As music develops & changes, so too does the style of dance. Across the world the music music tends to differ slightly so the way people dance also tends to change slightly from country to country and again differently over a period of time. As people travel around the world, they are influenced by these differences and they influence people around them so styles then tend to merge. Salsa dancing developed from a number dances, but principally from Son & Afro-Cuban Rumba. Cha Cha Cha, Pachanga, & the Latin Ballroom version of Rumba also developed from Son.

Some excellent examples of salsa dances may be seen below or click here for various other dances. For further details see read the following or the Wikipedia.

BestSalsa Classes start with teaching Cuban style, but once our students have grasped the basics we teach both Cuban & L.A. style at improver level & occasionally Cali Style Salsa or Cha Cha Cha, New York "Mambo" style (which is also known as "On2"), Bachata, Merengue & Boogaloo.

This video clip below shows what you can expect to learn in typical beginners' classes.

This video clip shows Boogaloo Barry dancing simultaneously with 2 of his students after a lesson. This is known as a threesome. These students had only been dancing salsa for 2 months at the time of filming. The style is mixed Cuban & LA style.

Had the ladies above been dancing salsa regularly for at least 1 year, it should have looked more like the L.A. style display below.

This is Jorge Camaguey with Misledis dancing Cuban style salsa at Warsaw Salsa Festival 2006.

Cuban Salsa has a circular feel to the dance and there tends to be much less spinning than Crossbody styles. The Miami style is very similar to Cuban except that dancers often tap on beats 4 & 8 rather than pause - this is how Cubans originally tended to dance salsa.

This Rueda De Casino performance is pure Cuban style.

This video clip shows 23 Cuban salsa moves. Some of the names or moves may differ from those used elsewhere.

This clip shows an interesting blend of styles with the winning routine at the Tropicana Tropics World Championships 2004 with Jhesus Appointe (From Puerto Rico) & Yanet Fuentes Torres (From Cuba living in London).

Miami Salsa dancers also tend to incorporate more spins in their Salsa than Cubans & have some different names for the same Rueda moves. The Crossbody styles (i.e. LA, New York & Puerto Rican styles) tend to make the lady travel in a straight line while the man steps aside to let her pass through. Nowadays LA style is sometimes referred to as New York On1 style. The following clips show some popular LA style performers. This Alex Da Silva & Alien Ramirez' at the Salsa Festival Hamburg 2007. Alex is credited with having created the LA style.

This is Francisco Vasquez idea of dancing socially! Francisco is the older of the famous Vaquez Brothers who spread the popularity of the LA style by encouraging people to dance like this socially - not for the faint hearted.

This clip shows Johnny Vazquez (the youngest brother of Francisco above) & Carolina Cerisola dancing their winning routine in the 2001 Mayan salsa competition in Los Angeles.

This is one of a number of routines by Eddie the Salsa Freak & Al (Liquid Silver) Espinoza - her husband at the time. Eddie was largely responsible for introducing the LA Style to the London & then all of the UK in the late 1990s.

There are timing differences between the LA, New York & Puerto Rican styles. New York style is also called Mambo or On2. It is unusual in the UK learn to dance On2 before learning On1 for a number of months or even for several years. It is worth learning to dance Cha Cha Cha (which is also danced on 2) before learning to dance Mambo On2 as the music is slower. Colombians generally tend to dance very basic steps style is mostly except in Cali where Salsa is mostly about footwork based on Pachanga & Boogaloo, but it does not have the characteristic bounce that Boogaloo has. Very recently some world champions from Cali have introduced a new style called LA Cali which combines amazingly fast footwork with LA crossbody style moves. It is such a new style that very few people know it and so it may be a few years before it is likely to be common in the social dance scene.

The following 3 video clips show Cali Style Salsa (Colombian style with a hint of LA Style). These are Triple World Team Champions Swing Latino performing in London 10 August 2007,

These were Double World Champions Ricardo Murillo & Viviana Vargas performing at the Scandinanvian Salsa Congress 2008.

Another amazing performance well worth watching - Sonido Bestial - Kids Dancing Salsa.

This video clip shows the World Championship Las Vegas 2006 with various styles.

This video clip of Franklin Diaz & Yesenia Peralta shows dancing New York Style (On2),

This video clip of World Champions Oliver Pineda & Luda Kroiter (Austalia) also shows dancing New York Style (On2).

Cristel Yorke & Iran Castillo (Holland & San Diego) teach a New York Style (On2) routine.

2 more video clips may be found in our F.A.Q.s section.

There are a few clubs which advertise themselves as Cuban clubs with Cuban classes. Others specialise in Crossbody styles. The L.A. style is currently the most common style in London. A few people dance Miami style too which is somewhat similar to Cuban style. A few clubs nowadays cater specifically for Colombian style but very few in the UK dance true Puerto Rican style (also called "Power On2, or New York Palladium style Salsa) style nor the Dutch Curacao style. The latter is no longer common even in Holland nowadays. A popular variation in both Cuban & Miami styles is "Rueda De Casino" - Spanish for "Casino wheel". In this style, all couple arrange themselves in a circle, and one person calls out the name of a move, then all couples dance that move.

If you listen carefully to the music you will find that some styles tend to suit certain types of music better than others. This is the main reason for the differences between the various styles. E.g. New York mambo music tends to have more empasis in the Conga beat, which is loudest on the second beat. There is no reason why other styles can't come into fashion eg dancing Salsa On Clave, or perhaps dancing Boogaloo On 2.