Who Invented the Salsa Dance?

Salsa dance was created by Spanish-speaking people living in the Caribbean and North America. Although salsa is a common Latin ballroom dance formed by couples, it can also be done solo or as a line dance. As with many art forms, no one person invented the salsa dance. Different people played a role in molding salsa.

The person who invented the salsa dance cannot be easily identified, because salsa combines various Latino, European and Afro-Caribbean dances. As far back as the 1700s, these cultural differences formed a distinctly North American music landscape.

Salsa dance grew out of the popularity of mambo in North America, due to the rise of Cuban and Puerto Rican communities in New York City. These two communities created their distinct versions of salsa dancing and became a part of the New York club scene.

The New York style of salsa dancing is the most popular one around, because this is the city of salsa’s origin. Eddie Torres, the King of Mambo Dancing, performed with Tito Puente, the Mambo King, and his mambo influence helped form modern salsa dancing.

The inventor of salsa dance in Los Angeles used the basic concept of the New York style of dance. However, the West Coast influence and Latin ballroom makes LA salsa more dramatic, with dips, spins, drops and complicated turns.

Cuban salsa, often called casino salsa, included more arm movements than the other two styles. The footwork contains a lot of movements in which dance partners walk around one another and do various intertwining twirls.

Rueda de Casino is a form of salsa dancing invented in Havana, Cuba, in which couples for a circle. One person calls their partner with a series of complicated hand signals. Couples swap partners with other dancers in the circle during the course of the song.