Cultural Appropriation Of Salsa

It is Easy to turn on the T.V and watch a performance or a musical video and see that they are promoting a dance that belongs to a certain culture. Most of the time, the dances are modified, where only some elements of the real dance are shown, which then makes the audience believe that whatever the video or performance has shown is what the real dance is like. Unfortunately, when you apply some cultural practice of a dance the audience perceive things differently and most of the time stereotypes of the culture who created the movements and style are the only thing people see. This is why it is important to not take other elements of a particular dance because its real meaning gets overshadow by other perceptions. Cultural appropriation has
I understand that for South Americans, Central Americans and Caribbean the dance style can be slightly different but of what I have noticed it seems the same for most part. Salsa is focused on foot work and hip movement, the dance movement are not choreographed they are fully leadable in the dance floor, depending how well you interact with your partner. The common step in salsa dance is giving a step forward, with one leg going to the front and the otherone staying back, then bring both leg together and use the opposite leg and take a step back and repeat the process while the hip is moving side to side. One of my hall mates my first year in college asked me if I knew “how to salsa?” she asked me if it was hard and I told her that everything is based in following the rhythm. I took my laptop and searched for salsa dancing videos to show her what I was talking about, to my surprise most of the videos were of dance competence that most of the time only performed acrobatic movements. I told my friend, “that is not salsa, that’s gymnastic,” I was in shocked to realize that some people would actually think that does how you really dance salsa. In ballroom competition salsa is shown as sport more than a dance, which can have mixed reactions to Latin cultural practices. In most parties, carnivals and clubs that I have been part of I never saw brutal movement while people dance salsa, there are no lifts, throws and tricks it is not about showing off skills, it is about enjoying the moment. According to James O. Young on his article “Profound Offense and Cultural Appropriation” when an outsider represents another member or aspect of another culture is committing subject appropriation. (136) his definition of appropriation represents what these type of competitions are doing which is letting the outsider represent a culture that they probably lack the vision that people of the culture possess, they are misrepresenting a