Salsa Club heats up O’Hara

Hips moving, Latin rhythms playing and dancers gliding. A man twists his female partner three times, then their hands sway from left to right. Surrounded by four other swinging couples, their feet meet one another’s, and he gives her one more spin.

The Salsa Club, a student organization devoted to practicing and teaching Latin dances, held its once-a-semester Salsa Night last Friday, and this fall’s theme was glow-in-the-dark. About 30 students got into the salsa dancing mood in darkness, surrounded by glow sticks and light-up balloons in the O’Hara Student Center’s second floor ballroom.  
The night kicked off at 9 p.m. with Kirby Shramuk, the Salsa Club’s secretary, and Adriana Miranda, the club’s vice president, teaching beginner salsa dancing lessons for a half hour. The rest of the evening was spent on bachata, a type of dance from the Dominican Republic that is a three step dance with a tap.

There was no music playing in the background except for Shramuk on stage giving step-by-step directions on basic salsa and bachata moves. Miranda was Shramuk’s dance partner during this part of the evening, and the two moved their feet forward and backward, counting steps up to eight over and over again.

Lyndsey Nagy, a junior biology major, started the club a year ago. Nagy never danced before college, but the bug hit when she was introduced to salsa on vacation in Mexico.

Nagy participated in salsa dancing workshops with the Spanish Club until the club stopped holding the sessions in her second semester. Nagy missed the lessons and realized that it was difficult to learn salsa if there are no inexpensive resources to do so.

After she secured funding from SGB to make the club official last year, Nagy began offering free professional instructions and workshops every week. Now the club hosts two specialty workshops a semester, one Salsa Night a semester and salsa workshops every Sunday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.

The only differences between members and those who show up to the workshops, aside from  fee of up to $15, is that official members can run for officer positions and have more say in the group. No one has to audition to join the club.

Shramuk, a junior supply chain management and global management major, joined the club after a salsa-dancing friend convinced her to attend a workshop. She’s been in love ever since.

“We try to introduce a lot to people, because when you go out [to dance] here in the city, a lot of times you’ll get a mix between Salsa, Bachata, Merengue, Kizomba and Cha Cha,” Shramuk said.

There are several places in Pittsburgh that offer salsa dancing nights, including Los Sabrosos Dance Studio in Garfield and Seviche, a restaurant located downtown that recently offered free salsa lessons on Nov. 7. Dancers looking to practice more regularly can also attend Salsa Fridays held in Cabaret at Theatre Square.

Nicolette Pawlowski and Agustin Garcia, two professional instructors who teach the Sunday workshops at Pitt and help choreograph the performing team routines, run the studio Los Sabrosos in Pittsburgh.

Shramuk said the teachers bring technique to workshops, because they take lessons with world champions.

“We get experience worth thousands of dollars for free on campus,” Shramuk said.

Salsa Night picked up speed around 10:30 p.m. More guests started asking each other to dance, and suddenly, there were 11 couples on the floor. A few couples showcasing their intermediate dancing abilities with sharp, perfected movements while the rest focused on becoming more comfortable with the rhythms and dances with music playing in the background.

The evening’s attire varied with some dancers donning dresses with heels and other dancers dressed down with sneakers or only socks.

At Salsa Night, looks don’t matter — it’s all about moves. Paula Dzimira, a first-year anthropology and biology major at Pitt who attended Salsa Night for the first time, said those moves weren’t as difficult as she originally thought.

“It’s a lot easier than it looks if you have a good partner,”  Dzimira said. “The instructors really work with you if you’re a beginner like me who has absolutely no rhythm or skill.”

For salsa dancing veterans, the club created a performance team last fall semester. Its next performance is on Nov. 18. during the intermission of the Caribbean and Latin American Student Association Fashion Show. Nagy aims to have the performance team in competitions by next year.

Shramuk has found that salsa dancing helps her outlook. In life, she looks at situations just like learning a challenging dance move, handling it as she would on the dance floor.

“For four minutes, your world is just about dancing,” Shramuk said. “I don’t know where I’d be without dancing.”