Genesis of Cha-Cha-Cha in the Context of the Features of Latin American Sports Ballroom Dance Programme

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the development of the Cuban Cha-cha-cha dance in historical retrospect and to characterise the performance technique and the emotional and meaningful content of the choreography through the prism of the specifics of the Latin American sports ballroom dance programme. Research methodology. The method of analysis and synthesis, systematisation and theoretical generalisation, the historical-cultural method, the genre-typological method, the method of art analysis and the method of stylistic approach are applied. Scientific novelty. The history of the birth, formation and development of the Cuban Cha-cha-cha dance was studied on the basis of foreign theoretical sources; the process of its standardisation was clarified and the performance technique was considered in accordance with the current syllabus of the Latin American sports ballroom dance programme of the international style; the aspect of emotional and meaningful content of Latin American ballroom dance in general and Cha-cha-cha in particular is analysed, as well as the connection with colonial and plantation culture is traced. Conclusions. The emergence of the Cha-cha-cha dance is directly related to the development of a new genre by Cuban musician E. Yorrin in the late 1940s and early 1950s, known initially as Neodanson (later Cha-cha-cha). Choreographic vocabulary of the Cha-cha-cha, which in its authentic version is a synthesis of African dance elements with elements of colonial plantation and folk Cuban culture, undergoes the process of standardisation by the Imperial Society of Dance Teachers, on the initiative of P. Zurcher-Margolier, as well as further evolution according to the specifics of the development of the Latin American international style sports ballroom dance programme. The characteristic features of the authentic Cuban Cha-cha-cha, preserved in the competitive version, are grounding, leg articulation, hip movements, Cuban movement and timing, prolirhythmicity, sensitivity, dynamics, and playfulness.