ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that Rumba means so much and meant a lot because earlier, people who practised rumba were discriminated against. There are people, you know, who study at university, people whose fathers have been to university. Dreiser suggests that the way one learns rumba where and from whom affects the degree to which rhythm becomes embodied. The spaces and relations of rumba training, he argues, hinder or induce the transmission of rhythmic knowledge. He asserts that the dancer or musician that learns rumba in the street, or at home, has' the rhythm more so than those that are school taught. It is these understandings of rhythmic natures that the chapter examines, principally considering whether notions of rhythmic embodiment deploy fixed, flexible or dualistic understandings of the body. Many rumba performers learn to play music and dance at home, in the street, from family members and neighbours over many months and years.
