The cha-cha is one of the five main Latin ballroom dances most frequently taught in dance schools around the world. The steps are compact and based partly on the rumba and mambo, with plenty of hip and pelvic movements. The basic forward movement is supplemented with various turns, dips, and slides.
Like the rumba, the cha-cha can trace its roots to the Afro-Cuban community in Havana. Big bands from the U.S. mainland made their way into the exciting clubs that populated the capital and developed a unique fusion of rumba music and American jazz that eventually came to be known as the Mambo.
As anyone who has seen a foxtrot performed will remember, however, the contemporary foxtrot looks nothing like an actual trot. In fact, not too long after its creation, choreographers realized that the original foxtrot would prove too tiresome to perform for long, so they developed a slower and more fluid style that suited dancers better and which could be done even in small spaces. The modern foxtrot retains much of its ancestral characteristics, however, not just in name but also in the use of 4/4 time and its reputation for being a casual yet intricate social dance that, as one commentator put it, “is one of the easiest to learn and one of the hardest to master.” Today, it remains one of the most popular dances in the United States.
The cha-cha endures as a popular ballroom dance partly because of its appealing mix of breezy movements and smoldering sensuality. Some things to keep in mind as you perform the cha-cha: