Salsa (dance)

Salsa is the name for Latin American dances that are danced to salsa music. Salsa is one of the most popular types of Latin dance that is practiced worldwide, and is typically danced with a partner, although there are elements of solo footwork as well. There are several distinct styles of salsa that are danced around the world.

Origin

The term "salsa" (Spanish for "sauce") was popularized in New York in the 1960s and 1970s by Johnny Pacheco, Fania Records, and the Fania All-Stars as an umbrella label for a New York-based form of Afro-Caribbean dance music with roots in Cuba and mid-20th-century New York. Salsa dance developed from a longer lineage of Afro-Cuban and Caribbean social dances, especially Son cubano, danzón, mambo, cha-cha-chá, and rumba.

Salsa's movement vocabulary reflects both African-derived and European-derived influences. African and Afro-Cuban traditions contributed polyrhythmic movement, body isolations, grounded footwork, improvisation, and call-and-response interaction, including influences associated with Yoruba, Bantu, rumba, and Santería/Orisha practices. European-derived social dance traditions contributed partner-dance structures, couple formations, and ballroom lineages, especially through Cuban danzón, which developed from European country dance, French contredanse, and Spanish contradanza in contact with African rhythmic and dance practices.

In the United States, modern salsa dance was shaped by Palladium-era mambo and related Latin dances, while also absorbing influences from jazz, swing, hustle, tap, and other U.S. social and stage dance traditions. New York and Los Angeles styles later became internationally influential through dance schools, performance teams, congresses, and commercial salsa instruction.