Whats the history behind Casino/Rueda?
There is some debate as to how the dance was created, though legend has it that it came from a club in Cuba in the 50s called ‘El Casino Deportivo’. Many great dancers gathered there for friendly competitions. They would practice all week to invent new moves and go to the club to show them off. Sooner or later they began to dance the moves together. In order to keep a distinction between one move and another, they began naming them and Rueda de Casino was born. As a result of the Castro regime, many Cubans immigrated to the US, a large portion of which came to the Miami area. With them they brought their culture including various foods, music and dancing. Rueda de Casino began to slowly make its way into the Miami salsa community and in the late 1980s and early 1990s it experienced an enormous explosion of popularity. There it has been so embraced, that one is hard-pressed to find a nightclub in which Casino or Rueda is not danced. Salsa Casino has evolved in Miami to such an extent th
