It was about five years ago that Jonah Inikori
opened his own dance studio in Rochester,
Darin Price started traveling the globe to learn more about Latin dance and
music, and Kerri Vaughn started teaching salsa. These three are now at the core
of the Latin dance scene in Rochester,
and have dedicated themselves to help it evolve over the past several years
into one of the largest Latin dance scenes in upstate New
York.
Now an event like the monthly Latin night at Lovin’
Cup in Henrietta’s Park Point attracts nearly 150 dancers, including those
taking lessons in the area and many trying it out for the first time. The bar
was full at a recent Lovin’ Cup Latin night, and the
dance floor was, too. Several people came early for an introductory salsa
lesson, and afterward took to the floor to dance socially.
Each man on the floor held a woman in his arms. Both dancers swayed their
hips and moved their feet to the beat of the authentic Latin orchestra on
stage. For one night a month, the Lovin’ Cup is
transformed into a destination for Latin dancing. And that’s only one of the
Latin dance opportunities Rochester
has to offer.
The term “Latin dance” covers many styles, including salsa,
bachata, cha-cha, mambo, merengue,
samba, and Afro-Latin rhumba, all of which are taught
at various locations in Rochester.
Each style has slightly different steps, with the most popular in the Rochester
area being salsa and bachata, according to Darin
Price.
Price, 27, is artistic director of Essence of Rhythm, a Latin dance company
in Rochester, and is also owner and
executive director of Rhythm Society Urban Wellness Studio on Bittner
Street, which he opened in March 2011. Price says
he has been around music and dance his entire life,
with a specific focus on studying jazz and playing percussion.
He began Latin dancing about 10 years ago by studying with local instructors
in Rochester. Soon, he began
traveling to areas like New York City,
Chicago, and even internationally
to further study Latin music and dance. Several things energized him to start
teaching and organizing in Rochester.
First, when he attended a dance congress – a weekend-long event filled with
social dancing, workshops, and competitions – in Chicago
he realized the immense popularity of Latin dance.
“This stuff is big. It’s underground, but it’s huge,” Price says, noting
that there were around 1500 dancers in attendance at the Chicago
event. He also noticed how much more advanced the style and level of dancing
was compared to Rochester.
“What I’d seen out there wasn’t being done here,” he says. In terms of music
and dance appreciation, he didn’t see Rochester
dancers trying to further their skills. “The dancers reached a certain level
and then that was it, they were good enough for Rochester.
No one really pushed themselves,” he says.
Still, he was apprehensive about teaching. “I wasn’t convinced that I could
teach,” Price says now. “It wasn’t until students were telling me, ‘This is
what we’re missing.'” Price says his new approach included classes rich in
technique and style, but also imparting knowledge about the culture behind the
dance styles.
Jonah Inikori has been dancing for 12 years and
also noticed the need for more Latin dance instruction in Rochester.
That is partially what prompted him to open Inikori
Dance Studio on University Avenue
five years ago.
“It was a combination of me being a business person, then also knowing the
need that there was in the community to provide something different, something
at a much higher level of skill than what existed,” he says.
Inikori has seen Rochester’s
Latin dance scene change substantially over the past five years. Local dancers
travel more now, he says, because they realize the opportunities that big
cities have to offer, such as workshops, competitions, or a dance congress.
Even something as simple as dance shoes are much more
common now.
“The level of dance has increased significantly,” Inikori
says. “There is a lot more passion too now in the community…about this kind of
dancing.”
Kerri Vaughn, 47, has been teaching salsa dancing for about five years. She
started in Syracuse, after nearly
20 years of sacred circle dancing, an international folk dance. While attending
a dance event in Ithaca, she
witnessed a salsa performance and said to herself, “I’ve gotta
do it.”
In 2008 Vaughn lost her corporate IT job, and around that same time the
current owners of a ballroom space in the South Wedge were looking for a new
tenant.
“It was kind of my retirement dream,” Vaughn says about opening what became
the Tango Cafe Dance Studio on Gregory Street
in September 2008. Just one year later she opened an actual cafe on the first
floor of the same building, which offers a smaller dance space and selection of
drinks and light food fare.
While Rochester is on the small side compared to other Latin dance hotspots, Price
says the city is rich in Latin culture. He points out the large Latino presence
at local universities, many Latino-owned businesses, as well as top-notch Latin
bands founded in Rochester.
However, he adds that there is a difference between the Latino culture and the
Latin dance scene.
“Our scene, although obviously having its influences from Latinos, it pulls
people from all different walks of life,” he says.
Given the difference in locations and styles of dances offered, the studios
attract different demographics. Price not only teaches at his Bittner
Street location, which draws an ethnically diverse
crowd, but also at Mo Dancing in Penfield, where his students tend to be
middle-upper-class and white.
Inikori runs a ballroom dance studio, with his
instructors teaching more than 15 kinds of ballroom-style dances, including
waltz, tango, and swing. Only 10 percent of his students are Latino, because he
says he targets a diverse population.
Vaughn’s studio also offers multiple dance styles, including tango,
ballroom, and swing. “There’s somewhat of a feeling that we’re a salsa studio,
but we really do more than that,” she says. Many of Vaughn’s students are young
and older professionals, including many faculty members from local colleges.
Price says his students range in ages from 5 to 65 and come
from a wide range of backgrounds. One of Price’s students is Charlie Ballard
from Rome, New York,
a 55-year-old sergeant at a corrections facility who has been Latin dancing for
three years. Ballard used to travel two hours to Rochester
three times a week to attend Price’s classes. He’s cut down slightly, attending
classes only one night a week and sometimes heading back for the Saturday night
social.
While there is Latin dancing in the nearby city of Syracuse,
Ballard says the level of instruction is simply not as high there, which is why
he makes the trek out to Rochester
to learn from Price.
“He’s the best teacher I’ve ever had,” Ballard says. “Darin’s constantly
evolving. As long as I’m with Darin, I’m going to evolve.”
Another of Price’s students is Denisse Ramos, a
20-year-old business senior at the college
of Brockport. Ramos saw Price and
his partner give a cha-cha demonstration at the Rochester Athletic Club and
decided to start taking classes.
“Ever since high school I’ve always wanted to learn the actual steps,” Ramos
says.
Coming from a Latin background, Ramos has been exposed to Latin styles of
dance for most of her life. Now, she is taking weekly bachata
lessons, a style that originated in the Dominican
Republic and which is heavy in Latin hip
movement, and she hopes to start learning salsa soon.
“I love it because it’s not only about the steps, it’s all about the emotion
and feel,” Ramos says. She adds that it’s good mental and physical exercise,
and a great way to meet new people in a lower-stress and safer environment than
the average bar.
“You feel a type of pressure when you go out to a bar or to a club,” she
says. However, at Price’s studio she said that everyone’s just there to learn,
so she doesn’t feel pressured or self-conscious.
Relief and recreation are common reasons why Price’s students attend
classes, but there are other benefits to Latin dancing. “We look at what we do
as an escape for members,” Inikori says. Often his
students are looking for an escape from everyday life or whatever they do from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“It’s balancing them out,” he says.
Students might take classes because they are divorced, or haven’t dated in a
while, or just want a new way to meet people. “I think the biggest thing is to
get people over that hump of, ‘I want to try it but I’m apprehensive,'” Vaughn
says.
EmyKadanaugh is one of
Vaughn’s students who made it over that very hump. Kadanaugh,
56, is a mother of two, a wife, and a daycare provider. However, she still
manages to make time for three classes a week at Vaughn’s studio. Kadanaugh comes from a Puerto Rican background and grew up
dancing the meringue at home with her dad.
“Once the kids got on their own I said, ‘Let’s get back into dancing,'” she
says. Now she takes lessons in salsa, Argentine tango, and Rueda
de Casino, which is a style of salsa where couples dance in a circle and one
person, the “caller,” announces the moves, which are to be executed in unison.
She also attends the studio’s weekly Friday-night social.
Even if she’s in a bad mood when she arrives at Tango Cafe, Kadanaugh says the music comes on, her heart starts beating
faster, and she realizes, “I wanna get on that floor
and dance,” she days.
There are many opportunities each week to go Latin dancing
in Rochester. Studios host their
own events, and many other businesses in Rochester
host “Latin” nights. However, Price says to be wary of these events if you’re
looking for real Latin dancing. “Just because it’s a Latin night doesn’t
necessarily mean that it’s meant for dancers,” Price says. (See sidebar for a
listing of area events.)
Some of these events have live bands on occasion, but most of the time they
are DJ’ed. Even though there are many Latin bands in Rochester
and the surrounding areas, they are expensive, and sometimes not as convenient
as DJ’ed music. “Bands are not a boombox,”
Inikori says, meaning that they don’t offer the same
variety and control that recorded music does.
However, many dancers prefer dancing to live music. “Live music is always
preferable if you can get it,” Vaughn says. “The band can really get the energy
from the dancers and the dancers from the band.”
Price agrees that bands can really liven up the night. “I tell my dancers
all of the time, we’re just another part of the band, we’re just another
instrument,” he says.
In addition to social dances, there are also many other studios than the
ones mentioned to learn dances like salsa and cha-cha in Rochester.
Vaughn said these studios often teach a ballroom-style version of the dance.
Different styles of Latin dance include street, club, and ballroom. Price
says his classes are a structured club-style, which means everything he teaches
can be led and followed on the social dance floor or in a club.
Class sizes at these studios are kept small, with an average of 10 to 20
students per class. Price keeps them at this size by offering classes nearly
every weekday night, and Vaughn has started capping her classes at 20 students
after being featured on the coupon website Groupon
twice.
The price for a single class is usually around $10 to $15, and can often be
purchased in package deals. Workshop weekends are held occasionally with local
or national instructors, and are around $30 to $50 for a day of classes. Social
dances are usually $5 or less, sometimes more if there is live music.
Social dances in Rochester see large
numbers, getting anywhere from 50 to 150 attendees depending on the night,
venue, and type of music provided. Price says, “I encourage folks to not just
come here to just take a lesson; you have to really encourage them to go out
and dance.”
No partner or experience is required to take lessons or attend social
dances. Most lessons rotate partners, so that dancers learn how to lead and
follow socially and not just with a specific partner.
While it seems like there are an abundance of Latin-dance
opportunities in Rochester already,
other cities go far above and beyond what our city currently offers. “In New
York City you can go dancing every day of the week,
even multiple dances a night,” Inikori says.
Price believes there is still room to grow in Rochester.
Competition between studios can be a limiting factor, but he actually likes
that element of this scene. “I don’t look at it as we’re competing for the same
group,” Price says. He thinks of it as the studios pushing themselves to offer
better things to the group they currently have.
However, he points out, “We’ll never be a New York City,
we’ll never be a Chicago, we’ll
never be a Toronto,” he says. Rochester
simply doesn’t have that big of a population.
While the room to grow might be limited, Price thinks if the studios work
together more, hire more teachers, and push students to increase their skills,
they can continue to build Rochester’s
Latin dance scene.
This article appears in Aug 3-3, 2011.
