Habanera (music)

Music of Cuba
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Afro Afro-Cuban jazz Bolero (filin) Canción Chachachá Charanga Conga Contradanza (habanera) Criolla Cubatón Danzón Descarga Guajira Guaracha Hip hop Mambo Mozambique Nueva trova Pachanga Pilón Pregón Punto guajiro Rock Rumba (guaguancó, columbia, yambú, batá-rumba, guarapachangueo) Son (montuno) Songo Timba Trova
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Contradanza (also called contradanza criolla, danza, danza criolla, or habanera) is the Spanish and Spanish-American version of the contradanse, which was an internationally popular style of music and dance in the 18th century, derived from the English country dance and adopted at the court of France. Contradanza was brought to America and there took on folkloric forms that still exist in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Ecuador.

In Cuba during the 19th century it became an important genre, the first written music to be rhythmically based on an African rhythm pattern and the first Cuban dance to gain international popularity, the progenitor of danzon, mambo and cha cha cha, with a characteristic "habanera rhythm" and sung lyrics.

Outside Cuba the Cuban contradanza became known as the habanera – the dance of Havana – and that name was adopted in Cuba itself subsequent to its international popularity in the later 19th century, though it was never so called by the people who created it.

The contradanza was popular in Spain and spread throughout Spanish America during the 18th century. According to musicologist Peter Manuel, it may be impossible to resolve the question of the Contradanza origin, as it has been pointed out by Cuban musicologist Natalio Galán in humoristically labeling the genre as: “anglofrancohispanoafrocubano.”

The most conventional consensus in regard to the origin of this popular Cuban genre was established by novelist Alejo Carpentier, in his book from 1946 “La Música en Cuba.” In that book he proposes a theory that signals the French contredance, supposedly introduced in Cuba by French immigrants fleeing the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803), as the prototype for the creation of the creolized Cuban Contradanza. However, according to other important Cuban musicologists, such as Zoila Lapique and Natalio Galan, it is quite likely that the Contradanza had been introduced to Havana directly from Spain, France or England several decades earlier.

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