"Dear Edie..."    Page Nine

Dear Edie,

I love salsa dancing more than just about anything and hope someday to be able to perform and compete. I am a female musician and have experience in many other kinds of dance including ballet, jazz, modern, Middle Eastern, and Indian classical dance.

Whenever I am in my hometown or travelling, I try to take as many classes (usually private) as possible. After finishing school, I'm considering moving to a city where I could find more opportunities for learning salsa. However, at the moment I am stuck in a small Midwestern town while working on my master's degree. I seem to be the person in this town who knows the most about salsa dance, as I have often been asked to teach, although I consider myself only an intermediate dancer. This is very frustrating for me because I really want to learn more, myself! Do you have any suggestions about a) where to go once I finish school and how to get a "foot in the door" of the salsa performance world there, and b) what to do in the meantime?

Thank you in advance for your help!!

Sincerely,
Stuck

Dear Stuck,

I’ll get to the point on this question.

  1. Depends on where you live. Email your local World Cityguides Correspondent, who is the local Salsa Ambassador of the town. They would know about dance groups in your city where you could call and ask if they have try-outs.
  2. If I were you, I would order as many instructional videos as humanly possible. Learn, study and apply every technique you can while at clubs. Find a practice partner to work with. As long as you’re just one step ahead of your students, you will always be considered their teacher.

Let me know how everything goes!

- Edie