A Sleepless Night of Baila en Cuba

When it’s raining in Havana, people prefer to stay home. And of course, most alfresco nightclubs remain closed whenever the clouds roll over town and threaten to launch a downpour. Mondays are usually tough days. You need to get back in the groove after the weekend rest and resume whatever pending issues were left undone. So, a rainy Monday prompts a few people, worshipers or not, to let out a handful of curses to the saints.

However, this was a different Monday because since Nov. 22 the city of Havana has been stormed by the World Meeting of Casino and Salsa Dancers and Dance Academies, Baila en Cuba, and there’s party wafting up in the air, filled with music, moments to be catered to with might and main, and with body and soul.

The party’s opening day featured emblematic beats of Cuban music, such as son, rumba and mambo that eventually melted into one another under the artistic direction of Santiago Alfonso. It was a chance to showcase Cuban traditions and culture by the hand of music and choreographies.

The closing event of the night was conducted by the Juan Formell & Van Van Band, a top performer that made people shake a leg and proved once again they are known as the Train of Cuban Music.

For that reason and since Nov. 22, the Salon Rosado de la Tropical, a cultural center run by Artex and nestled right in the heart of Buena Vista, is open every night through Friday Nov. 27 to host the tenth edition of the this crowd-luring event. The meeting is organized by Paradiso, a cultural travel agency also run by Artex that this time around is sponsored by such Cuban companies as Bucanero S.A., Corporación Cuba Ron , La Estancia S.A. y Arte por Excelencias magazine from the Spain-based Excelencias holding.

On Monday Nov. 23, Adalberto Álvarez y su Son stepped onto the limelight and the heat was on onstage. People wanted to dance so badly that even language barriers were knocked down: Europeans, Latinos, Asians, Caribbean, Africans… all spoke the language of dance as they started to challenge one another with complex moves and sways in a variety of styles.

Then came a brief pause to catch the breath back, swig a drink and come back to the dance floor, this time up with David Calzado’s Charangueros. They performed some of their latest songs coupled with their earlier smash hits. And when the leader of the band recalled “¡mójame, mátame, pa’ que se entere La Habana, agua mala!” it felt as if the steam given off by the dance would have soared up into the sky to unleash some real rainfall.

But the Charanga Habanera played on and the dance floor was red hot, so nobody cared a whit about the pouring rain that swayed splendidly from a trickle of a drizzling to an all-out downpour of cats and dogs.

Calzado was asking: “Are you going to keep dancing under this much rain?” And the people yelled back: “Yes!” and the rain didn’t seem to let up. Then the band stopped and the music kept on beating in all dancers there. The clock struck midnight but people were not willing to leave the Salón Rosado de La Tropical because that was meant to be a sleepless night of Baila en Cuba.