WHAT IS SALSA?

It's not just a tasty condiment. Salsa is a Latin Dance associated with the music genre of the same name which originated in the 1960s in New York City. Salsa is a mixture of Cuban Dances that were popular in the ballrooms and nightclubs of Havana by the end of the 1950s as well as American jazz dances. It was primarily developed by Puerto Ricans living in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Different regions of Latin America and the United States have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, Cali Colombia, L.A. and New York styles. Our course focuses more on the L.A. style of Salsa. Salsa dance socials are commonly held in nightclubs, bars, ballrooms, restaurants, and outside, especially when part of an outdoor festival.

In many styles of salsa dancing, as a dancer shifts their weight by stepping, the upper body remains level and nearly unaffected by the weight changes. Weight shifts cause the hips to move. Arm and shoulder movements are also incorporated. The basic Salsa dance rhythm consists of taking three steps for every four beats of music. The odd number of steps creates the syncopation inherent to Salsa dancing and ensures that it takes 8 beats of music to loop back to a new sequence of steps.

Salsa generally uses music ranging from about 150 bpm (beats per minute) to around 250 bpm, although most dancing is done to music somewhere between 160–220 bpm. The music in our beginner course will be MUCH slower than this. We may introduce an intermediate course depending on demand, so let us know if you want more!

(note: most of this information was from Wikipedia)

In this video below, you can see me dancing with fellow professional Louis Van Amstel on Dancing with the Stars to Carlos Santana. While the dancing here is advanced and is not purely a Salsa dance, there are Salsa elements in there.