Spanish Project Day: Our 8th Graders dance Salsa!

Our Spanish teacher Ms. Gianatelli from Argentina had a great idea for her project day – focus on Spanish with the 8th grade. She gathered the whole class in the dance school “Caramba” in Prenzlauer Berg to learn Salsa. There, the Venezuelan dance teacher has whirled our teenagers through the studio for two hours and brought a lot of action into the class. Everybody did a great job.

This dance is a combination of Afro-Caribbean and European dance styles and has its origins in the English contra dance of the 17th century. European colonial masters brought this dance style to the New World. On the Caribbean islands as well as in Central and South America different dances with different religious and social references developed from it. After the Second World War many emigrants with their different cultures met in North America. The different dance types mixed there, so that a “sauce” (in Spanish Salsa) was created from different dances. The most important influences were the rumba, the Danzòn, which emerged from the contra dance, the mambo, the son and Latin jazz. Nowadays Salsa is danced all over the world mainly as a couple dance but also as a group dance.

Ms. Gianatelli once again showed that languages are best learned through shared experiences, fun and an interest in other cultures.

If we have aroused interest and desire, in this city you can practically choose from different daily teaching offers, as well as nightly possibilities to learn Salsa or to dance.