza was the first European-derived dance form to take root in Cuba and begin transforming under African influence. It is the starting point of the Cuban salon dance lineage that would eventually produce danzĂłn, mambo"> mambo, and cha-cha-chĂĄ.

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  • Bolero Cubano
    Bolero Cubano

    The Cuban bolero is one of the great romantic song traditions of the world — slow, intimate, and deeply emotional. It is entirely distinct from the Spanish bolero (a fast 3/4 dance) and emerged in Cuba as a vehicle for the island's most heartfelt lyric expression.

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  • Danza
    Danza

    The danza was the evolutionary step between contradanza and danzón — a more intimate, more Cubanized couple's dance that dominated Havana's salons in the second half of the 19th century.

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  • Rumba
    Rumba

    Rumba is the most African-rooted of all Cuban music and dance forms — born in the streets, courtyards, and docks of Havana and matanzas"> Matanzas in the late 19th century, with no European instruments, no salon setting, and no pretense of European propriety.

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  • DanzĂłn
    DanzĂłn

    Danzón was the first national dance of Cuba — the form that unified the island's popular music identity in the late 19th and early 20th century, and the ancestor of mambo"> mambo, cha-cha-chá, and ultimately timba"> timba.

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  • Guaracha
    Guaracha

    The guaracha is Cuban popular music's great satirical tradition — fast, comedic, irreverent, and rhythmically playful. It has coexisted with every major Cuban genre since the 19th century, never dominant but never absent.

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  • Son
  • Mambo
    Mambo

    Mambo was Cuba's first global music explosion — the form that put Cuban rhythms on dance floors from New York to Tokyo in the late 1940s and 1950s, and the direct ancestor of the Latin big band sound.

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  • Cha-cha-chĂĄ
    Cha-cha-chĂĄ

    The cha-cha-chá was born from a simple observation: dancers were struggling to follow mambo"> mambo. Its creator gave them a rhythm they could feel in their feet — and the result became one of the most danced music styles in history.

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  • Casino
    Casino

    Casino is the Cuban partner dance born in the social clubs (casinos deportivos) of Havana in the 1950s. It is what Cubans call their own social dance — distinct from, and older than, what the rest of the world calls "salsa."

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  • Songo
    Songo

    Songo is the direct bridge between traditional Cuban music and timba"> timba. Developed by Los Van Van in the early 1970s, it rewired Cuban popular music by absorbing funk, rock, and jazz into the Afro-Cuban rhythmic foundation — and laid every groundwork that timba"> timba would build on.

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  • Timba
    Timba

    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.

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Cuba
Cuba

Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and the birthplace of some of the world's most influential music and dance traditions. African, Spanish, and French cultural streams collided here over centuries of colonial history, producing an extraordinary creative culture that exported itself across the globe.

  • Havana
    Havana

    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.

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  • Matanzas
    Matanzas

    The following dances have their origin in Matanzas:

    • Rumba
    • YambĂș
    • GuaguancĂł
    • DanzĂłn
    • AbakuĂĄ
    • Arara

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  • Santiago
    Santiago

    Easternmost province of Cuba.

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  • Oriente
    Oriente

    Oriente, the eastern region of Cuba, is the cradle of vibrant music and dance traditions like Son, ChangĂŒĂ­, NengĂłn, and KiribĂĄ, which shaped the roots of Cuban and Latin music.

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  • Other Places

Resources
Resources

Documentaries and books about Cuban music and dance — films to watch and books to read alongside the content on this site.

  • Documentaries
    • A Tuba to Cuba
      A Tuba to Cuba (2018)

      A New Orleans brass band travels to Havana to trace the African roots shared by Cuban and New Orleans music. The rhythmic connections they discover illuminate just how deep the Cuban contribution to the Americas runs.

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    • Buena Vista Social Club: Adios
      Buena Vista Social Club: Adios (2017)

      The final chapter of the Buena Vista Social Club story — a farewell tour documentary following five of the original musicians through their last performances. Intimate, elegiac, and full of the music that made them famous.

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    • Havana Club Rumba Sessions: La Clave
      Havana Club Rumba Sessions: La Clave (2015)

      A six-episode video series produced by Havana Club featuring master rumberos explaining and performing clave — the rhythmic foundation of all Cuban music. Essential viewing for any dancer working on musicality.

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    • La salsa cubana
      La salsa cubana (2011)

      Inside Havana's casino scene: this film follows Cuban dancers in their own environment — social gatherings, dance schools, the streets — building toward a rueda de casino competition. The closest thing to being in Havana without being there.

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    • The Black Roots of Salsa
      The Black Roots of Salsa: The Emancipation of Cuban Rumba (2010)

      A documentary tracing the African heritage at the core of Cuban music — from the specific nations and traditions that arrived in Cuba through the development of rumba and its transformation into popular music. Essential background for understanding where the movement vocabulary of Cuban dance comes from.

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    • Evolution of Cuban Music
      Evolution of Cuban Music (2004)

      Also released as Cubanissimo, this documentary surveys Cuban music history through interviews with influential artists and archival footage — a useful broad overview of how Cuban popular music developed across genres and decades.

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    • ParaĂ­so
      ParaĂ­so (2003)

      A road-movie documentary following Madera Limpia, a band from GuantĂĄnamo, through rehearsals, performances, and the streets of eastern Cuba. An intimate portrait of contemporary Cuban music-making outside Havana.

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    • Cuba Feliz
      Cuba Feliz (2000)

      A quiet, intimate portrait of Cuba's musical life — following "El Gallo," an aging street musician, through homes, bars, and plazas across the country. Less about genre or history than about how music lives in Cuban people.

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    • Son SabrosĂłn: Antesala de la Salsa
      Son SabrosĂłn: Antesala de la Salsa (1999)

      Part of the Vengo de Cuba series, this documentary traces the origins and development of son cubano — the rhythmic and melodic foundation of all Cuban popular dance music — through interviews, performances, and archival material.

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    • Buena Vista Social Club
      Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

      Directed by Wim Wenders, this is perhaps the most famous Cuban music documentary ever made. It follows Ry Cooder's reunion of forgotten Cuban musical masters — son, bolero, and danzón veterans in their 70s and 80s — through recording sessions in Havana and performances in Amsterdam and New York.

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    • Yo Soy Del Son A La Salsa
      Yo Soy Del Son A La Salsa (1996)

      A Cuban documentary tracing the historical arc from son to salsa — following how Cuba's foundational popular music genre transformed as it traveled to New York and back, and what got gained and lost in translation.

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    • Y Tenemos Sabor
      Y Tenemos Sabor (1967)

      A 1967 ICAIC documentary directed by Sara GĂłmez exploring the African roots of Cuban music through performances, instrument demonstrations, and conversations with musicians. One of the earliest serious film treatments of Afro-Cuban musical heritage.

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    • Nosotros La MĂșsica
      Nosotros La MĂșsica (1964)

      A landmark Cuban documentary directed by Rogelio ParĂ­s presenting a panorama of popular Cuban music in the early post-Revolution years. Features some of the most important musicians of the era performing in their prime.

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    • Tam Tam origen de la rumba
      Tam Tam origen de la rumba (1938)

      A short Cuban musical film from 1938 dramatizing the origins of rumba through performance — one of the earliest surviving film documents of Cuban popular dance and music.

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    • La Rumba
      La Rumba (1978)

      A 45-minute ICAIC documentary directed by Oscar ValdĂ©s tracing the origins, styles, and social life of Cuban rumba. Mixes street performances, staged numbers, and interviews with top rumba performers of the era — essential viewing for any dancer.

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    • Congo Religion in Cuba
      Congo Religion in Cuba (1999)

      A 33-minute documentary about Palo Monte — the Kongo-derived Afro-Cuban religion — exploring its rituals, music, dance, and relationship to other Cuban traditions. Directed by Luis A. Soto with research by Tato Quiñones.

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    • Musica Cubana - A Story to be Told
      Musica Cubana - A Story to be Told (2019)

      A 2019 documentary exploring the extraordinary musical diversity of contemporary Cuba — from classical and jazz to son, timba"> timba, and electronic music — through performances and conversations with Cuban musicians working today.

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    • El Benny
      El Benny (2006)

      A biographical film about Benny MorĂ© — "El BĂĄrbaro del Ritmo" — the greatest Cuban popular singer of the 20th century. Not a documentary but a dramatic feature, El Benny reconstructs the life of the musician who more than anyone else embodied the feeling of Cuban popular music.

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    Documentaries

    A list of documentaries

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  • Books
    Books

    Books for Cuban dancers — covering movement, history, rhythm, and the cultural context behind the music and dance this site explores. Each entry includes a description of what the book covers and why it is worth reading.

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