Bath Salsa Society is a community made up of a range of students who all share the same passion; dancing. The society teaches the mainstream dances from Salsa, rooting back to Cuba and Bachata and further back to the Dominican Republic, as well as many other dances such as Rueda, Kizomba and Merengue. Having been established for many years now, the society provides a vibrant and sociable dance environment where everyone, regardless of skill and experience, can step onto the floor and dance with a passion. The society hosts a wide range of classes and events, from regular weekly Tuesday classes to the Saturday classes where professional teachers run social events such as Latin Loco, which involves a high social environment for dancing. The society aims to cater for all dancers through a variety of options to transform members to the best of dancers.
Every year, the society attends the annual Dance Club Latino event in Birmingham, who host a range of classes covering many different dancers taught by exceptional teachers, alongside a competition show and social dancing towards the end of the night.
This is the biggest Salsa society event not only for Bath, but for other universities who travel across the country to attend. The competition is widely viewed as the pivotal point of the day for different groups to showcase the amazing talent and skill of their members. Bath Salsa Society have been attending and competing in the Dance Club Latino for over a decade but unfortunately, up against serial winners Imperial College of London and new competition from University of Warwick, had not previously managed to place at all. Although it became harder and harder to place as competition improved, this only strengthened Bath’s hunger and desire to win.
This year, the team were fortunate enough to be taught by Cao An and Yimini, two extraordinary teachers with a great level of skill, experience and desire for dancing. What makes this a unique experience for the society is the sentimental and personal connection between Yimini and Bath Salsa Society - Yimini is a University of Bath Alumni and graduate and this society is exactly where her dance journey began. Cao An is an Imperial College London graduate and danced for their talented society during his time there.
Despite only beginning to learn the choreography late into the year in January - whilst many other competing societies had much longer- Salsa Society member Mazari commented, ‘the team and I were able to pick up the choreography extremely fast. Due to the teachers’ calendar and availability, we took a unique approach to the teaching. From January 8 we began to learn the fundamentals of the choreography and on January 21, we had a bootcamp day where Cao An and Yimini taught the choreography and the ideal technique in person which aided myself and the team significantly as to how to rehearse and train until the day of competition’.
Despite many difficulties along the road, the team were able to overcome these obstacles whilst pursuing a team effort to help one another learn and improve.
On the day of the competition, all the hard work and efforts from the teachers and group members was worth it, as the team placed 2nd in the competition! Mazari explained, ‘this is a remarkable achievement especially for the team knowing how much time and effort each member has invested’. After endorsements from different salsa teachers and the audience, the team were invited to salsa events to showcase the choreography including the annual Cyprus Salsa Congress due to take place in April, which is an extremely big event within the international salsa community.
Mazari commented that, ‘the team and I are grateful for the support and encouragement from friends and family, the SU, the society but also Cao An and Yimini, who have invested time and effort to ensure the team were on a trajectory. This sets a brilliant foundation and belief for the society but also the future teams that will compete at DCL to show that it is possible to win with hard work and determination. I am more than confident that the succeeding teams to compete at Dance Club Latino will be fired up to continue creating history for the society and university.’
We wanted to say another big well done to the Salsa Society for their amazing achievement – we at the SU look forward to seeing what you will accomplish next!
Thank you to Mazari for contributing this article to the SU website.