Week 5: Eddie Torres and Modern Salsa/Mambo

 In the late 1970s salsa truly came into being. Emerging from the Latin hustle and salsa music, people, including, Eddie Torres began to give dance classes. There was some pushback from hustlers about salsa dancers changing their dance, but it gave rise to something greater. Eddie more so taught mambo classes throughout the period of the Latin hustle and together it helped form what we now consider salsa. Eddie did this by recruiting people in New York to learn to dance and he even had help from Tito Puente who produced a lot of Latin music. The drive that it required to continue his dance group inspires me. They truly changed what salsa was to the public. As I listened to the many videos and songs, I also felt inspired to move and then talked with a friend about her experience with a salsa club and dancing. 

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