Salsa Dance
We offer salsa dance classes at West Roxbury
School of Dance:
Perhaps you've tried salsa dancing in a club or party setting
and you want the basics broken down for you, or you've just heard
how exciting the dance really is; by taking each dance pattern
step by step and building on what you just learned, you're absolutely
guaranteed to succeed, and to love it. Experience the joy!
Salsa Dance is danced to music with a recurring eight-beat pattern,
i.e. two bars of four beats. Salsa patterns typically use three
steps during each four beats, one beat being skipped. However,
this skipped beat is often marked by a tap, a kick, a flick, etc.
Typically the music involves complicated percussion rhythms and
is fast with around 180 beats per minute (see salsa music for
more).
Salsa is a slot or spot dance. Unlike Foxtrot or Samba, in Salsa
a couple does not travel over the dance floor much, but rather
occupies a fixed area on the dance floor. In some cases people
salsa dance in solo mode.
History of Salsa
Salsa music is a fusion of traditional African and Cuban and
other Latin-American rhythms that traveled from the islands (Cuba
and Puerto Rico) to New York during the migration, somewhere between
the 1940s and the 1970s, depending on where one puts the boundary
between "real" salsa dance and its predecessors. There
is debate as to whether Salsa originated in Cuba or Puerto Rico.
Then again, it is a debate, and there is the possibility that
it could have originated in both places or only one. Salsa is
one of the main dances in both Cuba and Puerto Rico and is known
world-wide. The dance steps currently being danced to salsa music
come from the Cuban son, but were influenced by many other Cuban
dances such as Mambo, Chá, Guaracha, Changuí, Lukumí,
Palo Montel, Rumba, Yambú, Abakuá, Comparsa and
some times even Mozambique. It also integrates swing
dances. There are no strict rules of how salsa should be danced,
although one can distinguish a number of styles.
- Cuban style salsa
- Colombian style salsa
- Los Angeles style salsa
- New York style or Eddie Torres style
- Power 2 / Palladium 2 / Ballroom Mambo
- Puerto Rican style salsa
- Rueda style
When joining our salsa, merengue, and other dance classes,
note that our OUT to Dance studio locations, West Roxbury and
Roslindale, are within twenty minutes of downtown Boston, Dorchester,
Jamaica Plain, Hyde Park, Brighton, Allston, Brookline, Newton,
Chestnut Hill, Dedham, Norwood, Needham, Westwood, Milton and
Quincy; and within 25 to 35 minutes of Cambridge, Somerville,
Arlington, Wellesley, Natick, Waltham, Braintree, Brockton, Stoughton,
Canton, Foxboro, Weymouth and surrounding towns.
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