The Character of Salsa and the Different Styles of Salsa

An essential character element of salsa is Cuban motion. Cuban motion, especially the hip action, comes, comes mainly from the alternate bending and straightening of the knees. Like the basic for mambo, and for rumba, a full basic of the Salsa can be thought of as having a forward basic, which takes 4 beats of music, and a backward basic, which takes four beats of music. So, eight beats of music are required to complete one full basic. Each forward and backward basic can be considered to contain the following three steps: a break step, a replace step, and a slow step usually taken to second foot position. Most salsa dancers perform a touch step or tap step, not entailing a weight change on the second beat of the two-beat “slow” step. In other words, the tap occurs during the “pause” beat. Thus, this tap step precedes the break step.

The Cumbia style of salsa. Another style of salsa is the cumbia style, popular in South America. In the cumbia style, the full basic has two back breaks rather than a forward break step and a backward break step. The cumbia basic has a side to side feel rather than a forward and back feel. The music for the cumbia style is also distinctive in character.