Long Island City, New York, USA - Rumba, the spirit and soul of Afro-Cuban music and dance, will be performed at the LaGuardia Performing Art Center’s on May 7.

Raíces Habaneras, a Cuban dance troupe based in La Esquina Habanera (Havana Corner) in Union City, New Jersey, will perform the different styles of rumba in its purest form without alterations and foreign elements.


The group is one of five contemporary international artists featured in “Performance Planet,” a multicultural concert series that celebrates the borough’s rich cultural diversity. The five-concert series’ finale is scheduled for June 14 when Kevin So, a Chinese singer/songwriter whose powerful music is a blend of pop, rhythm, blues, and hip hop, will perform.

The concert will be held in the college’s Little Theatre at 47th Avenue and Van Dam Street in Long Island City. The event begins at 7:30 p.m.

General admission tickets are $12; $7 for students and seniors. To purchase tickets, please call the box office at (718) 482-5151. For information on the other cultural events visit www.lagcc.cuny.edu/lpac.

Since its creation in 1996, the group has performed every Sunday at La Esquina Habanera, a club in Union City.

Aside from playing every Sunday at the club, Raices Habaneras performed at the Fourth Annual Latin Grammy Performance, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, and the Calle 8 Festival in Miami. The group also appeared in the PBS film, “The Cuban Americans,” The Ivan Acosta’s film “How to Create a Rumba,” which was shown at the Lincoln Center Movie Festival, and the Heddy Honnigman’s film, “Dame La Mano,” which was shown at the Gramercy Theatre of MoMA.