If you liked Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance, these Henrico haunts are hot to help you salsa dance this weekend

For Maurice “Tito” Sanabria, seeing performers dressed in white, beating out plena rhythms on hand-held drums last weekend at Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show had an emotional impact on the musician.

“I was so proud to see plena on the world stage,” Sanabria said. “To see it on screen, a traditional art that was kept alive through oral tradition from one generation to another, just teaching and practicing it, persevering, to see that on the world stage was, wow, a very proud moment.”

As the co-founder of Kadencia, a local salsa, plena and bomba orchestra, Sanabria performs to not only keep the musical traditions of Puerto Rico alive but to share and explain the music and history to a wider audience.

Plena is a traditional Puerto Rican musical genre played on handheld drums called pandeiros that dates to the late 1800s developed by people that worked in sugar mills, fields, workshops and factories.

Sanabria holds a monthly plena community Workshop at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, with the next meeting planned on Saturday, Feb. 21, at 10 a.m.

In the 1970s in New York City, salsa grew from bomba and plena performers mixing Afro Cuban and Puerto Rican music. Salsa music performed during Bad Bunny’s half time show from his Grammy winning album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS  (I Should Have Taken More Photos) has raised the music’s profile. 

“The interest in bomba and plena has grown with Bad Bunny’s album,” Sanabria said. “That has sparked more interest. People are reacting really well to our community of practice and our shows too. We've had sold out shows at different spots. People always have questions. It's been a really interesting ride.”

Dancing is an integral part of salsa and what a lot of people enjoy, Sanabria said.

If you liked Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance, numerous Henrico haunts are perfect to try social salsa dancing on your own, with a partner or in a group, from structured classes to night club settings.

Sanabria said people who dance salsa benefit on many different levels.

“There’s a cultural awareness aspect to it,” Sanabria said. “When you learn about people, you learn to become more empathetic and understanding of the reality of some of the people that you're interacting with. It helps build context. There's that emotional intelligence aspect to it.”

At Sanabria’s music workshops he teaches about the rhythms and the timing in a fun and interactive way.

“You're definitely getting a little bit of a workout out of it because you're banging a drum. You're using your voice to sing. You're exercising your brain as well. You're going to get that physical workout with Cardiovascular benefits,” Sanabria said. “It's a mechanism to release some stress as well.”

Getting started

With 6,000 members, the Richmond Salsa Community Facebook group attests to the popularity of the dance form’s long time popularity.

People who want to incorporate Bad Bunny's dance moves in their exercise regimen can enroll in Zumba classes at Eastern Henrico Recreation Center, which incorporates hip shaking Latin Dance into a “calorie torching total-body cardio and aerobic workout.”

For those just learning salsa as a social dance, the Dance Space at 6004-A West Broad Street is holding a 7 p.m. Valentine’s Day Beginner Ballroom Dance this Saturday. The event is described as a four-dances-in-one beginner class during which participants will learn basic steps including Rumba. No prior dance experience is required.

Dancing follows the lesson, where the playlist will be those same dances, so that participants can immediately practice the new skills. Instructors will be available throughout the evening to help dancers.

“We get people to realize how simple it is to get started dancing,” said Michael Recant, co-owner of The Dance Space. “It's not that hard. You don't have to have dance talent. Latin social dancing is something that can be made a part of your life on a regular basis.”

Recant sees social dancing as a benefit because it is something anyone can do into old age.

“Dance is low impact, but it still helps you tremendously in terms of things like balance, being able to control your many muscles, the development of your leg muscles, being able to move around for the various dance steps and building general tone,” Recant said.

“There's a lot of mental concentration to be able to work with your dance partner, the dance steps, the keeping in sync with the music, thinking about the music or feeling the music. The leader is constantly figuring out, ‘What step are we going to do next? And then providing the indicator to the follower. The follower is looking for the lead.”

Recant said he can give beginning dancers the instructions about what they need, how to move, when and what you do fairly quickly but, he said, “you then need to go ahead and go to dances to practice it, because that's really where you're going to learn it.”

Hitting the dance floor

Friday and Saturday Latin nights at the Aloft Richmond hotel at 3939 Duckling Drive in Glen Allen is a popular Henrico County venue where people get out on a dance floor.

Organizer Boris Karabashev, a Bulgaria-born professional competitive dancer, starts the evening with an introductory lesson at 8:30 p.m. for an always diverse group of people of many ages and backgrounds.  

He said Bad Bunny’s halftime show was very special to the Latin dance community. His song Baile Inolvidable and Lady Gaga’s Salsa version of Die With A Smile do get into rotation.

“The music was on spot,” Karabashev said. “Physically, dancing salsa is very nice cardio. You dance one song, you're already sweating. Mentally, it's proven dancing is good to prevent so many memory and brain diseases. You're exercising your brain, coordinating stuff, tuning your body to get better at dancing, fine tuning to make things smooth. You're dancing with a partner and not just controlling your body but controlling your body in a way that you affect positively your partner so you work together as one.”

The social aspect is what inspires Karabashev most to bring people into dancing.

“I just want people to dance,” Karabashev said. “You dive into dancing and then suddenly all the problems are gone. Dance gives so much, especially this form of social dancing like salsa, bachata, the freestyling. It’s very beneficial.”

Kerri Gentius has been dancing salsa for almost a decade and regularly goes to Aloft for the health benefits and community.

“I love the music. I love the dancing. I love the connection to other people,” Gentius said. “It's one of the few ways that I socialize these days. It's a great way to stay connected to the community while meeting tons of new people and not bonding over work.”

Gentius said another benefit is that it beats isolation.

“It's not something that you have to come to with a partner,” Gentius said. “You can show up on your own and build a community just by dancing. Even if you consider yourself to be really shy or don't necessarily like talking to folks. You just move.”

On top of all that, you're actively participating in a culture.

“You're contributing to the legacy that is salsa dance. With every party that you attend, with every move that you learn, with every song that you sing, you are keeping the legacy of African and Hispanic roots alive,” Gentius said.

Richmond Salsa Community provides a complete calendar of a wide-ranging list of salsa dance events in and around Henrico County,

Dina Weinstein is the Citizen’s community vitality reporter and a Report for America corps member, covering housing, health and transportation. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.