Kelly Trom
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Sexy, difficult, skimpy outfits, passionate dancers — these are some images that might pop into the average person’s head when thinking about salsa dancing. However, the CP Salsa club shows the dance isn’t too complicated and welcomes all levels of dancers.
Ed Pecson, the instruction manager of CP Salsa, started out salsa dancing with his wife and fell in love with the dance.
“People think (salsa) is very sexy and sultry, and think that they can’t do it,” Pecson said. “But when you start doing it, it is more about high energy and musicality.”
CP Salsa started in 2000 to make learning the dance more accessible and cheaper to college students and San Luis Obispo community members. The club is open to all, from beginners to accomplished dancers.
Instructor Kari Wastun taught ballroom dance professionally in Sacramento and is now a volunteer teacher for CP Salsa lessons on Friday nights.
“Everyone learns differently, that is why we teach all different levels,” Wastun said. “From the person who has never danced a step in their life to people that have been dancing for years and have decided that they want to add salsa to their repertoire.”
Although beginners might get frustrated that they aren’t learning quickly, Pecson and Wastun recommend attending lessons consistently for at least 10 weeks.
“It is all about dedication,” Pecson said. “What we usually tell people is to stick with it an entire quarter, and you will definitely be comfortable. Stick with it for a whole year, you will be a dancer.”
Once they’re at a comfortable level, dancers can confidently take to the floor.
“You are going to be able to go to a club and be able to dance salsa,” Wastun said. “You can actually dance to music and not just bump and grind. You are actually doing something in sync with someone, and it is a lot of fun. It just makes you feel good.”
Although the officers of CP Salsa are all Cal Poly students, there is no age restriction to attend lessons or dancing afterward. From high schoolers to the middle-aged, the club welcomes anyone who wants to learn something new.
Architecture sophomore and advertising manager Deeksha Phadnis started attending lessons her freshman year, after she was intrigued by demonstrations during Week of Welcome. She soon came to enjoy not only the dance, but also the variety of people who made it happen.
“The older members really bring a sense of balance and stability to the club,” Phadnis said. “It is very much a heritage. We still hear stories about the first year the club was founded and the people that were here.”
Cal Poly students make up approximately one third to one half of CP Salsa club membership. The community members that stick around for more than four years are in their mid-20s to 40s.
Many students that make up the CP Salsa population are engineers, including vice president and industrial engineering senior Michael Hester.
“It’s actually uncanny, the amount of dancing engineers we have,” Hester said. “They spend so much time sitting in front of computer screens, not interacting with people. I think they just want to break out, get some exercise, meet some girls.”
The officers of the club are also involved in other dance clubs such as blues, fusion, line dancing and swing.
“A lot of our officers do multiple dance forms,” Hester said. “It actually helps your dancing to do multiple dance (forms) because you see the same thing taught from multiple, different perspectives. It helps to have different teachers.”
Along with Friday night lessons, CP Salsa also puts on three events each quarter.
The first, a bootcamp designed to get freshmen excited and involved in salsa dancing, takes place in fall. There are three hours of instruction followed by dancing, allowing students to show off what they learned.
“I think what happens is that sometimes people get frustrated that they aren’t learning fast enough,” Wastun said. “The bootcamp is designed to accelerate the process. They realize that it is fun and that you can learn it.”
The winter event is a masquerade ball where many of the dance clubs from Cal Poly come together to offer lessons in various dance forms. This past year, the salsa club was joined by the Blues, West Coast Swing and Tango clubs.
“Of course, our crown jewel is the San Luis Obispo Salsa Exchange,” Hester said. “We invite all of the California college salsa clubs to come dance with us for an entire weekend. We get private venues, food trucks, everything.”
This spring event is part of the club’s initiative to become a part of the larger salsa community. One of the goals is to find places for students and community members to go salsa dancing outside San Luis Obispo, Pecson said.
Piloted last summer, the CP Salsa choreography team is a way for salsa students to get more focused and intense training when they feel they can progress no further with regular lessons.
“The choreography team really focuses on technique,” Wastun said. “They just want to challenge themselves. It’s not necessarily that they are learning any new moves, it’s just that they are learning how to be a better dancer.”
All of the instructors are volunteers and are paying it forward for those that came before them and helped them learn.
“I like watching people gain confidence,” Pecson said. “You gain a lot of confidence, especially for a guy who is super introverted to go up to a girl ask her to dance, have her say yes and just have that experience. A four-minute relationship with a total stranger. I love watching people grow as dancers and watch them change.”
CP Salsa holds $5 salsa lessons every Friday night from 8:00 to 9:30 p.m., in Architecture and Environmental Design (building 5), room 225. Free dancing follows from 9:30 to midnight.