MAN: Salsa dance for people, it's actually a passion, it's a culture, it's a family thing.

You know, it's something you grew up with.

WOMAN: Salsa is a term created in the United States to define several rhythms that were born in Cuba.

MAN: The best way I can put it is flavor and tradition.

Salsa is a mixture of flavors.

In music, I believe it's the same thing obviously from the Latin traditions.

(claves playing steady rhythm) (clapping to the rhythm) (salsa music playing) (people cheering) MAN: We come from all over, and we become one state, where we share in the history and become part of the culture that is Florida.

The Florida Humanities Council, bringing Floridians together by sharing the stories of our state.

(salsa music playing) WOMAN: Salsa dance is a dance that is syncopated.

It comes from a long tradition of African dances in the Americas, including mambo.

WOMAN: Salsa dance has many connotations.

It's a product of Creolization, of mixing of cultures in the new world, primarily European and Hispanic, not very much of the indigenous culture.

MAN: When you dance salsa, you forget about everything.

WOMAN: You disconnect from all your worries, and you just concentrate on having fun.

WOMAN: I think it's a combination of all those things.

It's a combination of rhythm, timing, connecting to the music, connecting to your partner, and I also think it takes a lot of passion.

NARRATOR: It's a pastime that feels modern, young, exciting, and new.

But the Latin dance we all know today as "salsa" has deep roots.

It evolved from a mixture of Latin rhythms and dances, primarily from the Caribbean islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Its origin can be traced to the percussive African rhythmic pattern developed in Cuba known as "clave."

Clave, basically, is a way of unifying the many voices of the African people and the many cultures that were brought to Cuba during slavery.

Most of the countries that feed into salsa are countries that were colonized by Spain.

And the European traditions, particularly the Spanish tradition, gives us an upright carriage... ...and partner dancing.

So from the African traditions, you have the isolation of the body, the movement of the hips, and you have some spectacular isolations of the torso.

And from the European, you have the partnering.

I think "salsa" is an umbrella term that embraces rhythms originating in Cuba.

(singing in Spanish) (music playing) Many of them were Son, Montuno, Guaracha... Mambo... Cha-Cha-Cha.

♪ ♪ Those rhythms lingered in the United States when Cuba became communist.

COMMANDER: Fire!

(gunshots) NARRATOR: In the 1960s, exiles of the Cuban revolution found their way to New York City.

They had lost their homes, their friends, and their families.

Around the same time, Puerto Ricans also were immigrating to New York in search of work and a better life.

DELGADO: And in this alien world of New York, people preserved their identities through music and dance, and this time creating a new form based on the old forms, which is salsa.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: This immigrant community would gather at a fashionable dancehall on 53rd and Broadway known as The Palladium.

Originally famous for the jazz band music of that era, it now attracted a new clientele as a hot spot for Latin music.

The mixture of Latin rhythms and sounds emanating from its doors drew all those in search of a piece of their cherished past while offering a window to new opportunities and a freedom from discrimination, racial, and sociopolitical issues.

There, all were welcomed, so long as you were willing to dance.

And dance they did.

♪ ♪ Many believe the mélange of music played there gave way to the modern-day salsa of the '70s, which would soon take America by storm.

TORRES: The Palladium era, many people embraced many of their rhythms.

All these Latin American people from Dominican Republic, Colombia, Puerto Rico, they also added their own rhythms.

DELGADO: There's a big controversy about the origins of salsa.

Cubans claim it's really just another name for Son.

MAN: Everybody has their own little story on how it started.

From what I've researched, it used to be called Son.

Cubans, we call it Son.

When you tell a person in his late 60s or 70s from Cuba "salsa," they're like, "What's salsa?

Salsa is something you eat."

But to them, it's called Son.

DELGADO: If it's something passed down by friends and family, that's social salsa.

But in the last decade or so, salsa has really become a studio phenomenon.

ANDREA SEIDEL: Most people think of salsa, they first think of the music.

As a dancer, I first think of the dance, but the popularity of the dance I think has... in more recent years has changed-- that salsa dance is really coming into its own.

And there are many different styles.

There is the casino, the Cuban Casino, here in Miami.

Miami Salsa... ♪ ♪ We call it "Casino/Rueda."

Casino/Rueda is what we normally call it.

So, you know, Casino/Rueda is a Cuban dance.

A lot of people don't understand it, but it's a way of meeting people.

It's where you can socialize more when you're dancing salsa.

If you get bored dancing with your girl or guy, you can jump into Rueda and dance with everybody.

I call it the Latin square dancing.

It is, it's Latin square dancing.

NARRATOR: In April of 1980, Cubans seeking political asylum from Fidel Castro's regime engaged in a mass exodus to the U.S. As many as 125,000 Cubans reached the south Florida shores during the Mariel boatlift.

GUEITS: I was in 7th grade with the Mariel boatlift, and a lot of Cubans came, casineros came, a lot of dancers came.

So you saw those casineros started infiltrating the clubs in the '80s, in the '90s.

For me, salsa dance started in actually 1994 because before that, I was dancing with my grandmother at home with everybody.

We grew up as Latinos dancing salsa, but in '94 is when it sort of took off.

I went to a club called Mystiques.

I saw those people doing it and I was hooked.

Mystiques started actually teaching it.

They didn't have a syllabus to teach it, but they were teaching it.

They got a couple of dancers, they started doing salsa classes there.

That's where I saw it.

NARRATOR: Although they came to Miami at a young age, this pair would continue to honor their Cuban heritage through dance.

They would later become known as the pioneers of Miami Casino/Rueda salsa.

♪ ♪ When we started dancing Rueda, we used to go to Mystiques and we used to have those couples that we all learned together, and he used to invent all kinds of steps.

I remember when my parents used to dance.

My mom was a good dancer.

Same story with me.

My parents were dancers, my grandparents were dancers, and it's in our blood.

We never stopped listening to it, even though we grew up here in the States.

GUEITS: Gerry and Marlene are amazing people.

I met them in club Mystique, and they were actually one of the couples that were teaching and leading those classes every Thursday night with Ramani, with a bunch of other instructors.

And they were actually one of the people that I learned from.

GERARDO: I think it was six couples.

Rene Gueits was one of them.

I think two months later, we had 600-and-some people in the club.

It got to the point where we just couldn't fit people in the club.

They were dancing in the club, they were dancing in the hallways.

NARRATOR: Soon progressing from an avid student to a passionate dance instructor, Rene would spark the salsa dance boom in Miami's studios.

One, two, three, se fue.

One, two, three, five, six, seven, keep going.

I just took it and broke it down like a ballroom style, you know?

I broke it down to a syllabus so I could be able to teach other people.

One, two, three... See, look, look, look, she already knows I'm going to spin her.

In her head, she already knows I'm going to spin her.

One, two, three, five, six, seven.

Throw the arm, pick her up.

Okay, so the feeling is one, two, three, and five, six, seven.

You felt the feeling?

And that's how I started Salsa Lovers.

NARRATOR: Sunny south Florida is home to hundreds of salsa dance studios, but the salsa sensation continues to spread, with studios popping up all over the United States and around the world.

From Europe to Asia, salsa bridges the cultural divide and continues to bring people together.

Like Merici and Jose, who first met while taking salsa lessons.

MERICI (speaking Spanish): JOSE (speaking Spanish): MERICI: JOSE: GUEITS: Salsa is actually the social media of dance.

It's a way of meeting people also.

There's a lot of people that met through Salsa Lovers.

A lot.

Hundreds of people that met through here.

NARRATOR: The dancers socialize, connect, and engage in their shared passion of dance.

While learning new steps and turns, some even find unexpected love and romance.

MERICI: And it's great for couples too.

You want to improve your marriage?

Dance salsa.

SEIDEL: There's an embrace going on, there's a physical contact, a physical touch.

And we're innately sensual beings, and, you know, it's very easy to find the fun of flirtation, of playing.

Even if one isn't necessarily attracted to that person, that kind of play, I think, is inherent in the dance-- the fun of getting close, of going away.

And it's kind of like the game of relationships, that you approach, you go away.

MERICI: GUEITS: When people ask me who dances salsa, I tell them everyone dances salsa.

Singapore, China, Australia, they dance salsa all over the world.

And there's people in Switzerland that dance salsa amazing, better than the Cubans.

NARRATOR: Zin Chan is a shining example of how the dance has crossed cultural boundaries and backgrounds.

ZIN CHAN: I'm from Burma, Myanmar.

It's a country south of China.

I came here when I was eight years old.

NARRATOR: Little did she know how much salsa would impact her life years later.

CHAN: One of my really good friends asked me, "Do you want to join this newly formed salsa group that I'm going to start up soon?"

And I'm like, "What's salsa?

"I don't know what that is.

You eat chips or something, and you eat it with salsa?"

And he's like, "No, it's not food, it's a type of dancing."

In the beginning, I was so lost.

As I started doing it more and more, I started loving all the social parties that went along with it, and as I got better with my following doing salsa, I really appreciated the connection that you make with people as you dance.

SEIDEL: I think the amazing thing about dance is that it's so innately human.

And in the West, people think, they'll say, "I can't dance, I have two left feet," but really, if they go back to when they were two years old and you put music on, you watch any child instinctively, or even younger than that, and they will move, and they will sway to the music.

Our heartbeat is always beating at a consistent rhythm.

It may be fast, it may be slow.

So we're innately rhythmic GUEITS: Two important elements of dancing salsa: you have to have rhythm, first of all, and second of all, you have to be open-minded-- to be able to take, to be able to learn.

One, two, three, four, five, six, and push straight... Everybody can be taught rhythm.

People that say, "Oh no, I have two left feet..." It doesn't matter, because a person that hears rhythm...

I'm telling you, I've seen Latinos that have zero rhythm.

They think that Latinos have the best rhythm.

And I've seen people that are Anglos that have amazing rhythm, you got it?

So if you can play a drum, if you can play a guitar, anything, you can have rhythm.

So you can be taught rhythm.

Being born with it is because Latinos, we hear a lot of salsa.

When you're a baby, you kind of start hearing it.

But there's Latinos that their parents didn't play music at all, so when they get to 45, 55, they have no rhythm, so they got to learn it.

But yes, you can be taught rhythm.

CHAN: When you go to a salsa club, or when you're having fun with your friends in a club, you don't really look at, "Oh, are they good-looking?

Are they wearing nice things?"

It doesn't really matter anymore.

It's like, "Who's the best dancer there?

Who can I learn the most from?"

So I really love that aspect of salsa dancing.

It doesn't matter how you look like, what you did as a career, it doesn't matter about anything except the fact that you can dance and you can make that instant connection on the dance floor.

SEIDEL: When people discover dance, particularly in salsa, which comes very naturally to the body, not necessarily the complexity of the steps, but just the rhythmic nature of it, which is very clear and direct, it's compelling, it can be joyful, it brings great pleasure to people.

CHAN: I like performing and I like doing it just for myself because it makes me happy.

It's not because of money or it's not because I want to perform.

You know, when I dance, it makes me happy.

NARRATOR: Salsa's rampant growth has transformed the art form.

The dance continues to evolve as it gets passed on through generations and moves to new locations.

♪ ♪ DELGADO: There's what people call the Cuban style, which I think has been greatly nourished by Miami's dance culture.

♪ ♪ There's the New York style.

♪ ♪ And there's also more recently the L.A. style... ...which is much influenced by Hollywood, and it's got a lot of spectacular moves and dips and flips that really are showbiz more than something coming directly from any Latino or West African tradition.

Traditionally with Casino, we would dance on the down beat, meaning one, three, five, what have you, but as we started getting people exposed to the Casino style, the best way to teach it would be on one.

In L.A., L.A. style would be on one.

New York style, they dance on two.

Puerto Rico, they normally dance on two.

NARRATOR: In salsa dance, music is divided into eight counts.

One, two, three, five, six, seven!

NARRATOR: You can step on the first count of the eight-count pattern, and that is called "dancing on one."

Or you can step on the second count of the eight-count pattern, and that is called "dancing on two."

Dancing on one, you break on the first count.

And... One, two, three.

Five, six, seven.

One, two, three.

Five, six, seven.

You pause on four and eight.

Dancing on two, you break on the second count.

And... two, three, four.

Six, seven, eight.

Two, three, four.

Six, seven, eight.

You pause on one and five.

You can kind of hear the difference.

It has a little flow to it that's different.

Now, whether you start with your right or your left, it depends really where you're from.

However, it's the same eight counts.

These performers do not get paid to be on stage, so they do it for the love of dance.

So please give a round of applause, start now!

(speaking Spanish) (music playing) NARRATOR: Despite the different styles, forms, and evolutions of the dance, salsa has become a worldwide phenomenon.

And the best salsa dancers showcase their interpretations at highly anticipated events known as salsa congresses, the leading expos of salsa dance on an international scale.

They take place in England, Italy, Japan, Colombia, Switzerland, and Spain, just to name a few, and in American cities and territories, such as New York, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, and, of course, Miami.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ GUEITS: When I was traveling around the world, I was invited to all these salsa congresses to do Rueda.

I said to myself in 2002, "Why don't we have one in Miami?"

So I asked a friend of mine that was producing these events, "Would you start one with me?"

And he said yeah.

In 2002, we did the first one, and then from there on, we took it to the beach and it's taken off, and it's been 13 years.

And it's become from a 600-person event to over 5,000-person event.

And it's become a massive monster every year.

NARRATOR: And remember Zin?

This year, she has worked her way through the ranks and performs on stage.

I don't think I'll stop dancing ever.

I'm probably gonna keep doing this for the rest of my life.

And even if I'm really old, as long as I can still move my feet, I think I'll keep dancing salsa.

♪ ♪ Like the dance itself, the salsa sensation is constantly changing, always moving.

It's never fixed, never still, but spreads across cultural borders, adapting, mixing, and inviting everyone to join in the dance.

GUEITS: I think it's gonna keep growing.

I think as we keep getting salsa competitions like the World Latin Cup, ESPN is doing it, I think as we keep evolving and people, promoters like myself, or teachers keep teaching people how to dance salsa, it doesn't matter if it's Cali or on two or Casino/Rueda, I think salsa is gonna evolve, and I hope it keeps evolving and even the day that I'm not here, it'll just keep growing.

because it's been my lifestyle for 20-something years.

I think salsa will never end.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ We come from all over, and we become one state, where we share in the history and become part of the culture that is Florida.

The Florida Humanities Council, bringing Floridians together by sharing the stories of our state.