Swing Latino Salsa Dance School was founded by legendary Salsa dancer and choreographer Luís Eduardo Hernández ‘El Mulato’ in 1995. They have developed since then an important social project with young people and children in popular districts of Cali, a balmy Colombian city at the foot of the Andes, with nearly 3 million inhabitants and definitely South America’s Salsa capital, where Salsa music and dance constitute a way of life. The city has hundreds of Salsa schools, most in the popular areas, with well over 5,000 professional dancers.

 

Having achieved five world Salsa championships in the US and Colombia as a team, in addition to various world titles by some of their individual couples, Swing Latino have unquestionably become the most important Salsa school on planet earth, helping to bring attention and introducing to the world the particular and distinct Cali Salsa dance style.

 

This is a piston-footed, high energy, below the waist dance style, twice as fast as those from New York, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico and Cuba, with amazing well choreographed and synchronised dance shows. According to Canadian anthropologist Lise Waxer, ‘……the El Paso Caleño or Cali dance step is a rapid double time shuffle on the tips of the toes, combined with high kicks and rapid footwork. Turn patterns and some style combines Cuban Guaracha and Mambo, North American Jitterbug, twist and the Charleston - all high energy dances’.

The level of competition amongst Salsa schools in Cali is fierce, testament to this is the city’s world Salsa dance Festival held in September, where the best schools compete for the coveted prize in Cali’s bullring in front of wild and screaming crowds of 20,000 people. Despite such competition, Swing Latino has managed to remain at the top of the pecking order. Its dancers represent Cali’s common ‘barrios’, where popular dance culture has been turned into an art form, demonstrating a long tradition and love affair for popular dance, with an elegant street swagger, fast and precise footwork and beautiful movements, a style developed after a process that traces back its beginnings in the 1940’s. Swing Latino has travelled extensively in the US, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia, competing, performing and promoting Cali and Colombia.

Classes and club night to follow as per Thursday Nights classes... hosted by Miss Latin K..

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