Dance Lessons – Salsa and Bachata Dance Classes

Dance SF teaches both salsa lessons and bachata lessons weekly! We are one of the only non performance based and purely social dance options to actually learn how to dance these dances currently. You can see our current salsa class and bachata class schedule here.

We’ve been teaching salsa lessons in the Bay Area for 30 years, and in the last 15, we also added bachata lessons. Our salsa classes and bachata classes are always full, fun, and geared toward dancers taking their very first steps in social dance.

Our goal is simply to have you fall in love with the dances, like we have, and also to create and continue to bolster, a thriving nightclub based social dance scene.

Our progressive, step by step, salsa and bachata classes are unique, in that they are completely social dance based. We specifically teach for nightclub (or social) salsa and bachata dancing, which is rare to find these days, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’ve really perfect a method that will not only get you dancing quickly, but keep you dancing forever – focussing on being able to dance with anyone, anywhere, at any time.

We are NOT just one style of salsa that will leave you wondering why people are socially dancing differently than you do. We teach “on 1” West Coast style salsa lessons, but with particular emphasis on timing that allows you to seamlessly dance with on2 dancers (*if their training allows them to), or Cuban style (which we do a fair amount of in classes).

We are unique in that we try to create well rounded social nightclub style dancers and that we cater to beginners, or even those whom might believe they “can’t dance”, or have “2 left feet”. We’ll get you to a place where you’re in love with both salsa and bachata dancing, and confident in your social dance skills.

Our bachata dance classes focus on what is currently called “dominican style” bachata to start, and then encompasses other styles, including bachata sensual, as students progress.

Again, all our classes are designed to get you out dancing, in the clubs, as soon as possible. We believe the dance and the music (preferably live music) form the

As the dances, both bachata and salsa, have taken a more performance oriented turn, it’s rare to find teachers with a purely social dance curriculum.

If the teacher your learning from has a dance team, or even performs on a dance team, it’s quite likely your lessons will NOT focus on social dance. That’s just the reality, whether you intend to perform or not.

Does your teacher social dance? Do they never go to nightclubs? Do they only perform?

Are you looking to perform salsa or bachata? Join a dance troupe? That’s NOT us, but we can help and point you to our teacher friends and the best performance groups to train with.

  • On2 Dancers – On2 dancers are a complex mix of excruciatingly great technique at the high end, and mis understanding of leading and following at the low end, which in the Bay Area at least, equates to the worst of the social dancers (outside of their own team-run socials). They can typically only social dance with others “On 2”, with a fairly limited array of known dance moves, but rarely develop the skills to socially dance. Most performers gravitate to On2, as well as most serious non social dancers, due to complicated footwork, choreography, and far greater degree of dance training.
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