5 countries to Learn salsa around the world
Juliette , leading a salsa dance class at Reaction’s 10 year anniversary
Hi I’m Juliette, and I’m a professional dancer in New York City
Living in one of the world’s biggest salsa communities, I’ve always been curious about what other salsa scenes around the world were like.
Nearly two years ago, I set out to explore some of the best countries in the world to take class and go to socials.
While writing this article, I realized I had so much knowledge to share from where to take class to what style of salsa each country dances, that I’ve decided to make this a 5-part series which I will be dropping every Tuesday starting Nov 12.
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In this series, we’ll talk about
1) Where to take class
2) What socials should you go to
3) What style of salsa you’ll encounter
Bonus: Where you might watch performances if the country has regular events.
Knowing all 3 of these things will allow you to have the most fun when dancing salsa in another country.
There is nothing more embarrassing then going to a social and thinking you will be dancing on 2 but learning they dance on 1. Being off rhythm while being flung around is supremely uncomfortable. This totally happened to me in Cuba.
This leads me to important note!
It is not uncommon for dance studios to completely gloss over the fact that there are 6 styles of salsa and not tell you which one you are learning.
Sometimes they make it seem like their style of salsa is the only style which in my opinion pisses me off because this leads to weird superiority complexes about who does the best salsa or who knows “the right salsa”. Only the best studios let you know what you are dancing.
But not to worry, I will be breaking down what style you will be learning in each country under each country profile. I am not a complete expert in this so I’ve also taken the liberty to cross reference my knowledge with Dance Dojo’s article on styles of salsa. If you’d like a more in-depth article on each style check this out.
Now it is time to reveal what are the 5 best countries/places to learn salsa.
I’ve personally been to all 5 of these places. This list is in no particular order.
1) Habana, Cuba
2) Cali, Colombia
3) Nueva York (NYC)
4) Barcelona, Spain
5) San Juan, Puerto Rico
I’m super excited to reveal some of my favorite things about all 5 of these places.
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