Alison McKan
    Staff Writer

Saturday nights are Salsa nights at Artistika, a Latin dance club on Elm Street. On Fridays, they have Bachata and ladies get in free. Before 10:00 p.m., it only costs $5 to dance. After dragging my friend Justin along with me, I headed out to Salsa.

At 9:30 p.m., before any of the real dancing begins, the club offers Salsa lessons for couples, singles or friends to learn to how to dance.

Justin and I walked in 10 minutes after the class had started, but thankfully, the class had only gone over the most basic step. Personally, I have been dancing different styles for about seven years and know how to Salsa dance.

Justin, however, had never danced before, so he was struggling a bit, keeping a close eye on mine and the instructor’s feet. But once he finally started to get the hang of it, the instructor had us pair up.

Although Justin started to get the hang of the dance after a few clumsy missteps, we didn’t get to stay dancing with the partner we came in with for long. Having been to different social dance classes before, this was something I had anticipated. But the look of panic in Justin’s eyes was almost comical, with him not realizing he’d have to dance with actual people.

Every few minutes, the instructor would yell, “Switch!” And the followers, all of whom were women, would rotate to another leader — most were men, but there was one woman.

“Hi, I’m Alison!” I’d say cheerily, offering my hand in to introduce myself to my new dance partner before the music started again. Most of the dancers leading in the class were married, with three exceptions: Justin, the woman and a slightly creepy, albeit well-meaning, man who looked to be in his sixties.

At 10:30 p.m., the club was getting fairly packed, and the lesson was coming to a close.

I went over to Justin as the first song of the night began. “Dance with me!” I said, hearing a Merengue — a simple Latin dance with footwork consisting of quite literally stepping in place — come on.

Despite my efforts to give a thirty second crash course, Justin told me to wait for a Salsa to come on.

The next dance was just that. But before I could grab his hand, the slightly creepy dance leader in his 60’s asked me to dance. At social dances, unless you have a reason — you’re about to dance with someone else, you’re exhausted from hours of dancing — it’s pretty rude to say no.

I was just about to tell him that I was going to be dancing with my friend, when Justin said, “Oh no, go ahead,” with a devious grin on his face. I shot him a look to which he did not respond.

Attempting to make as little contact as possible, I danced with him, noticing him get unnecessarily close; Salsa is a dance that has room between the two partners at a social dance level. Thankfully, the song was not a long one.

I finished dancing with the man and hurried back over to Justin, swatting his shoulder.

Periodically throughout the evening, the DJ would yell out different Spanish-speaking countries in North and South America. People in the club who were from the country that was called, or who had family from there, would yell out and cheer when their country was mentioned.

“Cuba! Ecuador! Venezuela! Colombia! Mexico!” The list went on.

But twice during the evening, Justin and I heard the DJ yell, “Israel!” Which isn’t a Spanish-speaking country, obviously. At first we thought we heard incorrectly, but the second time we knew what he’d said and, both being Jewish, we started cheering.

Our cheers got us strange looks, as both of us are very obviously white.

Towards the end of the night, the dancing transitioned to styles more suited to that of a regular club. The only difference was that Artistika continued to play Latin music.

Justin and I left at about 1:30 a.m., an hour before they closed, and headed over to Steak n’ Shake for food before going back to our places and crashing for the night.