General
Watch it once, just getting the sense of movement of the dancer's cores
i.e. the vertical line of the spine transected by the horizontal
line through the shoulders.
stately, elegant
feel
circular movement
of partnership called 'rueda' (Spanish for 'wheel')
dancers stay
erect with no compromise of dance height
low turn vocabulary
Son
timing phrased to clave
close partner
distancing, occassionally whole-body contact
partnerships
rotate around a vertical central axis
Specific
picture arm
hand-hold of the Son is different from Western contredanse
position, which allows a more symmetrical elbow position
footwork is
Son basic, which can be mistaken for a latin basic because
of the natural (clockwise) partnership rotation
braking or
checking the natural rotation happens to result in a latin basic (it
is not a purposeful deployment of the latin basic)
floorcraft:
the dancers lead and follow by feel, freeing their eyes to look at
their partners and scan the floor for space
they navigate
to take their turn dancing for the cameraman
all very experienced
dancers: the right shoulder of the lead does not creep forward; neither
does the right arm of the follower push away from the partnership
axis
although the
locations of partnership contact vary, the dance cores remain upright:
no tilting or leaning due to misdirected forces or lack of balance
joint cascade
is present and understated
dancers mark
time as necessary as part of their floorcraft esp. when unsighted
lack of extreme
lead movements: cues are nearly invisible and led from the body
other lead
subtleties not visible to the untrained esp. leading through the surrender
and denial of space in the partnership
all points
addressable through our Level 2 content
Miscellaneous
Boogalu DVDs,
available from www.boogalu.com
and www.descarga.com,
provide a range of instructional videos in the Cuban context
Santiago de
Cuba in Cuba's Oriente is acknowledged as the seat of Son
the song 'Guantanamera'
is originally a guajira, this one has Son elements hence
a guajira-son which develops into a son montuno
band instrumentation
is salon non-standard (grupo or banda) to include a
violin with trumpet
the video
is likely staged, as dancers are well above average in calibre.
