Dance Styles at Dance Manhattan

One of the most popular offerings of Salsa and Latin dance classes and lessons in NYC, the Dance Manhattan program features weekly group classes, the original salsa learn-in-a-day crash course, monthly Salsa dance parties, exciting Performance Classes, and a variety of monthly workshops taught by our talented instructors and acclaimed guest artists. Here is an introduction to the dances...

Since Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and ChaCha are often danced together in clubs, we group them together here at Dance Manhattan. Additionally in the latin family is Hustle, as we all may recall from "Saturday Night Fever"!

Salsa

is one of the world's most popular dances. It's lots of fun and many clubs play Salsa. It is based on Afro-Cuban musical roots and while it originated in Cuba as Mambo, many of its music and dance innovations took place in New York City. Currently Dance Manhattan's Salsa classes focus on the (on 2) style popularized in New York, Club Style.

Salsa Video - Rodney and Mariana Performing at Pier 54, Summer 2009

Merengue

is a dance from the Dominican Republic. One of the easiest Latin dances to learn and very simple to follow and make up steps. Beautiful, sensuous body movements are typical. Usually danced to very fast tempos.

Demonstration: Merengue Basics - Rodney Lopez & Amalia Maldonado

Bachata

is another popular dance also from the Domincan Republic. Very rhythmic, it’s danced in a close embrace. Ignored for many years because it was considered the poor people’s dance, it has now become very successful.

Demonstration: Bachata Basics - Rodney Lopez & Amalia Maldonado

Cha Cha

,originating in Cuba as an off-shoot of Mambo, is danced to slower music and has a distinct sound suggesting the "cha-cha-cha" that embodies the scraping sound made by the feet while dancing the triple rhythm added to the middle of the basic salsa movement.

Cha Cha (& Salsa) performed by Latin Jazz Ensemble at Rodney Lopez Monthly Latin Social

Hustle

is danced in clubs to "disco" music with a hard driving beat. Originally called "Latin Hustle" this dance can be pretty fast and very energetic. It is characterized by lots of spins and syncopated footwork for the follower and is fun and challenging.

Hustle demonstration - Audrey Martinez & Lou Brockman

See the breakdown of days/times/levels for all of our exciting Latin and Hustle classes by viewing the study guide(s) or the CLASS SCHEDULE section of this website.