Song: “Así Así ” by Poncho Sanchez When Dalia heard that I was visiting Mexico in November, she recommended that I visit her hometown of Oaxaca. She was back in Oaxaca during that time due to the pandemic, and promised to show me around her city, so I added Oaxaca to my itinerary. I’d been …

Song: “Recuerdame” by Gabriel C “Coco” is one of the most original films from Disney/Pixar in recent years, and the main theme song “Remember Me” (“Recuerdame” in Spanish) is as memorable as it is poignant. I was first introduced the salsa version of the song (by the talented Gabriel C) by one of my students. …

Song: “Fragilidad” by Sanmera Having lived in the SF Bay Area now for over 15 years I’ve been through a number of wildfires, but nothing like what we saw this year in 2020. A freak lightning storm started while we were filming our Bay Bridge video and smoke choked the air in the Bay Area …

Song: “Oh Qué Será?” by Willie Colón The initial concept behind this video was pretty simple– we wanted to shoot something at night. Eventually we landed on the classic salsa song “Oh Qué Será” by Willie Colón as the song we wanted to use for the project. The old school song made us immediately think …

Song: “Échale Madera” by DJ Ricky Campanelli When people think of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge is typically one of the first images that comes to mind, but for me the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge holds a special place in my heart. I still have a vivid memory of when I first crossed the …

Song: “Quítate de la Via Perico” by Ismael Rivera This is a fun video we shot in front of the San José Museum of Art in downtown San Jose. The choreography is a section of a piece choreographed by my dance partner, Alyssa Aguilar, for her dance team, Valle Flora Social Club. Many of our …

Song: “Vente Negra” by Calle Vapor The concept behind this video was simple, but it ended up taking way longer to complete than we ever expected. We are lucky enough to live just an hour drive from the ragged coast of California, and for this video we wanted to do a piece dancing at the …

Song: “Unidad” by La Excelencia 2020 has been one of the most politically divided years ever in the United States, with protests, riots, and racism making an already chaotic pandemic year worse. For this video we decided we wanted to create something in the spirit of July 4th (Independence Day), with a red, white and …

Song: “Cao Cao Maní Picao” by Celia Cruz & Tito Puente We had a lot of fun shooting this video in front of the many iconic murals in San Jose! San Jose often doesn’t get enough credit as a cultural center compared to other cities in the Bay Area like San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, …

Song: “Sin Tecnica No Hay Tecnica” by Tony Avila This is one of the first salsa videos we made after the pandemic started. After months of lockdowns we got tired of recording ourselves in our apartments, and decided to do a video outdoors. We dusted off some baby blue costumes we had from old routines …

Song: “Jusiticia” by Eddie Palmieri & Ismael Quintana As if 2020 couldn’t get worse enough, an unarmed black man, George Floyd, was brutally murdered by Minneapolis police leading to widespread protests and riots across the country. The following weeks led to a truly distopian scene even all the way out on the West Coast, with …