The dance studio located in the heart of downtown Ottawa on the corner of Elgin Street and MacLaren is on the second floor of a large old red brick building. The sun beams in through the large eastside facing windows. Creating the perfect replica of being in Havana enjoying a salsa lesson on beach side.
“This use to be a dentures clinic, my dance partner and I gutted the whole place, it was two large office spaces, we put new dance flooring and painted some fresh Havana colors to suit the Cabana Salsa vibes,” said Monica Fosado the director of operations.
Joaquin Pineda, owner and instructor works closely with Fosado and other well known dance instructors in the Salsa Cubana dance community.
Fosado and Pineda expected 50 to 60 people for the one-year evening celebration, but the event exploited and approximately 150 people showed up to the event. The dance hall packed with Salsa Cabana died hearts. The energy was ecstatic, diverse, vibrant and inviting to any level of dancers. The event was a 100 per cent successful. The talented Eduardo Andes Pinetti from Montreal, native of Argentina, lead a Cabana Salsa demonstration in the middle of the evening to encourage everyone to dance. Pinetti is a well know salsa dance instructor and loves to travel the world to teach la Rueda de Casino.
The “Salsa” dance community is a strong knit community that is constantly promoting social dance events for people learn and enjoy.
“We want to build a good sense of community here at Pure Havana, we want it to be a vibrant welcoming space for people to have fun and unwind. Our emphasis is on wellbeing,” said Fosado. “We will be hosting a Casino dance wellness social event in late February early March”.
Lisa Dubois a local Salsa Cubana dance instructor travelled with Fosado to different dance workshop. One in New York called the Rueday and one in Philadelphie called RuedX.
“This is a great place to learn proper technics and fine tune your teaching skills to bring back to your dance community,” said Lisa Dubois, Salsa Cubana dance instructor at Pure Havana.
Issam Coluna, a Montreal native Salsa instructor was one of many others dancing at one year celebration social, sharing his knowledge of salsa dancing and inviting other to dance and try the salsa dancing technics with him.
The featured DJ for the evening was La China— Caroline Yung
In December of 2023 they renovated and open the dance studio to the public. It offers a large variety of different salsa dance lessons during the week and weekend.
“We create evening social salsa dance events so people can come and try the Casino salsa dancing and see if they enjoy it, they can register for classes to improve on the real Salsa Cabana technics,” said Joaquin Pineda owner of Pure Havana dance studio.
Every Wednesday evening from 9 p.m. to midnight is a drop-in style Cubana Salsa dancing event tickets are sold at the door.
Class schedule
Monday 7 p.m. West Coast Swing Basic
8 p.m. West Coast Swing Intermediate
Tuesday 5 p.m. Zumba Gold
6 p.m. Salsa
7 p.m. Brazilly Fitness Dance
Wednesday 5:45 p.m. Intro to Rueda de casino
6:45 p.m. Rueda de Casino Patterns
7:45 p.m. Rueda de Casino Dinamica
Thursday 6 p.m. Afrobeat beginner
7 p.m. Afrobeat intermediate
Friday 6:30 p.m. Salsa Cubana
7:40 p.m. Son Cubano
Saturday 11 a.m. Salsa
12 p.m. Son Cubano
1:10 p.m. Salsa Cubana
2:20 p.m. Intro to Rueda de Casino
3:30 p.m. Rueda de Casino Intermediate
Pure Havana promotes all social events on their Facebook page (3) Facebook and Instagram account. To register you can email them at classes.purehavana@gmail.com