Move.
Connect.
Create.

I walked into my first salsa social during my undergraduate years in Montreal and was immediately in love. I went every week, learning by feeling and watching, then joined my university's Latin dance club, took classes, became part of a team, and choreographed a solo routine that placed 1st at the Montreal Salsa Convention. In summer 2024 I hosted an outdoor weekly social and taught my first beginner class, sparking my love of teaching. Since then I have attended dozens of international festivals across Europe, and I am now back in Toronto to share everything I have learned. Salsa holds the full range of human expression, a richness of styles from Afro-Cuban to elegant mambo, and a history rooted in cultural fusion that I find endlessly moving.

I discovered bachata alongside salsa, which is how most dancers find it. Born in the Dominican Republic and once dismissed as music of the margins, bachata has become one of the most danced styles in the world. What I love most is its freedom in music so many pop songs become bachata and its accessibility to new dancers alongside its depth of connection between partners. It is intimate, expressive, and deeply felt. I have been lucky enough to dance bachata in Paris, Budapest, New York City, and many places beyond.

I first encountered Argentine tango in Budapest and was immediately hooked. Born in the working class neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires in the late 1800s and shaped by African, European, and Cuban musical influences, tango remains entirely improvised to this day, danced in close embrace, led through subtle shifts of weight and breath. There is a maturity and elegance to tango that resonates with my ballet background and the communication between lead and follow is a deep two-sided connection that I rarely encounter.

Waltz emerged in 18th century Vienna as the first ballroom dance where partners held each other in close embrace, which was considered scandalous at the time. It swept the courts of Europe and became the defining social dance of an era. My grandfather taught me the waltz as a child and I remember feeling like a princess. I still feel like a princess dancing the waltz. Of all the ballroom styles it is my favourite, and there is something in the rise and fall, the sweeping lines, and the way a good waltz lifts you slightly off the earth that I love passing on to students.

West Coast Swing evolved from Lindy Hop in 1940s California into a slotted, smooth partner dance defined by its elasticity and endless improvisation. After about a year of salsa and bachata I found the WCS community in Montreal, took private lessons from world champions to build my foundations, and attended two of the biggest WCS events in the world: Madjam and Budafest. The Jack and Jill format, where you are paired with a stranger and improvise together on the spot, goes viral for a reason. What you witness is pure connection in real time.