The Danzas Caribenas CD contains a selection of the numerous elegant danzas, waltzes, pasillos, danzons, mazurkas and polkas from the Caribbean. The danza is generally considered to be the most exquisite and poetic form of 19thcentury Caribbean art, with the first danza being published in Havana in 1803. Traditionally, the danza consists of two or three sections. The first section can be traced back furthest in history, with it's origins in the English country dance of the 16th century. In 18th century France, country dance became contredanse, from which the cotillon and the quadrille developed. The contredanse was very much en vogue in the French colony of Saint Domingue, as Haiti was then called. After a slave rebellion in 1791, numerous French colonists fled to the Cuban province of Oriente, taking their contredanse with them and sowing it's seeds in the fertile Cuban soil. The enrichment of Hispano-Cuban culture with French colonial music at the end of the 18th century was a critical factor - the spark that induced the birth of the Caribbean danza. Henceforth, the French contredance with it's more northern and restrained character became the introduction part of the danza, while the following parts evocate the emotional exuberance of passionate Latin-Iberian chants and of African rhythms. This CD album includes danzas composed by Ignacio Cervantes from Cuba and the Curacaon composers Jan Gerard Palm, Jules Blasini, Joseph Sickman Corsen and Jacobo Palm.