Tropicana hosting salsa music and dance festival

Courtesy photo

From July 2-4, the Tropicana is playing host to the Sixth Annual Las Vegas Salsa Congress, a music and dance festival.

By Sarah Feldberg (contact)

Thursday, July 2, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

While the Strip prepares to celebrate Independence Day this weekend, the Tropicana will be moving to a decidedly Latin beat.

From July 2-4, the hotel and casino is playing host to the Sixth Annual Las Vegas Salsa Congress, a music and dance festival that brings together salsa fans, professionals and wannabes for two days of workshops, three nights of shows and a weekend-long dance party.

Before you put on your dancing shoes and loosen up your hips, however, you might want to brush up on your salsa vocabulary.

Salsa — A form of dance created in the Caribbean with roots in European and African dance forms that is usually performed in pairs. The basic salsa step involves three weight changes over four counts of music. “Salsa’s so exciting; it’s so sensual,” says Las Vegas Salsa Congress owner Nate Strager. “It’s limitless.”

Salsa congress — “A congress is when you bring people from different states or different countries and you bring them together,” Strager said. “You’re bringing different dance teams and attendees to one city for a weekend to watch shows from different teams from around the world, and you also get to hear different bands from around the world and dance with different people. ... There’s 186 salsa congresses around the world. Greece, Dubai, Switzerland, Sweden, Prague. They’re everywhere. ... They had one on the Great Wall of China last year.”

Mambo — While the national origins of salsa dance are hotly debated, the dance has evolved, and today, many different styles can be seen at salsa clubs around the world. New York style is also called mambo and breaks on the second beat of an eight-count of music.

LA style — Unlike New York style, LA style has its first step timed to the first beat of the music. “Everybody you dance with will have a different style,” Strager explains. “As long as you dance with the music you’re good, but everybody has a different style. ... Vegas has a little bit of everything. There’s European style, there’s LA style and New York style.”