How did you end up (rather, start) with Salsa ?

I started Salsa when I was 18 years old. And i started with Salsa Madras. I had seen some movie which I don’t remember, I liked the way the dance couple were dancing (not Bollywood Salsa) but Latin Salsa. Again I don’t remember but someone I knew posted the picture of Salsa beginners class with Salsa Madras. I dropped in on May 5th ,2018. Back then, Arun Pauer was my dance instructor. At that time I was one of the youngest and was not used to meeting people from different age groups. But eventually I got really comfortable and At that time, I barely missed even one class. To all the socials, classes, night outs , LFM performances and all the fun which I’ll always cherish. I was always an introvert and still I am but I’m more confident on the dance floor and most importantly I made few good friends in the Latin dance world and one of them is Arun S Pauer. Good luck to Salsa Madras to bring in more new dancers!

Salsa would be the best decision and glad we were the bridge to that! Thank you for being a family.

My passion for dance grew exponentially , after I finished my college. My time with Infosys played an important role as well . Although my understanding of Latin dance / music was very limited. After I quit my job , went for my post graduation, I completely felt a void in my life , since there was no dancing at all. Luckily , when I was browsing through dance schools, I landed on Salsa Madras page and joined the classes after giving a lot of thought. You can say that it is one of the best decision I have taken in my life. Arun made me feel at home right from the first class and Richard taught the basics of Salsa. It took me sometime for to understand the dynamics of Salsa and start to dance in Socials. A big thanks to Nehla, Shilpa, , Nirali , Arvind, James, Richard, Sneha, VIjay Balaji and other instructors who helped me out to lose my inhibitions on dance floor in socials. My First LFM, I performed a Bachata routine from there , there was no turning back for me. I am still growing as a dancer , learning from each and everyone in the community. Thanks Arun , for being my eyes , ears to understand World of Latin Dances , for being an inspiration.

15 years!!! Wow I never heard of Salsa then! For that matter, even Internet!

I have been passionate about dancing for as long as I can remember. Having always been enamored by Latin dance as a young teen, I did my research and signed up for my first 10-day summer salsa workshop at O2 studio, Chennai when I was all but 15 years old. I was a huge introvert back then and was very young when compared to the other dancers but the artform, its intricacies, the musicality has stayed with me ever since.

Many years have passed but my passion for Latin dancing only continues to keep growing. I would like to thank all my dance teachers who have encouraged and inspired me to keep dancing and most importantly keep improving.

Thank you, Arun for being an awesome teacher and an inspiration. Wishing you more successful years ahead.

Cheers!

Two and a half years back while I was partying in glee, I saw a group of dancers grooving to a music that I never could understand or relate to.

But the moves looked really super cool. I started searching on insta and landed on salsa madras page. Out of an adrenaline rush I texted and landed up for a class with James. After first two classes, James took all the students to the socials in so bar away.

There was my first dance. In the tough times salsa worked as a therapy. Started with simple curiosity and adrenaline rush, but now my playlist has all those songs that once I could never relate and understand as my favourites.

To heads up, I will tell you what happened!

It was a MOVIE! Read on to know the story.

Although the term Salsa keeps popping up very often in the movies (mostly for sarcastic or wrong reasons), my first real encounter with Salsa came in Mumbai as part of my Final year project for my Bachelor's degree, (B.Tech, Industrial Biotechnology, Anna Uni, Chennai) at the Then Nicolas Piramal Life Science Research (now, Piramal Life sciences).

My project mate named Hitesh Goswami, who was also an employee and a localalite Mumbaikaar mentioned about the Salsa classes he kept going for. Since I have only kept hearing about Salsa popularly at that time although you dont really be aware of it, I was curious and from what he told me, I wanted to try myself. I was a student with no stipend and hence couldn't afford any expense more than the daily necessities at that time. The project was over, I was back to Chennai. I messed up on my GRE scores, dealing with a bad break up and kind of left clueless with what comes next just after college. The VP of Nicolas Piramal . called and offered me a job to work with them. The VP Dr. Arun Balakrishnam, who also happened to be the ex-Director of my department in College and I had been working in his lab all my college. So it was only fair that I got a job, right?

Now that I started earning (no so much), I wanted to spend on things I couldn't spend well before as a student. First thing, is FOOD! I had starved many days as a student and didnt want to ask parents for more money and now I didnt want to starve myself ever!

And Coincidentally, I ended up watching a movie - SHALL WE DANCE starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. This movie led to Dirty Dancing, Take the Lead, Dance with me!

And so, the second thing, was the SALSA CLASS!

The name of the School was Rahul Saxena Dance Company located at Santa Cruz and I did enrol for probably 2 courses. This was end of 2006 and start of 2007! The class was a mix of Salsa, Jive & Waltz. Although, I didn't understand much difference between them and it was all confusing, I did enjoy those 2 hours of the Saturday that I had for myself learning a new skill! I quit the job in June that year and moved to Edinburgh for my masters degree. My first ideal encounted to SALSA was in Edinburgh at a Salsa Night at a club called CUBA NORTE (Its not there anymore). The initial few classes in Mumbai did indirectly set the way for me end up in a Salsa Night in Edinburgh in Aug 2007! Rest is all history :)