Salsa

Salsa is a distillation of many Latin and Afro-Caribbean dances. Salsa music has its origins sometime in the 1950s to 1970s, with the truly distinct salsa style coming out of New York in the 1970s.

The music fuses a number of Cuban styles, particularly the son, but also draws from a number of other Latin American musical styles.

Salsa dancing is done on eight-beat music, with dancers moving on three beats, pausing for one beat, dancing for three beats, and pausing for one beat.

The movement style is left-right-left-pause, then right-left-right-pause. During the pause in most salsa dancing some sort of flourish is utilized, be it a stomp of the foot, casting out the hand or kicking the lower leg.

Salsa dancing is mostly a stationary dance, with little movement around the dance floor.

Instead, dancers rely on the subtle movement of their legs and upper bodies to convey the energy of the dance.