Boulder’s Afro-Latin dance scene rises, fueled by new festivals and a push for cultural space

On a spring Saturday night, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art turned into a dance floor. A crowd of salsa and rumba dancers, some longtime practitioners and others brand new, packed the gallery, moving to live percussion as instructors and students traded steps late into the night.

It was the closing celebration of the Boulder Afro Latin Weekender, a new festival that drew artists from Cuba, Italy, New York and Los Angeles. The event brought international attention to Boulder’s growing Afro-Latin dance community and underscored how much the scene has changed over the past two decades.

“Dance has always been a form of celebration, a form of relating to each other, but also a form of courage,” said Jesús David Muñoz, the event’s organizer and founder of Boulder Afro-Latin Dance. “It’s the oldest art form we have.”

At the Weekender, Muñoz blended dance instruction with history, walking participants through the roots of salsa and its cultural traditions. “Salsa is the immigrant story in movement,” he said. “It’s survival and transformation, a rhythm that crosses borders.”

A growing movement

Afro-Latin dance has long had a foothold in Boulder, anchored by venues like the Avalon Ballroom and teachers who introduced Cuban-style salsa and rueda de casino nearly 20 years ago. But the Weekender represents something new: a more visible and connected community that blends social dance with cultural education and history.

At the center is Muñoz, a Latinx dancer and percussionist with Indigenous Mexican and Cuban roots. Born in Delicias, Chihuahua, Mexico, he moved to the United States at age 12 and trained across styles including ballet, Afro-Cuban and modern, before earning an MFA in Dance from CU Boulder. He now performs with Denver’s Cleo Parker Robinson Dance while building Boulder Afro-Latin Dance into a hub for classes, workshops and cultural exchange.

“Dance has always been a part of my life, from my uncle performing the deer dance to my training in ballet and Afro-Cuban rhythms,” Muñoz said. “Now I teach movement as a form of liberation. It’s a way to reclaim our identity … and open doors for our youth to see cultural dance as powerful, professional and worthy.”

An evolving scene

The festival featured workshops with teachers like Marisol Blanco, a Cuban master instructor, and performances by artists including Chiara Tofani, an internationally known salsa dancer based in Los Angeles.

“Dancing to live music — it reaches into your soul,” Tofani said. “Your whole body vibrates differently when the musicians are right there with you.”

For Tofani, salsa is both local and global. “I have yet to find a country where you don’t find salsa,” she said.

The Weekender is built on a foundation laid by earlier figures like Eric Freeman, founder of Salsaville Dance Studios, who brought Cuban salsa to Boulder nearly 20 years ago and has made more than 20 trips to Cuba to study and teach. He continues to support that legacy by teaching classes on Wednesdays at the Avalon.

Other longtime organizers, including Chilean-born instructor Marcela Lay, are helping grow the scene. Through her website, MarcelaDance.com, she curates social events like Havana Night at the Avalon and is now growing her annual A Lo Cubano Boulder Fest into a three-day event at the Dairy Arts Center next spring.

“Dance survives everything, even pandemics,” Lay said. “It lifts your spirit. It makes you forget the day’s stress. When you dance, time stops.”

Her monthly Salsa-Ton social returned in August at Junkyard Social Club, continuing a tradition of Latin dance gatherings that emphasize movement, music and cultural connection. The evening begins at 7:30 p.m. with a beginner/intermediate bachata lesson, followed by social dancing from 8 to 11 p.m. with DJ Tito spinning salsa, bachata and Latin favorites.

“Salsa-Ton is our monthly reset,” said Lay, the event organizer and instructor. “It’s an open, joyful space where we sweat, smile and reconnect with our roots. Whether you’re new or have danced all your life, you belong here.”

Additional guest artists and workshops continued throughout the fall, with organizers planning more programming in 2026.

Why it matters now

For many, salsa and Afro-Latin dance offer more than technique.

Marcela Arvensen knows that firsthand. Originally from Argentina, she moved to Boulder years ago and found herself disconnected from her roots. Dance brought them back.

“It’s my connection to my culture, to my language, to the music,” she said. “When I’m dancing, all the outside noise disappears. You feel community, you feel love.”

Arvensen said having spaces like these is essential now. “Especially now, with so much opposition and isolation, it’s essential to have places where we come together and feel proud of who we are.”

To help others plug into Boulder’s salsa scene, Arvensen and her partner launched Pasito.fun, an online calendar listing salsa socials, classes and events across Boulder County. “With Pasito, you don’t have to dig through social media anymore. Everything is in one place so that you won’t miss a step,” she said.

The Weekender also sits within a larger discussion about cultural representation in Boulder.

CU Boulder professor Donna Mejia, an expert on diaspora dance, calls forms like salsa “an embodied archive of our collective memory,” underscoring their cultural significance.

And longtime CU African dance instructor Nii Armah Sowah, who retired earlier this year after nearly three decades of teaching, puts it this way: “Dance can be entertainment, medicine, a community builder and a repository of cultural values.”

With the Weekender’s debut, the upcoming expansion of A Lo Cubano and new tools like Pasito.fun are making it easier to find classes and social dance nights, Boulder’s Afro-Latin dance scene is more organized and more visible than ever.

For Muñoz, that visibility is the point. “This isn’t just about dance steps. It’s about honoring our ancestors, creating access and reclaiming space through movement,” he said.