Dancers shake things up with first Iowa City salsa festival

IOWA CITY - Salsa dancing spiced up Iowa City this weekend with a celebration of Latin music and dance.

The iCity Salsa Festival, the first of its kind in Iowa City, featured performances, workshops and instructors from around the country.

'I approached many instructors and they were like, ‘Salsa in Iowa?' They didn't believe it,” said Samuel Kumar, who organized the festival and started the iCity Salsa group.

The iCity Salsa Festival started Friday night and continues through Sunday evening. Events are being held at the Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon in Iowa City and the Coralville Marriott.

On Saturday, salsa instructors led classes focused on different styles of salsa. Friday, salsa groups performed.

As of Saturday afternoon, around 120 people had attended the festival.

During a bachata workshop Saturday, pairs of dancers gathered in a circle, listening to the instructor, Carlos Cintas, in the middle. When the music started, partners practiced the moves they learned from Cintas while changing partners periodically.

'It's a great opportunity to go out, socialize and make friends,” Kumar said.

'Salsa dancing is so much fun. You feel so happy when you dance and when you hit all your moves.”

Kumar organizes a monthly salsa social at Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon for iCity Salsa, which he said helped fund the festival in addition to a sponsorship from ACT.

He said next year he hopes to recruit more sponsors, which would allow him to bring in more instructors, bands and DJs.

Nelson Martinez, a DJ at the event, said he hopes to see the festival grow each year.

'This year is going to be about lessons learned to make next year bigger and better,” he said. 'We want to put Iowa on the map for salsa.”