The word “salsa” brings to mind images of controlled steps, swaying of the hips and emotion. But there’s more to salsa than just that. Salsa creates a social atmosphere, connecting people with familiar and sometimes unfamiliar individuals that find a common language by moving along to the Latino-inspired beats.
Ritmo Dembow, DePaul University’s first and only modern dance group, brought salsa to DePaul. Its members say it opened up doors for members of the DePaul community to come together and express themselves.
Dennis Melendez, a senior at DePaul, joined the club not only to learn the techniques, but to follow in his brother’s footsteps. One of Melendez’s brothers created the DePaul Ritmo Dembow club prior to him joining the team. The influence of his brother’s love for dancing salsa served as further inspiration for Melendez. Though he comes from a Guatemalan background, he didn’t grow up around salsa until his brother found an interest in it, and that interest trickled down to him.
“To be honest, I wasn’t really connected to any kind of cultural background, since my mom came here when she was really young and she never got me into the Hispanic culture and what it’s like to be Guatemalan, “ Melendez said. “To me it’s more of like getting in touch with my roots, like being Latino. It’s nice being surrounded in a Latino community defined by dance.”
For Melendez, salsa connected him to his heritage on a deeper level. But salsa has the capability of connecting to anyone, if they’re open to trying it. Diana Arellano, a senior at DePaul, who’s been dancing with Ritmo Dembow since her spring quarter freshman year, said the group is open to anyone that wants to learn and dance salsa.
“Just because there’s a lot of Hispanics here doesn’t mean that it’s just for Hispanics,” Arellano said. “So I think that more people should be aware of it, because it’s an open community for everybody.”
Likewise, sophomore Gabriele Litkauskaite moved to the United States when she was 10. She had been a dancer since she was 4 years old. She grew up practicing ballroom and Latin dance. After moving from Lithuania to the United States, she took a break from dancing, until finding a Facebook post about Ritmo Dembow when she started at DePaul. She thought it would be a great way for her to make some friends.
“I saw on the DePaul Facebook page that they were having auditions. I kind of auditioned on my own, since I didn’t know anyone,” Litkauskaite said. “In the beginning everyone is kind of shy, as we started practices and spent more time together, we started having outings, and became like a little family.”
Litkauskaite loves salsa, because it reminds her of her Lithuanian culture, and she even talked about watching telenovelas — Spanish soap operas — with her grandma back home. She felt that Ritmo Dembow salsa club was the perfect fit for her since she loved Latin culture, and most of all she loved to dance.
This year, Ritmo Dembow entered a salsa competition called Chicago International Salsa Congress in Rosemont, where other dance groups and professional dancers showed off their moves.
Chris Rio, Ritmo Dembow’s Choreographer, prepared the team every Monday and Wednesday from 8 to 11 p.m. up until the event. His involvement with DePaul began when he was asked by his friends, the previous co-presidents of the club, to direct the team. When asked about one of his most valuable moments directing his high school dance team and the DePaul club, Rio said he enjoyed watching people’s interest grow.
“My favorite part of the whole thing is to watch people grow to love salsa,” Rio said. “Everyone comes here and they don’t know what they’re coming here for and you will see kids grow to love it.”
Another Ritmo Dembow salsa team member, Shandra Cunningham, a sophomore, was excited for the event because it brought people from places in and outside of the United States to dance salsa and other Latino-inspired dances.
“It’s this huge event. It’s more of an event than a competition, because its not like there’s teams competing against each other and winning prizes,” Cunningham said. “It’s more of people coming together from all over the world and all over the country to just strut their stuff and show different performances they’ve been working on.
“There’s not just salsa dances. They have like bachata dances and even Zumba classes, so it’s like a wide variety of Spanish dances.”
Whether it’s for competition, dance classes or creating bonds. Melendez said he feels that salsa can be a form of dance embraced by everyone.
“DePaul’s always, you know, big on diversity, and that’s great,” Melendez said. “When you look at the group, it’s not just Latinos. You have everybody sort of like embracing the salsa community and the salsa culture, and it’s really nice to see that.”
