Music starts to play. What do you do?
A. Try to ignore it.
B. Start to shimmy your hips subconsciously.
C. Clear the area to allow yourself the largest possible space, grab an unsuspecting partner and break out into a Paso Doble. Or, work on your krunk. Or, Viennese Waltz your tush all over the place.
The first tips Tony Didier gives for dancing salsa are general ones not necessarily geared toward salsa: Find the beat and connect with your partner.
“When (students) can find the beat, I say, ‘Take a step on the beat,’ and you only take one step,” says Didier, a dance instructor at American Style Ballroom in Fort Wayne.
After the beat is established and a dancer can move in time, he says, the most important thing is to connect with one’s partner physically and visually.
What sets salsa apart from other ballroom dances is that salsa is grounded and heavier than others.
Salsa dancers are more bent over and use their full bodies, whereas other Latin dances, like mambo, can be more upright with a ballroom feel and long, striking lines, Didier says.
Plus, salsa is more authentic: It wouldn’t use any radio tunes, whereas popular songs like Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” are perfect for dancing mambo.
Salsa dancing has a lot of turns and wraps to it, Didier says.
A wrap is where a couple starts out facing each other. The man turns his partner inward so her back is to his chest, and then back around so they’re facing each other again. This wraps their arms around one another.
“It’s fun. It’s sensual,” he says. “It has a lot of attitude to it.”
The article was sourced from here http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20090524/ENT/305249997/1162
