A Little Bit About Salsa
Salsa is a one-of-a-kind dance, both in its musicality and its history. Salsa is danced on an 8-count which has 8 downbeats and 8 upbeats respectively. Depending on the style of Salsa, different movements are performed at different beats. Salsa’s musical uniqueness stems from its asymmetric rhythm given by the clave, which is one of most important instruments in salsa music. The clave rhythm in the regular salsa 8-count is shown below:
Salsa’s extraordinary history can be traced to the fusion of various dances and music from multiple regions across the Americas. What is now known as Salsa has gone through various variations in its history, incorporating features from various Cuban, Colombian, Puerto Rican and New York music and styles. Cuba, Colombia, Puerto Rico and New York remain among the most important centers for Salsa dancing with their different styles of music and dancing, each of which includes its distinct commonalities and unique features. It still remains unclear where the term “salsa” actually originated from, but the term has been used since the mid 1970s to describe the dance in general.
Our Salsa
Salsa@Cal offers many ways for you to learn and improve your salsa skills. We mainly focus our teaching on New York style, which is danced in a line and well defined angles, and Cuban Rueda style that is danced in a group circle with dynamic motion and frequent changes in partner.
Our main offerings, which encompass opportunities to dance both New York and Cuban style, include:
- Our Salsa DeCal has a beginner and an intermediate section that allows you to learn and practice in an organized fashion from our dedicated student instructors. The DeCal is held each semester and involves and application process due to high student demand.
- Our Open Práctica series offers drop-in lessons for beginner and intermediate dancers. The series is open to everyone and requires no dance partner to join. Each week our student instructors will prepare a 1 hour lesson for the community and then open the floor to social dancing for another hour.
- Our Latin Fusion Team enables intermediate and advanced dancers to take their skills to the next level in a performance setting. The performance team requires dedication to mastering dancing technique and perform a choreography designed by one of our student leaders. Given the time and effort our choreographers put into the performance, we expect our performance team members to be dedicated to the team’s efforts and devote the time and effort required to make the performance the best it can be.
Check out this inspirational Salsa from Baila Habana:
We are a student group acting independently of the University of California. We take full responsibility for our organization and this web site.