A creole language is a stable language that emerges from a mixture of various languages, all at the same time, it maintains elements and vocabulary consistent with the parent languages, while containing original features and syntax unique to itself. The creolization process also applies to cultures, and, of course, to music and dance as cultural expressions. Creolized elements of culture arise from the interaction of heterogeneous elements simultaneously present at a given location. The process of creolization goes beyond simple mixture, to the actual origination of new cultures. Latinoamerican culture is a premium example of this hybridity, and our music and dance forms serve as prime illustrations.
As anybody with some knowledge of the history of the Americas knows, three major cultures were at play in the creolization process: European, Native, and African. In most of mainland Latinoamerica, European was specifically Iberian (Spanish or Portuguese); while in the Caribbean, Brittish, French, and Dutch were also primordial colonizers – not to mention the cultural influence of later Asian immigrants. The cultural groups native to the Americas and the Caribbean were very diverse before colonial times (and continue to be!) To add on top of that, Africans brought during the slave trade came from different regions with diverse cultures too. This immense number of cultural variables account in part to the complexity and variety of cultures across the Americas. Thus, when focusing exclusively in the music and dance genres of Latinoamerica we are encompassing an incredibly wide range of ways of moving and making music, all with different mixtures of European, African and/or Native roots. For example, Cuban and other Hispanic Caribbean singing styles simultaneously contain almost identical survivals of Spanish decimal, as well as the West African complex harmonies and call and response format. In the bodies of Latin dancers coexist the African in the lower body with its bent and flexible knees, low center of gravity, and moving hips, and the European in the lifted upper body (doesn’t it make you think of Spanish flamenco or French waltz?) Isn’t this seemingly contradictory juxtaposition of arrogance and earthiness stereotypical of Latino idiosyncrasy?
What does it mean for us to be all at once African, European, and Native American? How can we identify with aspects of all but at the same time claim our own unique identity? How can all f us be Latinos while being at the same time acutely aware of the differences between regions and countries and even areas? Given that different proportions of the presence and influence of two or all three of the originating cultures in different sociopolitical and environmental circumstances gave rise to a plethora of varied cultures, each with a variety of music and a dance form that fall in different points of the bi or tri-cultural continuum, what are the common thread across our music and dance? I am inclined to believe that it is precisely the process of creolization, out of the same parent cultures and under similar circumstances, what allows us to conceive of a “self” wide enough to include us all. In the case of Latin music and dance it is the commonly repeated elements with their shared roots that identify it as such. Furthermore, cultural creolization, although a process inevitably influenced by the particular relationships of power between the original cultures at play, eventually creates a new independent identity that gives us the freedom to move forward in the ability to identify as one. It’s the African drums, with the European guitars or accordions, and the Native guiros or quenas, which created a dance and music culture with specific, recognizable, shared roots, that is also uniquely our own.
