For the Love of Dance: Beijing's First Summer Latin Festival

Jack Dunn, a former Division II college football player, is as unlikely a Latin dance instructor as you'll find. In physique, he still has the outsized build of a defensive end -- the position he played -- and yet, to know Dunn is to understand his passion and commitment to everything salsa.

Dunn is among a small group of leaders in Beijing who have dedicated themselves to an ever-widening community of Latin dance enthusiasts (though we should mention Dunn is a self-proclaimed "mostly Irish" American). Later tonight, his biggest project comes to fruition: the first annual Summer Latin Festival, a four-day event that includes a pre-party at Club Le; a performance, For the Love of Salsa (ticket reservation highly recommended); 10 workshops, including five taught by world-famous instructor Sekou McMiller from New York; and DJs, music and parties every night, including a Latin Pool Party and an All White Latin Party.

Read on to find out how you get a discounted fare to all the activities.

Dunn was introduced to salsa at the age of 21, a fateful encounter that steered his life on a path of one-two-three-five-sevens. He left school to pursue dancing, eventually winding up in Manhattan, New York, to study under "Mambo King" Eddie Torres, who in the late-60s was one of the first people to bring salsa off the streets and into the studio.

In New York, people dance a special breed of salsa called mambo, a more technical version in which dancers break on the second beat of music (thus its other name, On 2, as contrasted with On 1, though the two styles have begun borrowing from one another). It was mambo that captivated Dunn, and after two years he took off for China, in 2005, to start a six-month teaching contract at Move Dancing Studio.

There, he met Zhen Zhen, who "had it from the very beginning," Dunn says. The two hit it off immediately, and started Phoenix Dance Company in December 2005. China "was the first place that I felt I could make a difference in the way (salsa) was developed," Dunn says. "You go to New York and some people don't go to this place because there're some people, and some people don't go to that place... and I didn't want that. I wanted a place where people would enjoy the music and the dance together."

Dunn was, essentially, the first mambo teacher in Beijing -- and probably in all of China -- and has since seen some of his former students form their own studios. "The scene is definitely vibrant," he says. "It's gone through its up and downs, but it's the one dance scene that's grown.

"Your largest population of dancers and Latin enthusiasts (in Beijing) are Chinese. They have fallen in love with the dance and the music... and are starting to get to the point where they're wanting to know more about the culture behind it, the music behind it."

Places to dance salsa include The World of Suzie Wong's on Tuesdays, Club Le on Thursdays and Rotate on Wednesdays and Saturdays. "When I started teaching, it was two classes a week," Dunn says. "Now I have classes six days a week."

In December, Dunn and Zhen Zhen and two other pairs of dancers traveled to Hollywood, Florida, to compete in the fourth annual World Salsa Championships. After the first round of the team competition, a field of 24 is supposed to be narrowed to 10. When he emcee looked at his card to announce the results and saw Phoenix Dance, he hesitated. "For the first time ever, from Beijing, China..."

"One of the girls on my team who was sitting next to me jumped out of her seat and screamed at the top of her lungs," Dunn says. "You should have seen everybody in the crowd just looking at us." Here's a YouTube video of the team's performance.

Here's what else Dunn had to say:

What can we expect from the Latin Festival?

You get to see everything. My two purposes for the festival - for people who have never danced, to be inspired to start learning how to dance; and for the people that have been dancing for a while and are more experienced, to be inspired to become better dancers.

Latin Pool Party?

Yeah, I get a lot of people calling me about it. Because, yeah, there's a lot of beautiful dancers. You see them in the club but you never see them in a bathing suit sometimes.

What characterizes Latin music?

The soul of Latin music originates from Africa, and from there, those African roots and Latin roots really have influenced all genres of music, whether it be jazz or rock 'n' roll. In For the Love of Salsa, I explain a bit about how Latin music, (with its) African roots, has influenced this great movement of music that's been going on for so long.

How long would it take someone to learn mambo?

The more time you put in it, the better you're going to get. And the better you get, the more fun it becomes. I tell people if you really want to get good at it, invest six months to a year. Some people learn faster, some people learn slower. I learned a lot slower. I had two left feet at the beginning; I was horrible. That's something I do know: if I can learn how to dance, anybody can learn how to dance.

The Latin Summer Festival begins with a 9 pm pre-party tonight at Club Le (formerly Le ZaZou) (S1-30, 3/F, Bldg 1, Sanlitun Village South, 19 Sanlitun Lu) (50 RMB). It continues Friday with the show For the Love of Salsa (advanced reservation recommended), which starts at 9 pm at The One Club (No. 5, 718 Art and Culture Zone, 19 Ganluyuan) (150 RMB).

Other highlights include the All White Latin Party on Saturday, 9 pm, at Music Box (No. 17 Ritan North Rd.) (150 RMB), and an all-day Latin Pool Party on Sunday (space very limited) starting at 11:30 am at Doubletree by Hilton (168 Guang'anmenwai Dajie).

Here is the full event schedule.

A beginners full event pass costs 800 RMB (980 RMB for advanced, 780 RMB for students), but the Beijinger readers who contact Jack Dunn directly at phoenixdancechina@gmail.com can get a 100-plus RMB discount.