Saturday Salsa Classes at City Health Club start September 6th, Register Now
(For Wednesday Classes on Cornell Campus, click Here)
About Us
Salsa in the Fingerlakes is a cultural enterprise dedicated to the enrichment of the Latin cultural scene and community as a whole in the Ithaca area and Fingerlakes Region. This website is just a baby and is being constructed as you read: use this page now to register for Salsa Casino and Salsa Suelta classes at City Health Club in downtown Ithaca. To take classes on Wednesdays on the Cornell campus, click here. And check back in a couple of weeks for the full website version… thank you for visiting!
Class Description
Salsa Casino
Salsa Casino Style is a dynamic form of Salsa which brings out the true collective and expressive essence of Latin music and dance. Class begins with a warm-up of Salsa Suelta (Salsaerobics), where we go over basic step patterns and their variations ("shines"). We then move into partner work, teaching turns and combinations with rotating partners. In Rueda de Casino, dancers change partners and perform known combination moves to the arrangement of a caller. Rueda is one of the best ways to learn Salsa as it allows students to dance with various partners in fluid motion and in a relaxed setting. Rueda moves are easily incorporated into Salsa single partner dancing, and vice versa. The content of each Salsa class and each 6 week session is cumulative and designed for committed learning. Beginner dancers start from scratch and can progress rapidly - the earlier you begin, and the more you practice, the quicker you make strides on the dance floor.
Salsa Suelta: Salsaerobics
Salsa Suelta means "loose Salsa," Salsa danced without a partner. Similar to Rueda de Casino, Salsa Suelta is initiated when people want to party and dance together as a larger group. But instead of dancing in a circle as in Rueda, Salsa Suelta is danced in lines. In this class, the imaginative step routines, gestures and moves of Salsa will be taught in line dance sequence. Moves and routines will be called by the instructor using a variety of techniques, including calling out the name of the move, hand gestures, and body demonstration. Salsa Suelta features Afro-Cuban authentic motions done in a dynamic arrangement and mixed pace. The music tempo ranges from 140 beats per minute (bpm) to 220 bpm. It stresses rhythm, musicality and aerobic motion. For learning purposes, dance material in class will be taught sequentially in an orderly fashion. But as class progresses, the line dance sequences will take on an increasingly spontaneous feel. The purpose of learning Salsa Suelta is to immediately apply these newly acquired skills and rhythmic abilities to the dance floor of the Latin social scene. It also a great aerobic exercise.