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New York Latin Culture Magazine®

New York Latin Culture Magazine®

World-class Indigenous, European & African Culture since 2012

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Dance in New York City

Latin Dance in New York City (Satura/Adobe)
Latin Dance in New York City (Satura/Adobe)

Dance in New York City is defined by NYC’s Big Three dance companies: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, and New York City Ballet. Ballet Hispánico and Dance Theatre of Harlem round out the Big Five. New York City’s main dance theaters include: 92nd Street Y, David H. Koch Theater, Joyce Theater, Metropolitan Opera House, and New York City Center. NYC has vibrant social dance scenes in bachata, salsa, tango, and reggaeton. In traditional cultures, dance is how we pray.

Thank you for sponsoring Latin Dance in New York Latin Culture Magazine:

  • 92nd Street Y, New York
  • Ballet Hispánico 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷
  • Ballet Nepantla 🇲🇽
  • Calpulli Mexican Dance Company 🇲🇽
  • Dzul Dance 🇲🇽
  • Flamenco Festival New York (Madrid) 🇪🇸
  • Flushing Town Hall
  • Harlem Stage 🇺🇸
  • Joyce Theater
  • Little Island
  • New York City Center
  • Robert Browning Associates
  • World Music Institute
Drums Along the Hudson (Jose Terrero/Dreamstime)

Drums Along the Hudson is a Native American Powwow and Multicultural Celebration of Drum, Song, & Dance

INWOOD HILL PARK, Inwood, Manhattan 🇺🇸 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇲🇽 🇱🇰

Ballet Hispánico CARMEN.Maquia (Ballet Hispánico)

Ballet Hispánico Celebrates its 55th Anniversary Emerald With Signature Contemporary Ballet CARMEN.maquia

NEW YORK CITY CENTER, Midtown, Manhattan 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷 🇪🇸

Harlem Stage (Marc Millman)

Harlem Stage Develops Visionary Artists of Color

When We Dance, The Son Also Rises: Black Men in Dance 🇺🇸
Nova Frontier Film Festival, African Diaspora, Middle Eastern, and Latin American film 🇺🇸 🇧🇪 🇬🇧 🇮🇷 🇫🇷 🇲🇽 🇸🇳 🇪🇸 🇹🇷

MANHATTANVILLE, West Harlem, Manhattan

Salsa Sundays at Orchard Beach (Steven Rivieccio/Dreamstime)

Salsa Sundays at Orchard Beach is a Hot Summer Salsa Dance Party

ORCHARD BEACH, Pelham Bay Park, The Bronx 🇵🇷

DanceAfrica (Nate Palmer/Brooklyn Academy of Music)

DanceAfrica, America’s Largest African and Diasporic Dance Festival, Celebrates the Culture of Mozambique

BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC (BAM), Fort Greene, Brooklyn 🇺🇸 🇨🇲 🇸🇳

BIG Salsa Festival New York (Edward Olive/Dreamstime)

BIG Salsa Festival is New York City’s Memorial Day Weekend Salsa & Bachata Dance Festival

NEW YORK HILTON MIDTOWN, Manhattan 🇨🇴 🇨🇺 🇩🇴 🇵🇷 🇪🇸

More Latin Dance

Latin Dance is as Diverse as We Are

Bachata in New York City (Aleksey Mnogosmyslov/Dreamstime)

Bachata in New York City

Ballet in New York City (master1305/Adobe)

Ballet in New York City

Cumbia in New York City (Anna Yordanova/Dreamstime)

Cumbia in New York City

Flamenco in New York City (Bodgancarama/Dreamstime)

Flamenco NYC

Hip Hop in New York City (Chaoss/Adobe)

Hip Hop in New York City

Latin House in New York City (Dan Talson/Adobe)

Latin House in New York City

Merengue in New York City (Aleksandr Rybalko/Dreamstime)

Merengue in New York City

Modern Dance in New York City (Mark Kabayan/Dreamstime)

Modern Dance in New York City

Reggaeton in New York City (Tatiana Chekryzhova/Dreamstime)

Reggaeton in New York City

Salsa in New York City (Neydstock/Dreamstime)

Salsa in New York City

Samba in New York City (Yuri Arcurs/Dreamstime)

Samba in New York City

Tango Beat® in New York City (Aleksandr Vorobev/Dreamstime)

Tango Beat ®

Latin Dances

  • Afro
  • Bachata 🇩🇴 > 🇪🇸
  • Ballet 🇫🇷
  • Banda 🇲🇽
  • Bomba 🇵🇷
  • Casino 🇨🇺
  • Chacarrera 🇦🇷
  • Champeta 🇨🇴
  • Cha cha cha 🇨🇺
  • Contemporary Dance
  • Cumbia 🇨🇴 > 🇲🇽
  • Dem bow 🇩🇴
  • Festejo 🇵🇪
  • Flamenco 🇪🇸
  • Folkloric Dance
  • Forró 🇧🇷
  • Hip hop 🇺🇸
  • House 🇺🇸
  • Kizomba 🇦🇴
  • Kompa 🇭🇹
  • Mambo 🇨🇺
  • Merengue 🇩🇴
  • Méringue 🇭🇹
  • Milonga 🇦🇷
  • Modern Dance
  • Norteño 🇲🇽
  • Perreo 🇵🇷
  • Punta 🇭🇳
  • Rumba 🇨🇺
  • Plena 🇵🇷
  • Salsa 🇵🇷
  • Reggaeton 🇵🇷 > 🇨🇴
  • Samba 🇧🇷
  • Son 🇨🇺 > 🇩🇴
  • Swing 🇺🇸
  • Tango 🇦🇷
  • Tap 🇺🇸
  • Timba 🇨🇺
  • Vals 🇦🇷
  • Yanvalou 🇭🇹
  • Zouk 🇫🇷 🇬🇵 🇲🇶 🇭🇹

Dance Companies NYC

ABT Studio Company ~ Lilia Greyeyes and Kayke Carvalho in "The Seasons" pas de deux (Chris Coates/NYC Dance Alliance/ABT Studio Company)

ABT Studio Company Stages the Next Generation of Ballet Dancers and Choreographers

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Dario Calmese/AAADT)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Legacy in Motion Honors Judith Jamison and Jody Gottfried Arnhold

American Ballet Theatre, Cassandra Trenary & Herman Cornejo in Wheeldon's "Like Water for Chocolate" (Marty Sohl/ABT)

American Ballet Theatre Fall 2024 Features World Premieres of Helen Pickett’s “Crime and Punishment,” Gemma Bond, and Kyle Abraham

Ballet Hispánico CARMEN.Maquia (Ballet Hispánico)

Ballet Hispánico Celebrates its 55th Anniversary Emerald With Signature Contemporary Ballet CARMEN.maquia

Ballet Nepantla "Valentina" (Marty Infante)

Ballet Nepantla Dances Mexican Ballet Folklórico For Los Tigres del Norte at Madison Square Garden

Boca Tuya "Like Those Playground Kids at Midnight" Omar Román de Jesús with Ian Spring (Jacob Jonas/Boca Tuya)

Boca Tuya Dances the 92nd Street Y, and If You Can Dance There, You Can Dance Anywhere

Calpulli Mexican Dance Company "Puebla: The Story of Cinco de Mayo" (Julieta Cervantes/Calpulli)

Calpulli Mexican Dance Company “Puebla: The Story of Cinco de Mayo” Shows the Origins of America’s Celebration of Mexican Culture

Camille A. Brown (Harlem Stage)

Camille A. Brown Curates and Dances Black Joy at Harlem Stage

Complexions Contemporary Ballet (Parkinson Sniper/Dreamstime)

Complexions Contemporary Ballet Dances Peck, Amarante, Freeman, and Rhoden at The Joyce

Dance Theatre of Harlem 2024 (Nir Arieli/DTH)

Dance Theatre of Harlem Dances Classical Ballet with JOY

Danza Fiesta is Puerto Rican folkloric dance theatre (Hostos Center)

Danza Fiesta Honors Puerto Rico’s Greatest Composers with the Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band

Dorrance Dance (Antonio Diaz/Adobe)

Dorrance Dance Tap Dances the World Premiere of “Shift”

Dzul Dance "Maya" (Matthew Smith)

Dzul Dance Performs “Crossing Thresholds;” Contemporary dance with Aerial arts, Contortion, and Acrobatics; at the Ailey Citigroup Theater

Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana (Andypix/Adobe)

Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana Dances Tablao Flamenco for Carnegie Hall’s “Nuestros Sonidos”

Limón Dance Company "Missa Brevis" (Hisae Aihara)

Limón Dance Company, the Legacy of Mexican Modern Dance Pioneer José Limón, Dances its 78th Season With New and Old Choreography for Our Times

Los Pleneros de la 21 (Andres Rodriguez/Lincoln Center)

Los Pleneros de la 21 Teach Puerto Rican Bomba and Plena For Carnegie Hall’s Family Day

Nélida Tirado Flamenco Arte 718 (Lisa Greenberg)

Nélida Tirado “Dime Quién Soy” is Traditional Flamenco About The Many Identities We Carry in Our Heritage

Indigenous NYC, Maria Tallchief (Everett Collection/Adobe)

New York City Ballet Winter 2025 Season Tributes Osage Dancer Maria TallChief, America’s First Prima Ballerina

Paul Taylor Dance Company "Esplanade" (Steven Pisano/92nd Street Y)

Paul Taylor Dance Company Fall Season Features World Premieres by Robert Battle and Lauren Lovette Backed by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular in 2014 (Picturemakers/Dreamstime)

Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular is Very Jolly Holiday Show

New York City’s Leading Dance Companies

  • Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre 🇺🇸
  • American Ballet Theatre
  • Ballet Hispánico 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷
  • Dance Theatre of Harlem 🇺🇸
  • New York City Ballet

Afro Dance Companies in NYC

Camille A. Brown is a multiple Tony nominated African American choreographer and director.

Ballet Companies in NYC

ABT Studio Company develops dancers and choreographers in classical, neoclassical, and contemporary ballet. 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 🇨🇦 🇯🇵 🇵🇭 🇰🇷 🇻🇪

American Ballet Theatre, America’s National Ballet Company, mostly dances grand classical ballets. 🇺🇸 🇦🇷 🇧🇷 🇪🇸

Complexions Contemporary Ballet is a ballet company for dancers of color. 🇺🇸 🇨🇴 🇮🇹

Dance Theatre of Harlem is the first Black ballet company. 🇺🇸

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo dances ballet in drag. trockadero.org 🏳️‍🌈

New York City Ballet, the legacy of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, dances three seasons and “The Nutcracker” at its David H. Koch Theater home at Lincoln Center. 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 🇵🇷 🇪🇸

Modern Dance Companies in NYC

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is the African American modern dance company that popularized modern dance around the world. 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 🇫🇷 🇬🇫

Limón Dance Company is the legacy of Mexican modern dance pioneer José Limón. 🇲🇽

Martha Graham Dance Company is the legacy of one of the modern dance pioneers.

Mark Morris Dance Group is one of NYC’s great modern dance companies.

Paul Taylor Dance Company is one of the world’s leading modern dance companies. 🇺🇸 🇧🇲

Broadway Dance Companies in NYC

Radio City Rockettes are Broadway dancers famous for their Christmas Spectacular.

Contemporary Dance Companies in NYC

Ballet Hispánico is one of America’s leading Latin dance companies and an American cultural treasure. 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷

Ballet Nepantla is a contemporary ballet company that dances Mexican ballet folklórico. 🇲🇽

Battery Dance Company produces the Battery Dance Festival and does international outreach through dance.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company

Dzul Dance is led by Javier Dzul, who was trained as a Mayan ritual dancer in the jungles of Mexico before scholarships brought him to Mexico City; Havana, Cuba; and Martha Graham in New York City. 🇲🇽

Flamenco Dance Companies in NYC

Flamenco Latino is a rumba flamenca dance company. 🇪🇸

Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana, is one of the leading flamenco dance companies in the United States. It produces the Flamenco Certamen flamenco scholarship competition. 🇪🇸

Nélida Tirado Dance Company is a Puerto Rican flamenco dance company that dances traditional Spanish flamenco at the highest levels. 🇵🇷 🇪🇸

Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca is one of NYC’s legacy flamenco companies. Soledad Barrio has been called the best living dancer by the New York Times. 🇪🇸

Sonia Olla & Ismael Fernandez 🇪🇸

Folkloric Dance Companies in NYC

Ballet Folklorico Panameno Norberto Basilio Mowatt is a Panamanian ballet folklórico. @balletfolkloricopanamenonbm 🇵🇦

BombaYo is a Puerto Rican bomba dance company. 🇵🇷

Bombazo Dance Company is a Puerto Rican bomba dance company. bombazodanceco.com 🇵🇷

Calpulli Mexican Dance Company is NYC’s leading Mexican community ballet folklórico. 🇲🇽

Danza Fiesta is one of New York City’s leading Puerto Rican folkloric dance and theater companies. 🇵🇷

La Troupe Zetwal is a Haitian folkloric dance company

Los Pleneros de la 21 is a Puerto Rican bomba and plena dance company. 🇵🇷

WABAFU Garifuna Dance Theater is a Garifuna drum, song, dance, and theater company. garifunadancecompany.com

Salsa Dance Companies in NYC

Cali Salsa Pal Mundo is a Colombian community salsa dance company. 🇨🇴

Lorenz Latin Dance is one of New York’s salsa dance companies.

Piel Canela is one of New York’s salsa dance companies.

Tap Dance Companies in NYC

Ayodele Casel & Torya Beard are Puerto Rican and African American tap dance forces of nature. 🇵🇷

Dorrance Dance is an award-winning tap dance company.

Soles of Duende is a blend of African American tap, Spanish flamenco, and Indian kathak percussive dance. 🇺🇸 🇪🇸 🇮🇳

Dance Theaters NYC

David H. Koch Theater (Erik Lattwein/Dreamstime)

David H. Koch Theater is Lincoln Center’s Home for Dance

Joyce Theater (courtesy)

Joyce Theater is New York City’s Big Little Dance Theater

New York City Center Main Stage (courtesy)

New York City Center is One of NYC’s Premiere Homes for Dance and Theatre

More NYC Dance Theaters

  • 92nd Street Y, New York
  • Ailey Studios
  • Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
  • Chelsea Factory
  • David H. Koch Theater
  • Joyce Theater
  • Lincoln Center
  • Metropolitan Opera House
  • New York City Center
  • New York Live Arts

Dance Festivals NYC

BAAND Together Dance Festival (Lincoln Center)

BAAND Together Dance Festival 2024 Brings Alvin Ailey, American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Hispánico, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and New York City Ballet to Summer For the City at Lincoln Center

Battery Dance Festival (Battery Dance Company)

Battery Dance Festival Connects the World Through Dance

BIG Salsa Festival New York (Edward Olive/Dreamstime)

BIG Salsa Festival is New York City’s Memorial Day Weekend Salsa & Bachata Dance Festival

Fall-for-Dance-at-City-Center-copyright-Wirestock-Dreamstime-

Fall For Dance at City Center Brings the World of Dance to New York

Joyce Ballet Festival, Calvin Royal III (Quinn Wharton/Joyce Theater)

Joyce Ballet Festival Unites the Ballet World in the Hands of Calvin Royal III

Midtown Dance (34th St Partnership)

Midtown Dance 2024 Free Dance Lessons Outdoors in Greeley Square Plaza

New York International Salsa Congress (Burcu Akcakaya/Dreamstime)

New York International Salsa Congress is NYC’s Labor Day Weekend Salsa and Bachata Dance Festival

World Ballet Day (Alphaspirit/Dreamstime)

World Ballet Day 2024 is on Pause Until 2025

Youth America Grand Prix, YAGP (Visual Arts Masters/YAGP)

Youth America Grand Prix 2025 Gala Stars of Today and Tomorrow is Our Favorite Ballet in New York City

More NYC Dance Festivals

American Dance Platform is the Joyce Theater’s APAP showcase in January.

BAAND Together Dance Festival at Lincoln Center is a free summer festival of New York City’s leading dance companies: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Hispánico, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and New York City Ballet.

Ballet Festival is the Joyce Theater’s ballet showcase in August.

Battery Dance Festival is a free outdoor festival of international dance companies in Battery Park City in August.

BIG Salsa Festival is New York City’s Memorial Day Weekend salsa and bachata dance festival.

DanceAfrica, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), is America’s largest African and Diasporic Dance Festival.

Dance on Camera, produced by Dance Films at Film at Lincoln Center, is the world’s longest-running dance film festival.

Dance Parade and DanceFest is a parade and dance festival that gets over 10,000 New Yorkers dancing in the street to over 100 different styles of dance on the third Saturday in May.

Fall For Dance Festival at New York City Center presents several programs of international dance companies in September and October.

Future Dance Festival, at the 92nd Street Y, is a choreographer’s competition.

Flamenco Festival New York brings Spain’s top flamenco musicians and dancers to venues across New York City in March.

Flamenco Festival New York City Center anchors the festival with the very best flamenco dancers and flamenco dance companies in March.

Midtown Dance gives free dance lessons in a variety of styles outdoors at Greeley Square Park near Herald Square, in summer.

New York International Salsa Congress is NYC’s Labor Day Weekend salsa and bachata dance festival.

Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival at the Guggenheim Museum is a street dance festival.

World Dance Festival: Dancing Across Cultural Borders presents dance from around the world.

Origins of Latin Dance

Latin Dance in New York City (Satura/Adobe)
Latin Dance in New York City (Satura/Adobe)

In ancestral tradition, dance is how we pray. In fact “going to dance” didn’t used to mean going to a party. It meant going to a community ceremony.

Latin dance in New York City is just a shadow of the original. It’s like Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” Imagine you are chained to the floor of cave with a fire near your feet. You can’t see the fire, but can see shadows of things passing on the walls. Because you only see shadows, that’s your reality. But there is actually a lot more to it. To see it, you have to free yourself.

Social Latin dance is an expression of family, community, and love. It is the glue that binds traditional Latin communities. It’s mostly forgotten now, but in the same way that classical music derives from European religious ritual, Latin social dance derives from Indigenous and African Diaspora religious ritual. In ancestral tradition, dance is how we pray.

This is Where We Come From

Latin dance comes from Indigenous and African traditions. These are zangbeto spirit dancers in Benin. Haitian, West Indian and New Orleans traditions are related.

In traditional communities, dance is how we pray. It is the core of community life. Traditional dance is an expression of family, faith, community and love. In the old countryside, community gatherings were the only thing in town. Everyone participated. Even in modern life, dance still marks important steps in life’s journey.

This is Where We Came To

Raíces Profundas is one of Cuba’s most important folkloric dance companies. The dance is to Yemayá, the great mother. The music and video mix Cuban rumba, the root of salsa, and Brazilian candomblé, the root of samba.

In the colonial context, preserving your heritage is a form of resistance. Dance traditions pass down through families. Indigenous and African Diaspora traditions survived in secret at home for over 500 years. We tend to be very good dancers because it is our culture. It is how we connect with our ancestors and how we teach our children who they are. For us, dance is sacred.

“When I Move Like This, It Feels Like Freedom”

As a Caribbean, Jon Batiste’s “Freedom,” made in New Orleans, looks like American Caribbean culture.

Much of who we are as Americans today originated in the years after the U.S. Civil War 1860-65. That war, eight generations ago, was supposed to deliver the Constitutional promise that all Americans are free. We are still working on that, and still decolonizing too. But New York is trying.

Latin culture is almost always born in the most disadvantaged communities. There’s something about having nothing that makes you very creative. Even if you have nothing else, you have your body and your spirit. That’s where Latin dance comes from.

Minstrelsy, the street dancing of African Americans trying to survive when there were no jobs after the Civil War, was the first time that all Americans, from east to west and north to south, knew the same songs and dances. The Diaspora dancing was great, but the racial mocking that followed was terrible. We are still trying to wash that nonsense out of our heads.

Anyway, in short form entertainment, there is a direct line from minstrelsy, to vaudeville to Broadway, movies and television, to MTV (music television), to YouTube, and to Tik Tok. But a lot happened on the way.

The World War I Years

It takes two to tango, and New York City played key roles in the development of Argentine tango, twice, after 1913 and again after 1983.

Like most Latin culture, the upper classes considered tango to be too naughty and low-class at first. It began at a time when there were very few women in Argentina. Le Academie du danse, taught the most human dance. Saying you were going to take some dance lessons, was a good excuse for your mother.

Tango was only accepted in Argentina after young Argentines seduced the French and caused the Tango Craze of 1913. Tango spread across Europe and jumped to New York, before the Argentines decided that it was theirs after all.

Tango, tango, tango…

Tango also played a role in the liberation of women (from the painful constraints of the corset).

By the way, tango has the habanera in it (la habana manera, or the way they dance in Havana). It’s just been Europeanized.

The Jazz Age

One of the great collectors of Black Arts was Arturo Schomburg, the Puerto Rican whose collection became the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Jazz and tap dance developed in New York City during the vaudeville years of the 1920s Jazz Age that defined so much of who we are as Americans. This was the Harlem Renaissance 1.0.

Lindy Hop Swing jumped out of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. It was one of the few places of that time where everybody could dance with everybody. All that mattered was how well you could dance.

New York City’s old cabaret law (no dancing without a permit) was made to keep White kids from dancing with Black kids up in Harlem. It took almost 100 years to get rid of that. Good riddance.

Getting Modern

Theatrical dancers began to pull away from the structure of ballet and began developing modern dance, the romantic transition from the storytelling of traditional ballet to the pure abstraction of contemporary dance.

José Limón is one of the legendary modern dance pioneers. Limón technique remains popular. He was born in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.

José Limón was a New York Mexican who developed a renowned modern dance technique. The José Limón Dance Company is his legacy.

By they way, ballet is a Latin dance. It’s an Italian court dance, set to classical music, that developed in France and was preserved in Russia and Denmark after the French Revolution.

Ballet was seeded in the Americas through New York City Ballet’s founding choreographer George Balanchine. He came to New York in 1933, but had already begun the shift from classical to neo-classical to contemporary ballet.

It Don’t Mean a Thing, if It Ain’t Got That Swing

Frankie Manning was one of the founders of Harlem’s Lindy Hop

Swing was the American dance of the Great Depression and World War II. It was also the beginning of American youth culture.

When Benny Goodman played the Paramount Theater in Times Square on March 10, 1937; the NYPD was shocked to see long lines of kids. The kids danced in the aisles. That never happened before, and America hasn’t been the same since.

(The title quote is from Duke Ellington. He lived up in Washington Heights.)

Palladium Style

The Palladium Ballroom launched the Mambo Craze and the Cha-Cha-Cha Craze

The Mambo Craze, Latin dance craze, that swept America and the world in the 1950s, came out of the Palladium Ballroom in Midtown. The studio was going out of business, so it decided to let in Latins, and things took off. It was another place where everybody could dance with everybody.

The Palladium Ballroom Big Three were Machito and His Afro-Cubans, Tito Puente, and Tito Rodriguez. Latin dance comes from the Caribbean, but in the United States, it comes from the Palladium Ballroom.

Harlem Renaissance 2.0 and Hip-Hop

Whatever happens in the African Diaspora community, ripples into the Latin community shortly thereafter. The 1960s were about Civil Rights and Black Power, so the 1970s were about the Black Arts Movement, Chicano Power in the west, and Puerto Rican Power in the east. If we could be Black and Proud, then we could be Brown and Proud too. It changed everything.

Hip Hop is from The Bronx

Hip-hop came out of The Bronx in the 1970s. Hip-hop was started by African American kids, but Latin kids brought their parents’ Palladium Ballroom moves into break dancing. Watch the Palladium dancers and watch the early B-boys and B-girls. The similarity is striking.

“Wild Style” was one of the first hip hop movies

Puerto Rican bomba is an old Afro-Puerto Rican drum, song and dance tradition that still lives in Puerto Rico and the Diaspora. That folded arm stance, the way we salute the dance circle, and some dance steps are the same in bomba and hip-hop. We don’t know who influenced who, but bomba is older, and the Bronx is Puerto Rican and African American.

The Batey de los Ayala is the most sacred dance circle in Puerto Rico. Loíza Aldea is the Puerto Rican town with the strongest Afro-Puerto Rican culture. It’s the first place we saw bomba. This video includes many leaders of Puerto Rico’s bomba community.

Would You Like Your Salsa on 1 or 2?

Larry Harlow sings “Abran Paso” with the La Orquesta de Larry Harlow in El Bronx

Cuban rumba is the taproot of a lot of Latin dance. Before rumba, it’s religious ritual which is the deepest root of all the arts. Cuban dance is based on clave, the Afro-Cuban 2-3, or 3-2 bell pattern. Rumba clave is actually more like 2.5 – 2.5. In Cuba, rumba mixed with changüi and Latin jazz into son Cubano, the template for a lot of Latin music. In Cuba, son evolved into timba. In New York, son evolved into salsa.

Cimafunk, “The James Brown of Cuba” is one of Cuba’s leading timba voices

Caribbean salsa is danced on the one, meaning the leader starts with a left step forward on the 1st downbeat. It’s very simple and circular. It’s not about flash, it’s about partner connection like traditional tango. Swing and salsa are related somehow. The swing out is just an salsa turn, or the other way around.

The 1970s were about Disco with Studio 54 and all that, so in the Bronx, Eddie Torres Sr. combined Caribbean salsa with disco hustle. He made the dance both more European and more African. He added disco shines, and put the leader’s front step on the upbeat, or on the 2. The upbeat is more African.

New York Salsa on 2, gets the dancer’s movements closer to the clave. You follow half the clave which changes your connection with the floor and gives you more opportunities to shine. Disco was all about shining and now that’s part of New York Salsa. In the Caribbean, dancers get confused by New York style, but it’s all good.

Harlem Renaissance 3.0

One of the characteristics of communities of color, is that if you give us a lot of shit, we’ll eventually grow flowers in it. George Floyd (RIP) burst the bubble in 2020. Doors are opening that were never open to people of color.

New York really gets it. And when you open your heart to all peoples, your world expands exponentially. It’s sort of a personal Big Bang.

Hip-hop and African Diaspora dance are having a renaissance now. We call it “The Harlem Renaissance 3.0.” And everybody is doing it.

Reggae, the music of Black liberation out of Jamaica, became Reggaeton on its journey from Jamaica, to Panama, to New York, to Puerto Rico, to Colombia and the whole world. Reggaeton is the global youth music of today, and it has a little bit of everything in it.

J Balvin and Willy William channel Héctor Lavoe with a Colombian “Mi Gente”

“Todo mi gente se mueve.” All my people move. That’s because back in the day, dancing meant, I am part of this family, I respect my family’s faith, I am part of this community, and I want to be loved.” That’s what Latin dance is.

The Natural Habitat of Latin Dance is on the Street

That’s why in New York City, we mostly see shadows of Latin dance on stage and in nightclubs. Let’s end back on the streets. In the dem bow dance, you can see hints of everything in this story.

The dance has evolved from this, but we’re pretty sure this is Capotillo 42, the beating heart of dem bow (Dominican reggaeton) in Santo Domingo.

Con todo el corazón. Capotillo, capotillo, capotillo, capotillo. La cuarenta y dos. ❤️❤️❤️

Adam Taub is a New York videographer who documents Dominican culture.

Remember Where We Come From?

Looks easy, but you try it.

Zaouli dance of Cote d’Ivoire set to house music.

The original video of Zaouli, an Cote d’Ivoire traditional dance, was paired with Colombian champeta music. Champeta has a great story. African traditions came to the Americas with the African Diaspora. Indigenous American traditions were very similar and we mixed together. “In the United States, they took away the drum, and we got the blues” (Eddie Palmieri). The blues is the root of the popular music and dances of the United States (Robert Farris Thompson). From the blues, we got jazz, rhythm and blues, country, swing, rock, funk, and hip-hop.

Fela Kuti mixed American traditions with Nigerian traditions into Nigerian afrobeat which evolved into afrobeats (afropop). Nigerian sailors brought records of Kuti’s afrobeat to Cartagena, Colombia. There it became champeta.

Latin music is a big circle that turns in both directions at the same time. How cool is that?


Published April 29, 2025 ~ Updated May 8, 2025.

Filed Under: Latin

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