Margaritas, Latin music and a crowd of hip-shaking, spinning dancers usually are part of a scene from an exotic, south-of-the border hot spot. Casa Cantina, 4 W. State St., replicated that scene with a Latin Dance Workshop to celebrate International Week last night.
Organized by Ivon Katz and the Ohio Program of Intensive English, the Latin Dance Workshop featured three teachers instructing both individual and couple dances to an anxious crowd. Linguistic graduate students and the program of intensive English organized the event as their contribution to International Week.
It's a Gordy Hall thing
Katz said.
The instruction started off slow as the instructors taught the basic steps. Dancers warmed up with the samba taught by a graduate student from Brazil. After learning the basics, dancers moved on to shaking their hips and sped up the combination.
Workshop attendees, many with drinks in hand, soon moved on to learn two dances from the Dominican Republic, the bachata and the merengue. The instructors, Lucia Hernandez from Santiago, Dominican Republic and Juan Soto from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, kept the crowd shaking and twirling.
Ryan Vesler, a senior Spanish major, said the workshop was phenomenal because you had people sharing each other's culture brought together by a common language. The workshop incorporated Hispanics and other ethnicities.
Vesler did not participate in the dancing at Casa. I have no rhythm he said.
Rie Yoshida and Midori Miyashita, international students from Chubu University in Japan, also attended the event. Both were excited to learn about the Hispanic culture.
There aren't workshops like this in Japan
so we are excited
Yoshida said.
As the night went on, the dancing did not stop. Couples continued to move around the dance floor as they performed the salsa.
Adnan Dakhwe, a computer science graduate student from Bombay, India, and contributor to International Week, said the turnout of the workshop was impressive. It had never been held at Casa and it turned out to be a great event. Katz was also extremely pleased by the turnout
but even more pleased by the excitement.
Dakhwe is also the treasurer and future vice-president of the International Student Union. He will be one of the MC's at Thursday's talent show for International Week at Walter Hall Rotunda.
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Caitlin Price
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