Traditions to Maintain

The stereotype of Cuban music is that it’s a single genre, but the music of the island is an immensely rich kaleidoscope of sounds, styles and formats--a reflection of Cuba’s complex cultural identity.

There’s the son , for instance, the archetypal song form and the precursor of salsa. There’s the danzon , an elegant, refined dance punctuated by flutes and violins, echoing the European influence on Cuban music.

And, of course, there’s the rumba.

The most purely African of Cuba’s many genres, the rumba is a dark, hypnotic style, closely linked to Afro-Cuban religious rituals and based on the combination of soaring vocal chants and dense, interlocking drum patterns.

The rumba’s most celebrated exponent is Los Munequitos de Matanzas, a 16-member troupe of singers, percussionists and dancers whose smoldering concerts have become legendary among Cuban music aficionados. Its latest album, “La Rumba Soy Yo,” is nominated for a Latin Grammy for best folk album.

The group has brought its new show to Los Angeles for a series of performances that includes an evening at the Conga Room on Friday, as well as a variety of dance classes and percussion workshops offered through September at locations around the city.

“We had visited Los Angeles before, but we never had the opportunity to offer so many different workshops,” says the group’s director, Diosdado Ramos Cruz. “For us, it is really important to be able to bring our cultural roots to Los Angeles.”

The group’s name was Guaguanco Matancero when it formed in 1952. Its first record, released in 1953, included the song “Los Munequitos de la Calle,” a reference to the cartoon characters called munequitos in the Sunday comics. The song became such a success that people started to refer to the group as Los Munequitos.

Since then, the troupe has continued to explore the rumba and its three main dances: the yambu (a dance for couples, done with slow, sensuous steps), the columbia (a rural style danced by men only, with dizzyingly complex moves) and the guaguanco (flirtatious and erotic, it is danced by couples reenacting the vicissitudes of courtship and romance).

Fueled by the desire to preserve the rumba, Los Munequitos has kept the music’s traditional roots intact but ever-changing.

“We’re always doing something new,” says Cruz, a soft-spoken man with a smoky voice and sparkling eyes. “The rumba is kept alive because you create, you add new things to it, without, of course, ever losing the potency of the ancestral rituals.”

The genre’s popularity has surged, both abroad and in Cuba.

“1989 was a crucial year for the group,” says Cary Diaz, Los Munequitos’ manager. “The international tours they began and the acceptance they’ve enjoyed since then, especially in the United States, have been extremely important for the development and recognition of the group.”

“People are looking for their roots,” adds Cruz. “Now, everybody wants to be a rumbero .”

Indeed, a new generation of Cuban musicians has fused the rumba with hip-hop, a combination that works particularly well, as in the Afro-Cuban rap of the group Orishas.

“It’s the root of everything,” explains Cruz, 54, the senior member of Munequitos, having joined in 1966. Initially, Los Munequitos was strictly a musical group, based on voice and percussion. Cruz was the first dancer to join the fold.

“To me, Los Munequitos represent the essence of my life. One of its founding members, Esteban Lantri, was like my grandfather because he lived with my grandmother when I was a kid. And my grandmother ... had an extensive knowledge of our folklore. So I’d be 5 years old, and Los Munequitos would come to rumbear and party at my home. I grew up with that.”

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Los Munequitos de Matanzas at the Conga Room, 5364 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Friday, 8 p.m. $20 and $45. (323) 935-0900. Information on workshops is available at (323) 855-3131.