What is salsa? Origins, music and what makes the dance

Salsa is a partner dance to Caribbean dance music with Cuban roots, danced in pairs or in a group, and almost always improvised. Below are the questions people ask most often when they start salsa.

What is salsa? #

Salsa is a music style and the dance that goes with it. The word is Spanish for sauce. It already turned up in song lyrics in the 1930s, for example in "Échale salsita" by the Cuban Ignacio Piñeiro. As the name for a whole music style it became common in New York in the 1970s, mainly through the record label Fania and the Fania All-Stars.

The dance draws on older Cuban and Caribbean dances: son, danzón, mambo, cha-cha-cha and rumba. From the African roots come moving to several rhythms at once, loose movements of the shoulders and hips, and the call-and-response pattern. The partner hold came mainly from the European tradition, through the danzón.

Where does salsa come from? #

From Cuba, with the name from New York. The foundation is the son cubano, which emerged at the end of the nineteenth century in eastern Cuba, in the old province of Oriente. Son combined Spanish elements, such as the singing style and the tres (a descendant of the Spanish guitar), with African ones: the clave rhythm, call and response between singer and chorus, and percussion such as bongos and maracas. Son reached Havana in the first decades of the twentieth century; the exact year varies by source. In the 1920s son overtook danzón as Cuba's most popular music.

In New York, musicians played mambo, son and cha-cha-cha in the 1940s and 1950s. Mambo had its centre at the Palladium Ballroom, which closed in 1966. The Fania label, founded in New York in 1964, launched that music in a big way in the 1970s under the name salsa, including with a Fania All-Stars concert at the Cheetah club (1971) and the film Our Latin Thing (1972). Many of the musicians were Puerto Rican, and with them Puerto Rican genres such as bomba and plena entered the music.

Opinions differ on whether salsa was something new. Tito Puente said he knew no salsa except the kind that comes in a bottle: he played Cuban music. A similar remark is attributed to the singer Celia Cruz, that salsa is Cuban music by another name. Others see salsa precisely as a shared identity for Latin Americans from many countries. According to the sources, the foundation is mainly Cuban, with many other influences, from jazz to merengue.

Colombia developed its own salsa culture, centred on the city of Cali: first around records from Cuba and New York, later with its own orchestras. Research into the history of salsa dancing traces its spread around the world through three cities, New York, Los Angeles and Miami, and shows how salsa became a product taught in classes in the 1990s, separating itself from the mambo of the 1950s.

What music do you dance salsa to? #

To salsa music: lots of percussion, horns, piano and a fixed rhythmic pattern, the clave. The clave runs over two bars and is played as 3-2 or 2-3, after the number of beats per bar.

Typical instruments are bongos, congas, timbales, double bass, piano, tres, horns, claves, güiro and maracas. A charanga orchestra uses violins and flute instead of horns. The tempo is brisk and varies considerably from song to song. Well-known names from its history include Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Héctor Lavoe, and from Colombia Joe Arroyo and Grupo Niche.

How do you count salsa, and what are on1 and on2? #

You count salsa in eight counts, spread over two bars of four. In most styles you step on 1, 2 and 3 and on 5, 6 and 7; on 4 and 8 you don't take a step. On1 and on2 tell you on which count you change direction, the break: on the first or on the second count.

On1 belongs to the style from Los Angeles, on2 to the style from New York, which is close to mambo. Cuban salsa was traditionally often danced contratiempo, without a step on the first count; nowadays it is more often danced on the beat.

My experience: on1 is easier for most people at the start, because that count matches how we hear European music. Switching to on2 afterwards is often harder. And there are more counts than these two. Counting is a tool. Real dancing is also about listening to yourself and to what you want to do with the music, within the basic shape of music and dance. More on this in On1, on2 or Cuban.

What salsa styles are there? #

The best known are Cuban (casino), LA (on1), New York (on2) and Colombian.

• Casino emerged in Havana in the 1950s and is named after the dance clubs, the casinos deportivos; the Casino Deportivo de La Habana is often mentioned. Partners circle around each other. Outside Cuba it is usually called salsa cubana.
• Rueda de casino is the group form of casino. Couples stand in a circle, someone calls out the figures and you keep switching partners. Its origin is usually placed in Havana in the late 1950s; a Cuban news agency describes the rueda as a later development of casino.
• LA style and New York style are danced along an imaginary line. New York style leaves plenty of room for shines: footwork you dance apart from each other.
• Colombian salsa from Cali is known for fast footwork.

What makes salsa salsa? #

A fixed foundation, filled in with improvisation. The lead chooses figures to the music, the follow fills them in, and both keep the basic step and the timing. I call that the contract between dance partners: you stick to the basic shape of music and dance, and within that there is room for whatever you want to do. Step too far outside it, and it no longer works.

Leading and following are roles, not a question of gender. More and more people dance both roles; that is called being a switch. That way you know better what it feels like for your partner (see Lead, follow or switch).

Is salsa hard to learn? #

You learn the basic step in a few classes; dancing together takes longer. In the first class you usually get an introduction to the dance, the basic step and a few elements. You get used to the setting, to rotating partners and to being close to a partner. That closeness is never a free pass to cross boundaries. If something feels wrong, don't assume it is part of the dance.

Can you learn salsa without a partner? #

Yes. You can easily go to a Latin dance school on your own. Partners rotate during class, and schools often fill the classes with experienced dancers. Also read Learning salsa without a partner.

Where do you dance salsa in the Netherlands? #

In classes at dance schools, at socials (dance nights where everyone dances freely) and at festivals or congresses with workshops. My tip: go to a social first to get a feel for the atmosphere, and take a trial class after that.

Find a school through the salsa schools on Discover, for example salsa in Rotterdam, salsa in Utrecht or salsa in Amsterdam. If it is your first time, read Your first dance class and What is a social?.