In contemporary Cuba, a previously marginal cultural expression now publicizes new paradigms in a complex process of social change. Within institutional strategies of cultural preservation and re-education, rumba, a dance of predominantly lower class black-skinned Cubans in the nineteenth century, has emerged as a national symbol of twentieth-century Cuban society. The national status of rumba has been enhanced and institutionalized through a series of monthly public activities organized by the Castro government through the Ministry of Culture. Cuba has chosen to promote a new national and international image and it has done so through rumba more than through any other folkloric dance. Before the Revolution of 1959, Cuban ballet and modern dance received national acclaim while folkloric dances were not particularly encouraged to flourish. Since the Revolution, a shift of support and interest has occurred in Cuban cultural policies. Rumba, a dance and a dance complex, as I will discuss later, is now promoted to express identification with African-derived elements that permeate Cuban culture. It is supported to represent the interests of the working masses and to solidify participation of the artistic community in the social advancement of a new political system. Despite the appropriation of this important cultural expression of the masses by the socialist revolution, rumba is not common within all segments of the Cuban population. It remains a dance primarily performed by dark-skinned Cubans with relatively little direct participation from other segments of Cuban society.

Since 1979, rumba in Cuba has been promoted in ways that other dances have not. Other dances, such as conga and son, are easier to perform and involve the participation of a larger cross section of the total population. As rumba has been appropriated and formalized in its presentation to a national and international public, it has shifted from a spontaneous, improvisational dance to a prepared, manipulated dance. Yet, rumba continues to forcefully embody a significant aspect of national culture for the Cuban people. The goal of this paper is to deconstruct the meaning of rumba and its role in the forging of a new Cuban national identity.

It is generally agreed that attitudes are composed of elements from the affective, behavioral, and cognitive domains. The affective component has been referred to as a feeling or an emotional response of liking or disliking, a gut reaction, or sympathetic nervous activity. The behavioral component includes overt actions or intentions of action, and verbal statements regarding future behavior. The cognitive component includes knowledge and beliefs of the attitude object that describe its characteristics, and its relationship to other objects (Breckler 1984, Katz 1960, Morris and Stuckhardt 1977).

Recent attitude research suggests discriminating between the three psychological domains, either by measuring each or by specifying which one is the focus of concern. Discrimination may be appropriate since the three domains are distinguishable from one another and correlations among them are sometimes moderate (Breckler 1984). Discrimination among attitudinal domains also appears to be necessary since it has been found that directing change at one of the three domains may affect a shift in the other two (Cialdini et al. 1976, Katz 1960), and because differences between groups of subjects may fall within one or two of the domains rather than all three (Quattrone 1985).

The late T. Balasaraswati (1918–1984) is considered one of the foremost exponents of the south Indian dance form known today as Bharata Nātyam. Her mother (Jayammal) was a well-known singer and her grandmother (Vina Dhanammal) was a great vina artist who was a descendant of a dancer and musician (Papammal) in the Tanjore Court in the eighteenth century. Balasaraswati was trained by Kandappa Pillai, the brilliant dance master of the highly codified Tanjore Court style of Bharata Nāṭyam. A supreme artist who dominated the field for a generation and enriched the tradition, Balasaraswati was particularly noted for her interpretations of themes dealing with human striving for union with the Divine.

In the Bharata Nāṭyam concert repertoire the padam has been considered by connoisseurs to be the litmus test for a dancer's artistic range, especially in the Tanjore Court style. This performance item is a rhapsodic song with a poetic text that is used as a medium for the creation of mood through drama, with the dancer using primarily hand gestures, facial expressions, and stylized walking. Critical to this “drama” is the use of hand gestures, known as hastas. Dance gestures are most often referred to as hastas, but are occasionally called mudrās, which is the Sanskrit word used for temple ritual gestures. To eliminate confusion regarding these two words, the hand gestures described here are called hastas. In padams each text line is repeated any number of times with different vocal and dramatic interpretations. The expectation is for the dancer to transcend the given poetic text (sāhitya) and sophisticated music conception of the padam in order to bring life to the hidden meanings and moods.