Havana Rakatan

Published Friday 25 May 2007 at 18:35 by Lyndsey Winship

Havana Rakatan gives you everything you’d expect from a Cuban dance show - incredibly sexy dancers relishing some great music, lots of tanned and muscular flesh, shimmying hips and shoulders, fast footwork, snaking arms and plenty of good-time attitude. It won’t change your life, but it’s a great night out.

The first half of the show is a journey through Cuba’s history and the cultural influences that have made their mark on the island, from the flamenco brought by colonial invasion to songs, dances and stories of Congolese and Yoruba slaves. The second half takes more of a concert form, dancing through the popular music of the 20th century, including mambo, bolero, cha cha cha and the rumba through to a modern salsa with hints of hip hop and reggaeton.

With simple sets and lighting changes and great costumes,, they evoke the crowded slums, colourful streets and heady nightlife of the Cuban capital, backed by the percussive drive of seven-piece band, Turquino, and the powerful vocals of singer Geydi Chapman.

The ensemble aren’t always as tight as they could be, but they’re bound to get slicker as the run goes on and there’s enough energy and personality flooding from the dancers for it not to matter. It can be difficult to sustain a concert-style show like this, but just as you think the momentum is ebbing, someone will burst forth with a thrilling physical display - there are some particularly virtuoso gyrations from the male dancers - and the crowd are whooping again.

Havana Rakatan is such infectious feelgood entertainment, I’d already mentally booked a flight to Cuba by the time the curtain went down.