ABOUT US
THE FOUNDER
Alejandro (Alex) Rojas , Founder, Artistic Director, Choreographer, Instructor,
Performer
Alejandro was born in Santiago, Chile, and was raised in Canada
as a first generation Chilean-Canadian. His parents instilled
in him much of their latin roots which included music, language,
traditional culture and DANCE! So as young as 8 yrs of age,
he started performing folkloric dances traditional to Chile.
As soon as Alex entered adulthood, he frequented the one latin
nightclub to go dancing to his favorite latin music. He soon
fell in love with SALSA and since 2003, he has made his presence
known through this website and to world audiences. He has
performed at the largest congresses in the world including
Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, San Francisco as well as other international
congresses such as Vancouver and Calgary. As a dance team
director, he has managed a different team each of the past
3 years and successfully travelled abroad with these groups
to escalate their knowledge of salsa. Teaching primarily Salsa
for the past 10 years, he is one of only a hand full of EDMONTON instructors
teaching salsa with his skill and experience. He also speaks
fluent English and Spanish and is married to his beautiful Colombian wife Ana who now assists in teaching classes at their new dance studio.
THE NAME
The name "ETOWN SALSA" was originally linked to
the "Edmonton Salsa Club" in 2003. The chosen name
had to describe the organizations nature, and the fact that
it was part of Edmonton. But the modification of "ETOWN"
instead of "Edmonton" was used for 2 reasons. One,
because many Edmontonians already used the nickname "Etown"
to give the city a more modern hip feel. And secondly, cause
"ETOWN" , to many worldwide web users would be translated
as "Electronic Town", just like ECommerce and Email.
So not only did the name have a local interest, but a world-wide
interest as the internet is so global that way. So you will
always see many people misinterpret the name and write it
E-Town Salsa. To create less confusion, the name is written
all capital letters.
HISTORY
Originally an idea thought of in the summer of 2003, ETOWN
SALSA was born out of an inspired number of individuals wanting
to create a non-profit society to promote the word of "Salsa".
The idea was to have the group do a number of social events
and fundraising to invest into bringing in professional dancers
and seasoned latin bands to the Edmonton area. Alex Rojas, (creator
of ETOWNSALSA.com) was not bound to this ambitious group but
was willing to donate his time and efforts to help the cause
and create a website for the group to pass onthe good word of "SALSA!". And on
October 31, 2003, ETOWNSALSA.com was launched and it was very
well known by not only local Salseros, but world-wide Salseros,
as a FANTASTIC WEBSITE. ETOWNSALSA.com's slogan was "Your
guide to the Salsa and Latin music scene in Edmonton".
After only a few months after launching the site, the society
backed out and the website was left without a strong backbone.
TODAY
Today, ETOWNSALSA.com is now known as 'ETOWN SALSA'
Dance Company or Dance Studio. Still promoting local latin and salsa
events in the city, it also promotes other global events.
Now with a strong influence in the community and with proven
world-wide viewership, ETOWN SALSA is asked on a regular basis to participate at annual events and festivals as well as regularly at schools.
OUR BUSINESS
For its business , from private lessons to group lessons,
from wedding stagettes to wedding dances, from tots to seniors, from Bachata classes to Cardio Salsa classes, ETOWN
SALSA has a wide demographic that caters to latin music lovers, dancers and non-dancers! Salsa is not the only dance that has people moving
but many other dances such as Bachata, Merengue, Chacha, Mambo
and new emerging line dances like Bachataton, and Merengueton.
Classes in these line dances are now offered through the ZUMBA Fitness classes already very popular around the globe! In
addition, the company also has its own performance team meant
to inspire anybody to dance. So if you want to take your Salsa to the next level, we've been there and know what it takes to challenge yourself to perform at a professional level in Salsa.
OUR VISION
ETOWN SALSA's vision is to educate people from all races and cultures on Latin social dancing, Latin culture and the Spanish language and also to inspire others to Salsa dance at a highly competitive level.
OUR TEACHING STYLE
We want to use quick and effective methods of teaching that
emphasize fun with learning. This is why we have a lot of repeat business and word of mouth advertising.
We want to have you start at the bottom learning the foundations
of social dance and if you want to go further, entering the
dance team offers you more extensive training to get your
dance skills elevated at a phenomenal rate.