In Havana, Engineers Are Teaching Tourists Salsa
Cuban creatives can make more in a single day by catering to tourists than engineers or lawyers make in a month.
It’s Thursday night at 1830, Havana’s legendary Latin dance club overlooking the city’s oceanfront. Timba, the dynamic, energetic Cuban cousin of salsa music, blares from the back of an outdoor stage. Meanwhile, a pack of international dancers meander in with the local teachers they’ve hired. They move, mingle, and flirt with their companions along the outskirts of a packed dance floor. Some are practicing the flashy, funky style of salsa known as casino to release the stresses of day-to-day life and connect with other like-minded casineros. But many of the revelers are struggling to survive—and their mastery of the moves is tied to their ability to entice clients.
Meanwhile, the top-level dancers are hard not to notice. A man who goes by “Sentimiento,” and earned that nickname through his tendency to dance with “feeling,” spins a woman in an aisle off the main floor. When he deftly leads his partner before breaking out into his own fancy footwork, it’s as if his internal world is pulsing from his pores.
The dance scene in Havana offers abundant opportunities to dance—whether it’s through taking classes or dancing to DJs or attending live music seven nights per week at spots like Casa de la Musica,Feeling Africa events at Abel, and 1830. Big name salsa bands like Havana di Primera, Maykel Blanco, and Alain Perez also play regularly at local venues. Festivals like Jazz Plaza in January, Festival de la Salsa in February, and Ritmo Cuba in April, also attract a dedicated local crowd as well as movers and shakers from all over the world. But what’s notable is that many of the dancers who work at these events have either chosen not to pursue or left a white-collar job. They say there’s more economic opportunity in a creative field: teaching dance lessons to tourists.
As a result of low productivity, sky-high inflation and other factors, Cuba is now facing its most severe economic crisis in decades. More than 70 percent of Cuban families now rely on assistance from overseas relatives to get by, and tourist dollars also help many afford basic necessities. To that end, while most government jobs there pay the equivalent of around 15 USD per month, dance teachers can make the same amount or more in a single day. They’re part of the growing private sector, which began to expand exponentially in 2021, when the government further loosened restrictions on entrepreneurship.
Although private dance teachers who work primarily with tourists have existed since Europeans began traveling to the island for dance tourism in the ‘90s, dancers have had more opportunity to teach since 2010. That’s when then-president Raul Castro started granting business licenses to Cuban entrepreneurs—including artists.
It’s also the same year that Sentimiento, who only goes by his nickname, Yunior, left behind a slew of different jobs as a math and computer science teacher and started taking dancing seriously as a potential career. While most creative types in the US struggle to get by without supplementing their incomes—what we might call working a day job—the opposite is true in Cuba. But back when he was just getting started, the 39-year-old casinero just focused on one piece of advice: “Don’t focus on being poor, just focus on your talent as a dancer."
Easier said than done; even getting into a club like 1830 was an ordeal in those days. Sentimiento would jump the fence to avoid paying an entrance fee, and once inside, dance without water to try to save money. At the end of a long night, he’d walk five miles home to save money on the taxi fare, too. He couldn’t practice in front of a mirror because he didn’t own one; instead, he would close his eyes and imagine himself doing the moves. Throughout the three year process of making the switch, he thought to himself: I can do this, so why do I need to be living a poor life that isn’t special or creative?
Slowly but surely, he found success with travelers who would see him out dancing and ask for a lesson. These days, previous clients will give him referrals, and new ones will find him on social media. Teaching privately in Havana full time can bring in as much as $20 per hour, though the money can still be inconsistent. But as he tends to do with everything else, Sentimiento gets creative. “We are in a survival mentality all the time,” he says. “But the improvisation to create is our way of life—not thinking about tomorrow. It's one way to survive here.”
Salsa teachers identify as either “bailarines,” which is to say they received formal dance training at art schools and then transitioned into teaching tourists and locals, or “bailadors,” which is the term for street dancers who learned from parents, siblings, friends, or neighbors at street parties before going on to teach at privately run dance schools. As Adrian Argudin Valdes—a bailador who teaches kizomba, casino, bachata, and Afro-Latin dances—explains it, “When you are dancing in the street, you have another feeling and background, you have more concepts, not only technique.”
Before he was dancing and teaching full time, Argudin Valdes spent six years working for the Ministry of Commerce as an engineer. Dancing was just his side hustle. Though he loved his work, the fashion-forward multidisciplinary artist wanted the freedom to focus on dance and other creative pursuits.
The first step was learning how to teach, which he did for six years at a German dance and travel company, Via Danza, based in Havana. Working for a dance school or company often pays substantially lower than dancing privately, which is why some teachers go their own way. At Via Danza, for instance, Argudin Valdes made the equivalent of 1 USD per hour. (Today, both foreign and locally-owned schools often pay more: between $5 and $10 per hour depending on the teacher's level and experience. And while it’s more than can be made in many other professions, some teachers and critics maintain that that amount is still exploitative.)
Now, Argudin Valdes normally makes between $20 and $25 teaching privately to tourists. He also offers free or affordable kizomba and other Latin dance classes primarily to locals, which take place before parties and events he hosts. Meanwhile, top teachers like him and Sentimiento often get invited to teach abroad despite living in a country with strict barriers to travel. In order to secure a visa, Cubans typically must have an invitation from a person living overseas and pass an interview. That can all cost around 80 USD—not including the price of a passport.
Many high-level teachers in the scene make a distinction between dancers who teach salsa lessons for the artistry and “jineteros” who front themselves as professional dancers in order to gain access to foreign money. For his part, Argudin Valdes has been invited to teach in South Africa, Denmark, and Germany. “I started traveling [because of dance], and making more money, but that’s not the reason I do it,” he says. “I don't know how to explain it. It’s just something I need to do.” Rather than classify dance as a career or passion, he chooses a third category, calling it a “need.”
Havana might be a big city, but its Latin dance community makes it feel like a small town. Josline Hernandez, is a full time dance teacher at la Casa Del Son, a popular Latin dance school targeted toward travelers in the heart of Havana Vieja, the historic center of the city. The studio’s open-air environment is as vibrant as the city’s concerts and dance clubs at night. The sound of claves, clapping and close-knit conversations about day to day life punctuate its infectious vibe at all hours of the day. And seeing the same people teaching during the day and dancing at clubs in the evening is what Hernandez likes about it.
“It’s another family apart from your family,” she says. “Everyone is going through difficult things here, but the most important thing about the scene is the community that can support you.”
More than half a million Cubans have fled in the country in the past few years—a number that certainly includes some of its talented dancers. But the island will continue to birth new talent, who will in turn attract an international salsa crowd. After all, the roots of Casino and salsa are entrenched in the country’s soul. Teaching salsa to tourists might be a mechanism for survival, but that’s not all it is. As Argudin Valdes put it: “The vibe and the energy here—it’s real. It’s not fake. It’s not for making money. It’s just, this is how we do.’”