This year has certainly had its challenges and we unfortunately had to close down some of our smaller venues. We are nonetheless immensely proud of what we have achieved this year and are very lucky to have had the help of some amazing friends in keeping this dance school alive. Not all of the projects we envisaged for 2017 came to fruition but it has been a beautiful experience to see some of our dreams come to life this year, growing our school into a hub for Cuban salsa that can rival with some of the biggest Cuban salsa schools in the UK.
We have expanded our social media network this year creating weekly blog posts and monthly videos having had 187 members on Facebook and 240 members on meetup join us in 2017 so far. Our biggest milestones however, are the addition of 9 teachers who joined us this year helping us with Cuban salsa classes across all our locations and providing a base for further expansions in the coming years. Their training and development has been one of our key focus areas over the past year and we are proud to see how well everything has come together to the point where we have several teachers attempting level 3 teaching at this stage.
Other achievements this year include the spin-off of our philanthropic activities into a separate community interest company called Tiempo España Dance Academy C.I.C. who launched its first successful project “Strictly Cuban Salsa” in Monk Fryston a few months ago. Moreover, we went from a dance school centred exclusively around teaching Cuban salsa to organising and managing events by providing entertainment and performances at various weddings and anniversaries last year as well as organising regular Cuban salsa parties in York and Leeds.
But most and foremost we are proud of our students who have come a long way this year to the point where some of our more advanced lessons are challenging even for the most talented and experienced Cuban salsa dancers joining our classes. It is a pleasure to see how many of our students now share our enthusiasm not just about the dance itself but aspects such as the history, culture, musicality etc. The trip we organised to Edinburgh to see Maykel Blanco and the subsequent dance collaboration with Salsa4Water in Glasgow was testament to how far we have come this year and we certainly plan on creating similar opportunities in the following years.
