Description
Salsa is usually a partner dance form that corresponds to salsa music. In some forms, it can also appear as a performance dance. The word is the same as the Spanish word salsa meaning sauce, or in this case flavor or style.
According to testimonials from musicologists and historians of music, the name salsa was gradually accepted among dancers throughout various decades. The very first time the word appeared on the radio was a composition by Ignacio Piñeiro, dedicated to an old black man who sold butifarras (a sausage-like product) in Central Road in Matanzas. It is a song titled Échale salsita, wherein the major refrain and chorus goes "Salsaaaaa! échale salsita, échale salsita". During the early 1950s, commentator and DJ "bigote" Escalona announced danceables with the title: "the following rhythm contains Salsa". Finally, the Spanish-speaking population of the New York area baptized Celia Cruz as the "Queen of Salsa".
Salsa is danced on music with two bars of four beats. Salsa patterns typically use three steps during each four beats, one beat being skipped. However, this skipped beat is often marked by a shifting of weight from one foot to the other. Typically the music involves complicated percussion rhythms, ranging from slow at about 120 beats per minute to its fastest at around 180 beats per minute (see salsa music for more).
Salsa is a slot or spot dance, i.e., unlike Foxtrot or Samba, in Salsa a couple does not need to travel over the dance floor much (although they could, if there was space and the lead decided to do so), but rather occupies a fixed area on the dance floor.
History
Salsa music is a fusion of traditional African and Cuban and other Latin-American rhythms that traveled from the islands (Cuba and Puerto Rico) to New York during the migration, somewhere between the 1940s and the 1970s, depending on where one puts the boundary between "real" salsa and its predecessors. Celia Cruz, who by many has been hailed as the queen of salsa before she died said that salsa doesn't exist as a rhythm, she said it was only an exclamation for music such as guaracha, bolero, cha cha cha, danzon, son, rumba etc. The famous Latin composer and musician Tito Puente also argued that there is no such thing as salsa but only mambo, rumba, danzon and cha cha cha...etc. There is debate as to whether Salsa originated in Cuba or Puerto Rico. Salsa is one of the main dances in both Cuba and Puerto Rico and is known world-wide. The dance steps currently being danced to salsa music come from the Cuban son, but were influenced by many other Cuban dances such as Mambo, Cha cha cha, Guaracha, Changuí, Palo Monte, Rumba, Abakuá, Comparsa and some times even Mozambique. It also integrates swing dances. There are no strict rules of how salsa should be danced, although one can distinguish a number of styles, which are discussed below. The reason there are no strict rules as to how you dance salsa is because it is a made up dance, an improvised dance to music which is often misunderstood. Salsa can be whatever the interpreter wishes it to be. The choreographer may listen to some music which is defined as salsa and will improvise the steps that come to mind. Salsa has elements of Jazz, funk, reggae, and even samba. If it didn't exist someone would have to invent it.