Rumba Performance and the Politics of Place in the Era of Cultural Tourism 403
Like the Callejon event, the UNEAC and CFN peñas also serve as
“contact zones” between tourists/foreigners and Cubans. In my expe-
rience, the “folkloric hustling” (Knauer 2005)^5 is more pronounced at
the CFN because of the low entrance fee and the fact that the crowd
usually far exceeds the number of chairs set up, resulting in more peo-
ple circulating. At the UNEAC, on the other hand, the majority of the
seating is around the tables set up on either side of the patio, and jine-
teros are less likely to approach foreigners seated at tables. The price of
the UNEAC event is a crucial factor in determining the types of
Cubans who can attend: those who can afford $40 MN are likely to
have foreign friends and/or romantic partner(s), or have a job or nego-
cio (business) that gives them access to dollars, and do not need to hus-
tle tourists.
The rumba event sponsored by the UNEAC, La peña del Ambia
(Ambia’s gathering/event), is the brainchild of the country’s most
famous contemporary black poet, Eloy Machado, known as “El
Ambia.” The valorization of Afro-Cuban culture is a recurring theme
in El Ambia’s poetry, as exemplified in his well-known treatise on the
virtues of practicing various Afro-Cuban religions called “Soy Todo”
(I Am Everything), which was famously converted into a salsa classic
by Los Van Van in the mid-1990s. According to his wife and represen-
tative Graciela, El Ambia initiated his Wednesday peña in 1985 (p.c.,
October 2006), and it has come to represent one of the most presti-
gious regular rumba events in Havana, housed as it is in the stately,
colonial-style site of the UNEAC.
Knauer asserts that El Ambia began the peña with the explicit
intention of legitimizing rumba performance and black cultural
expression by bringing it into a prominent cultural institution
(Knauer: 102). As with the Callejón event, the first rumba group
invited to serve as the house band at the UNEAC was Yoruba
Andabo, and the event was the main catalyst for their transformation- Knauer discusses “folkloric hustling” as a recent phenomenon that has arisen due to
the intense competition among practitioners of Cuban folkloric music and dance to
secure foreign students and the economic benefits they bring (Knauer: 481).