Dancing is in the soul of Latin America - and Cuba, an island of just over 10 million people, has turned itself into one of the world’s capitals of dance. Danzon was brought to Cuba by French planters, fleeing the slave rebellions in nearby Haiti. They came mainly to Cuba’s Oriente province, around the city of Santiago de Cuba, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and Santiago became – and remains – the centre of dance in Cuba. Dance was enthusiastically adopted by the locals and as far back as the early nineteenth century travellers to Cuba observed that Cubans took every opportunity to dance. In the same way, visitors to modern Cuba can see Cubans dancing everywhere – while waiting for the bus or working in the kitchen as much as in Cuba’s fabulous Salsa clubs. Some people say the rhythms come naturally to Cubans – others note how children are taught to dance almost as soon as they can walk.