Company Description

Our goal in the community is to provide a healthy and fun downtown experience to the local Santa Barbara community through latin dancing. Rendezvous each week for a beginner's level class followed by some open dancing to practice those new moves.

Date: Every Tuesday
Time: 7:00 PM-8:00 PM Beginners Salsa Class

8:00 PM-8:30PM Beginners Bachata Class
Then Open Dancing until 11pm
Place: Yes Dane Studio, 705 Paseo Nuevo (next to Nordstrom and Sephora)

Cost: Members $5
Non-members $7, FREE to all military veterans

Motivation:

Yes You Can Dance Salsa and Bachata

Started in January 2013 inspired primarily by Melissa Zaragoza. She was a student at UCSB when she was the leader of Salsa event at Hillel which was an alcohol free event. That salsa event took place every Monday and about 100 to 150 students were going every week dancing from 9 pm to 12 am. It was so amazing, However, when she went to her geology camp for her degree during the summer time, the event stopped. In her return few things have changed including a much larger cost to pay for the facility and it was not possible to continue as it was for the prior 5 years. That broke my heart really. I could not believe that such a friendly, healthy fun would stop for lack of support. When she graduated, she came to my house and handdled me $500 that they have collected during her time at the salsa event and she entrusted me with it. That touched my heart dearly as she was a graduate student who did not have a job for few months after graduation, she had no obligation to save that money. In fact nobody even knew she had collected that much. The fees were only $1 for her classes. After I had finished my dissertation at UCSB, I decided to put energy into honoring her work, dedication, and honesty. I want to replicate that 150 young people dancing for three hours without a drop of alcohol. Then the amazing people from the Ayni Gallery open the door to our dreams. Now it has been more than a year and Melissa and Victor Contrera have been the main teacher every week and they have done so for free. Sebastian who was a recent student in this video is also now teaching classes for us. You may notice in the statements on the video that the atmostfere is amazing and all done voluntarily. Now we will start twice a month having a social dance on Saturday. I hope to expand it to make it sustainable and hopefully pay the instructors for their time and dedication. I feel that we as a community maybe giving the wrong message if we don't put money or value to the most healthy fun alternatives exist. Please be part of the healthy transformation, come, participate, donate, share, help it grow.

Recently, we relocated to the Veterans Memorial Building, across from West Beach in Santa Barbara. Although we cherished our time with the AYNI Gallery, we look forward to creating new and fun memories with all of you at our new venue!

Yes You Can Dance Salsa and Bachata!!
I will be waiting for you :)

805-669-7098

Sincerely
Monica