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Salsa — A Cultural Lens Between Black and White
How Salsa music and dance is a lens between black and white cultures, helping us understand, and appreciate more about one another.
“If you want to really get to know a culture, then you must dance a mile in its footsteps”
-Shamelessly ripped off and adapted from the book “To Kill a Mockingbird”.
Introduction
This story is intended for anyone wishing to learn a little about the “Cultural lens” that is salsa.
It is presented in the form of a little of my own experience and conclusions, learned from around ten years studying and practising salsa.
As well as providing a cultural view of salsa, It should also help aspiring salsero/a(s), their instructors, and anyone else interested to avoid some of the learning pitfalls I experienced, which I now see were due to unacknowledged cultural differences.
It seems obvious to me now that salsa is actually a lens, a kind of bridge between two cultures; one which would describe itself as typically white, and the other which would describe itself as typically black.
The story focuses on Afro-Caribbean salsa, rather than “Cross-body”, or “LA style”, which I…
