As I've described it to my Cuban mother, "Mami, es ejercicio con musica latina."Īnd because the familiar sound and language of the music makes us feel warm and fuzzy and like we're dancing at a Miami nightclub, Latinos have had Zumba marketed to them in several countries. Not that we mind.
For those unfamiliar, Zumba is a popular and profitable style of aerobics with origins in Colombia set to the rhythms of Latin America, especially the Caribbean. But I'm going to make it official: No, Zumba is not Latin (a term that conjures up Gregorian chants, by the way) dance. That there's confusion about it in the first place is a little baffling, and the reactions to the story have been amusing. "But anybody who takes Zumba does feel that it's part of Latin dancing." "The salseros will tell you that Zumba is not Latin dancing," Martino-Giosa says. Let's see what you have.' They couldn't salsa," Maldonado says.
I think I know how to salsa dance.' I said, 'Fine, strut your stuff. He teaches Latin dance.and says that students who think Zumba dance is legitimate Latin dance are "misinformed."
At least this is what a couple of them had to say in an NPR piece titled "Zumba Is A Hit, But Is It Latin?" Case in point, from the story: Okay, so it appears that some salsa instructors are not happy that some Zumba enthusiasts are conflating the two.