Cultural Partner: Cactus

Since we started teaching Cuban salsa it has been our aim to not just give people a collection of different moves but rather provide a comprehensive course that introduces students to all aspects of the dance. We feel that aspects such as history and culture are as important to Cuban salsa as learning how to lead and follow as it makes the dance more meaningful and gives dancers an idea as to why moves are executed in a certain way. However, even our most interested students quickly discover that while there is a lot of information on Cuban salsa, most of the literature is in Spanish so for people who do not speak this language there is a limit to how much they can find out on the subject. Similarly, most song lyrics of salsa songs are Spanish so for people who want to dance to the meaning of a song this language is key. Adding to this the fact that a lot of our beginner students struggle with the Spanish move names more than the move itself, it is natural for most Cuban salsa dancers to eventually want to learn the Spanish language.

To make it easier and cheaper for our students to master this language and apply it in the salsa context we have partnered up with a number of language schools in the area where we teach. Cactus is the biggest school we have partnered up with which provides language classes all over the UK including Leeds. Since most of our students live around Leeds we do believe that this partnership provides a great opportunity for people who come to our classes to learn more about the language. It will give people a chance to sign up for evening classes together with some of their friends they made in salsa which will make it an even more enjoyable experience.

Cactus is the leading provider for language courses in the UK offering evening classes as well as language holidays in various locations. Through the partnership with our school they are giving Tiempo España Dance Academy students a 20% discount for any of their 10 week evening language courses in Leeds. Similarly, Cactus students will only have to pay the student price when buying an 8-week pass for our classes so we hope a number of our students will benefit from this collaboration. If you would like to find out further information you can visit the Cactus homepage at https://www.languagecoursesuk.co.uk. If you would like to receive the discount for the language course, please speak to Aimi or myself in class.