412 Chapter 18
mance. Many famous rumbero families—including members of Afro-
cuba and Los Muñequitos—are from La Marina. Pueblo Nuevo was
also a common site of rumba parties throughout the 20th century
(ibid.: 9), exemplified by the fact that Afrocuba was formed in 1957
principally by musicians and dancers from this neighborhood. The
founding members’ main mission was to return the practice of rumba
to Pueblo Nuevo, where it had declined; at that time rumba was
played spontaneously and regularly only in Simpson and La Marina
(ibid.: 25).
Since I began traveling to Matanzas to conduct research I have
never been aware of a regular peña dedicated exclusively to rumba per-
formance in the city. At the time she wrote her thesis (1989), Grasso
González asserted that Afrocuba and Los Muñequitos de Matanzas
participated in a rumba event called Las tardes de la Rumba (Rumba
afternoons) that took place on alternating Saturdays in Matanzas, but
as her research was conducted in the later 1980s it is hard to ascertain
in which year the event was suspended. I have always been struck by
the different nature and function of Afrocuba performances as com-
pared with the rumba groups in Havana. Afrocuba performances are
usually espectáculo-based, i.e., a prepared show in which an array of
Afro-Cuban sacred and secular folkloric music and dance traditions
are presented. The group rarely performs more than two or three
rumba songs in any given show (unless the event organizers have spe-
cifically requested an all-rumba performance), and they are always
performed after the folkloric dances. These repertoire decisions have
much to do with Afrocuba’s principal artistic mission since they tran-
sitioned from being a rumba group to a full-fledged folkloric group in
1980: to represent and demonstrate in the most comprehensive man-
ner possible the diversity of folkloric music and dance from the prov-
ince of Matanzas. Thus, many of their performances have a didactic as
well as entertainment function, and Afrocuba’s director, Francisco
“Minini” Zamora Chirino, often says a few words before each choreo-
graphed dance about the particular folkloric tradition being repre-
sented. Grasso González’s characterization of the nature of