what is the history of the salsa?

Answer 1

According to the ever reliable Wikepedia\;

"Salsa is usually a partner dance form that corresponds to salsa music. In some forms, it can also appear as a performance dance. The word is the same as the Spanish word salsa meaning sauce, or in this case flavor or style.

According to testimonials from musicologists and historians of music, the name salsa was gradually accepted among dancers throughout various decades. The very first time the word appeared on the radio was a composition by Ignacio Piñeiro, dedicated to an old black man who sold butifarras (a sausage-like product) on Central Road in Matanzas, Cuba. It is a song titled Échale salsita, wherein the major refrain and chorus goes "Salsaaaaa! échale salsita, échale salsita". During the early 1950s, commentator and DJ "bigote" Escalona announced danceables with the title: "the following rhythm contains Salsa". Finally, the Spanish-speaking population of the New York area baptized Celia Cruz as the "Queen of Salsa".

Salsa is danced on music with two bars of four beats. Salsa patterns typically use three steps during each four beats, one beat being skipped. However, this skipped beat is often marked by a shifting of weight from one foot to the other. Typically the music involves complicated percussion rhythms, ranging from slow at about 120 beats per minute to its fastest at around 180 beats per minute (see salsa music for more).

Salsa is a slot or spot dance, i.e., unlike Foxtrot or Samba, in Salsa a couple does not need to travel over the dance floor much (although they could, if there was space and the lead decided to do so), but rather occupies a fixed area on the dance floor."

Through a search engine like Google you can find other sites with more information. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

History of Salsa
Salsa is not easily defined. Who invented salsa? The Cubans, Puerto Ricans? Salsa is a distillation of many Latin and Afro-Caribbean dances. Each played a large part in its evolution.

Salsa is similar to Mambo in that both have a pattern of six steps danced over eight counts of music. The dances share many of the same moves. In Salsa, turns have become an important feature, so the overall look and feel are quite different form those of Mambo. Mambo moves generally forward and backward, whereas, Salsa has more of a side to side feel.

A look at the origin of Salsa

It is not only Cuban; nevertheless we must give credit to Cuba for the origin and ancestry of creation. It is here where Contra-Danze (Country Dance) of England/France, later called Danzón, which was brought by the French who fled from Haiti, begins to mix itself with Rhumbas of African origin (Guaguanco, Colombia, Yambú). Add Són of the Cuban people, which was a mixture of the Spanish troubadour (sonero) and the African drumbeats and flavora and a partner dance flowered to the beat of the clave.

More on this here, and many other forms of dance.
http://www.centralhome.com/ballroomcountry/salsa.htm

Answer 3

The history of the Latin popular music known worldwide as “salsa” began centuries ago in the islands of the Spanish Caribbean, in a context of slavery