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Salsa Club

Join us for a fun and sociable way to Exercise & Relax. Learn to dance at the pace that’s comfortable for you.

Our classes are friendly drop in sessions and suitable for complete Beginners, no previous dance experience required.  Our beginner’s syllabus normally takes around 4 to 8 weeks to complete depending on how many classes you can attend.  If you are more eager to learn on a continuous basis then there are options to structure your progression.

No dance partner required, leaders and followers rotate during lessons, so all the leaders get experience of dancing with all the followers.  The more experienced dancers are welcome to swop roles to support and help our newer members.

For those who wish to develop their dancing skills further we can offer specific choreography courses, skills training workshops and private sessions.  However, these needs to booked and prearranged due to the preparation required.

Feel free to join us even if you don’t want to dance - simply come and chill out during your lunchbreak. 

our Bachata Wheel demo  

 

Contact

Paul Maher,  Paul.Maher@open.ac.uk

Andre Maingot, Andre.Maingot@open.ac.uk 

Jennifer Lau, Jennifer.Lau@open.ac.uk

 

Day/Time/Venue

SALSA – Monday Lunchtime 13:30 – 14:30 -                     OU Club Studio, Wilson A Block

BACHATA - Tuesday Lunchtime 13:00 – 14:00 -         Pavilion Activity Room

SALSA & BACHATA - Tuesday Evening 17:30-19:30 -     OU Club Studio, Wilson A Block

Class Fees

Per Session: £2 Staff/Student or £3 non-staff

Per Week:  £5 for all

Per Month: £10 (membership status)

£5 for ad hoc technical skills or choreography practice/rehearsals/private sessions, etc (booking required as needs to be arranged in advance)

   

Further Information

What is SALSA?

Salsa is one of most interesting & varied of the Latin (tropical/urban) dance genres. The basic steps are formed by two-part patterns to an 8 beat phrase of music.  There are 2 main streams of salsa styles which both are as popular in the UK - CUBAN style (aka CASIONO - step patterns in circular motion), or what we teach is CROSSBODY style (keeping to a linear discipline).

The dance can become more challenging for the experienced dancers as you change and add to the patterns with many combinations within the same 8 beat phrase of music (with no breaks the dance needs faster response and footwork.) ​Some find Salsa harder to understand at first due to the many step patterns, faster tempo and interestingly rich music with many different layers of instruments creating a unique sound that only a Latin band can create and characteristic for salsa music

 

What is BACHATA?
A popular dance that originated from the Dominican Republic and over time have in evolved into distinctive fusion styles & variants (Dominican / Moderna / Sensual / Urban, etc).  

The basic steps are dance pattern of 3 steps & tap to a 4-beat phrase of music.  An easy dance for beginners to start with, which can grow into interesting play on steps & combination to the music for the more experienced dancer.
​Depending on the style of the music and what instruments being used, then it changes the complexity of your movements and blend of steps. The guitar is signature sound of bachata along with other key sounds that adds to its character and style.