On son and salsa

[NewsWhore]

The International Congress of Music, Identity and Culture in the Caribbean being held at the Centro Cultural Leon in Santiago focused on son and salsa music in the Caribbean. Interestingly, one of the observations was that while son music is known to have been born in Cuba, it was acknowledged that it developed in the DR. "We have to recognize that while son is a child whose biological parents are Cuban, its adoptive parents were Dominicans, who brought it up, educated, promoted and developed this creature," said Marcela Mirabal, mother of Santiago musician Rafelito Mirabal, who addressed the conference. Danilo Orozco of Cuba spoke about how there is no son by itself, but in plural. He explained that it is intimately tied to its creators' musical experiences, as well as the historic evolution of Cuban culture and its connections, as reported in Hoy newspaper. During the conference, son was described as the most elegant urban folkloric dance.
Sydney Hutchinson of the US focused on the development of variations in the way salsa is danced in New York, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Arizona, Japan, Los Angeles, Colombia, Mexico or the DR. Dominican dance teacher Xiomarita Perez stressed that the most important thing in learning how to dance to a beat is to identify the instruments that keep the beat and follow these, anticipating them while dancing.
During the event, Johnny Pacheco, founder of the Fania All Stars, was declared "Glory of Dominican Popular Music".

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