Danzón

Abstract

This book studies the emergence, hemisphere-wide influence, historical, and contemporary significance of the danzón. Influenced initially by the European contradance tradition, elaborated as a distinct music and dance form by black performers in nineteenth-century Cuba, and popularized thereafter throughout the Americas, the danzón is a fascinating genre that ties together the entire Atlantic region. It is fundamentally hybrid, reflecting the fusion of European and African elements, and had a strong influence on the development of later Latin dance traditions including the mambo, cha cha chá, and eventually salsa. After coalescing as a style in the 1860s and 1870s, it spread to Mexico, the United States, and the circum-Caribbean, and is still performed today in various locations, particularly Mexico and Cuba. The book focuses on the danzón's appropriation in new contexts and its changing meanings over time, as well as the extent of its influence on other musical forms. After thoroughly describing the danzón as a performance complex, the book considers its role in the development of racial, class, and gender discourses in Cuba and Mexico; its place within larger Afro-diasporic musical flows between the Caribbean and North America; its similarities to early jazz; the wide variety of danzón dance styles popularized in Cuba and Mexico throughout the twentieth century; and the nostalgia that has informed the danzón's revival in Cuba, Mexico, and beyond in the last thirty years.

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