Salsa & Latin American

Learn to dance:

Rumba
Cha-cha-cha
Salsa
Jive
Samba
Paso Doble

Pricing information and course content

• Each course term is made up of 18 consecutive weeks tuition (split in to 3 blocks of 6 weeks)

• A membership fee of £10 per person is applied to each and every new term
  See Class dates and times page for more information on class times & locations

An overview and history of some of the Latin American dances

The Cha Cha Cha

Cheeky and carefree, the Cha Cha Cha is a together dance - one to do with your friends as well as your partner. Not so intimate as the Tango or the Rumba, it is also one of the easiest dances to learn.

Beginners find its Latin rhythm easy to follow because the clearly marked beats can be counted out in time with the music making it a perennial favourite with social dancers throughout the world.

The dance is based on a chasse movement (three linked steps) which danced to coincide with the accented beats in each bar of the music. The name Cha Cha Cha is said to represent the sound made by the feet of the dancers on the floor when they dance this chasse.

Cha Cha Cha music, which originated in Cuba, has a strong compelling, easy recognised rhythm that can be counted comfortably as "one, two, three, four and one, two, three, four and one" etc. The beats that occur on the count of four and one are accented and may be spelled out as Cha Cha Cha. The best tempo for the music is 30 bars per minute, The strongest musical accent occurs on the first beat of each bar.

The Cha Cha Cha consists of the some twenty basic figures and innumerable variations developed from these basic figures. However newcomers to the dance will soon attract the attention of their friends if they can dance well the four basic figures that are demonstrated in our classes, along with the preparatory step, which must be used to start the dance in correct time with the music.