History

Salsa is the most popular form of partnered dance in the world. Developed in New York in the 1960s, with origins in Cuba and Caribbean, salsa is now danced in nearly every country in the world.

Learn about the origins of the dance in this brief history of salsa!

Cuba

Salsa music and dance have their origins in Cuba, although the term “salsa” did not originate there.

Cuba since the Spanish colonization has been a unique melting pot of different cultures: Spanish, enslaved Africans, and the native Taino peoples.

This mixture of these 3 distinct cultures has gave rise to an explosion of new forms of music and dance, including rumba, cha cha cha, son, pachanga, mambo and more.

Afro Cuban Rumba:

Pachanga:

Cha Cha Cha:

Mambo

Mambo is the direct predecessor of salsa. The name means “conversation with the gods” or “storytelling”.

Mambo originated in 1938, and spread to Mexico and the US in the 1950s.

A “mambo craze” swept across the US in the 1950s, with the Palladium Ballroom in New York becoming the epicenter of mambo with the best musicians and dancers.

Today, the word “mambo” is sometimes used interchangeably with “salsa on2” or “New York-style salsa”.

Salsa

With the US embargo of Cuba, New York became the center for Latin American music.

In 1968, a music label called Fania coined the term “salsa” as a catchy name to refer to all the Latin music being produced in New York, predominantly from Puerto Rican (“Nuyorican”) and Cuban immigrants .

The word “salsa” means “sauce” in Spanish. Like a sauce, salsa music & dance is a mixture of the many different styles that came before it.

From New York, salsa soon spread to Asia, Europe, Africa and South America.

The Fania All-Stars performing at Yankee Stadium:

Salsa Congresses

The first World Salsa Congress was held in Puerto Rico in 1997, bringing together dancers from around the world for the first time.

The congress was a 4-day long festival with workshops, performances, competitions and social dancing.

The congress format has gained in popularity since then, with dance congresses held almost every weekend around the world, including the San Francisco Salsa Bachata Kizomba Congress (SFSBK) which we attend in November.

Collegiate Salsa

College salsa teams started to emerge in the 2000s as salsa dancing, especially performance salsa, gained in popularity.

The first College Salsa Congress was organized in 2008, bringing together colleges from across California.

There are now a few different college salsa events including the SLO Salsa Exchange and Collegiate Salsa Open.

Spartan Mambo was founded in 2010 by Takeshi Young & Max Shpungin, originally as a salsa club and growing into a performance and competition team. The team has since won more competitions than any other collegiate team in the country.

Spartan Mambo winning the College Salsa Congress in 2010: