Costa Rica Dance Class

Ileanne Cecilio

On August 10,2023, we got the opportunity to learn multiple styles of dance (salsa, merengue, and bachata) that are very important in Costa Rican culture and social life. 

The class began with all of us spread out throughout the room. Our instructor would give us a debrief on the different music genres. The one that intrigued me the most was salsa, because it actually originated in New York in the 60’s and was actually a mix of all the different Latin American cultures present in New York and spread throughout the Americas. The idea that different people from different cultures and places could create something so special that radicalized the dance scene was pretty fascinating to me. 

Throughout the class I learned that for each style of dance there were multiple ways to dance them, whether it was going back and forth or side to side, all of them were correct and very fun to learn. Each style of dance also requires a lot of hips which I felt was kinda intimidating. 

For most of these dances they can be done on your own but bachata specifically is very partner-centered. This meant that most of our dancing had to be mirrored and we had to tune with each other which proved a bit difficult but me and my partner managed to get the hang of it and by the end of the lesson I was able to figure out how to spin my partner.

Personally I grew up dancing to all of these styles of dancing so the steps themselves were not difficult to follow through with. But my partner however was not as experienced but we still had a lot of fun throughout the class especially when we were trying to figure out how to spin correctly. 

Overall this class was really fun and also useful for our immersion in the Costa Rica lifestyle when we would go out to dance in the evenings. 

Check out this video of us trying out our new dance skills…