Rumba Performance and the Politics of Place in the Era of Cultural Tourism 401
play and the order of performance (Knauer: 562-3). Havana super-
group Yoruba Andabo was the original house rumba group invited by
González to perform with legendary folkloric singer Merceditas Val-
des when the Callejón event was founded, although the group later
moved on to more profitable gigs (personal communication with
Geovani del Pino, December 2006). Since I began attending the Calle-
jón event, the principal house band has been Iroso Obbá, a group that
has gained international attention since forming around 1999. By the
fall of 2006, an all-female group called Rumba Morena had been
added to the line-up as a second house group, and as their popularity
grew, they began to be offered gigs outside of the Callejón. Most
often, Iroso Obbá played the opening set, Rumba Morena played the
middle set, and the invited group played the last set, with Iroso Obbá
returning for the third set on the Sundays when there was no invited
group. Although groups were technically playing for free at the Calle-
jón event, members of Iroso Obbá and Rumba Morena always circu-
lated after their respective performances soliciting tips from tourists.
State-sponsored rumba events.
The two events that fall into my second category, state-sponsored
rumba events, are the Wednesday rumba at the Unión de Escritores y
Artistas de Cuba (Union of Cuban Writers and Artists, or UNEAC)
and the Saturday rumba at the CFN’s rehearsal and performance site,
called El Gran Palenque. These events were organized under the aus-
pices of prestigious cultural institutions, although they have not always
enjoyed unilateral support from officials within these institutions and/
or local residents. For example, when the CFN established the Satur-
day Rumba in the 1970s, they faced opposition from the residents of
the historically affluent Vedado neighborhood, who complained about
the noise and expressed concern about the event attracting large num-
bers of poor Afro-Cubans. In fact, the majority of rumberos (rumba
musicians) with whom I conducted research feel that rumba still suf-
fers from widespread racialized prejudice within Cuban society, and
that the discursive valorization of Afro-Cuban traditions by the state
rarely translates into practice.^4 The CFN was founded in 1962 by