What is Pachanga dance?

We all know of the general dancing styles in the Latin world: Salsa, Cha-Cha, Merengue, Bachata, Rumba… and so on. However, I’ve been frequently asked on ‘pachanga’. Pachanga is first a style of music which originated in Cuba in the late 1950′s. If you have ever listened to a cha-cha song which may have sounded with a stronger down-beat – it might have been pachanga music. During that era, it gained popularity in replacing cha-cha as the dance in Cuba. However, nowadays it is mainly popular in Columbia.

I found a great video of Eddie Torres explaining and dancing some real pachanga (with a good exemplary pachanga-styled song) at a dance congress in Italy.

And here is what Pachanga looks like in the Cali, Columbia region:


Published 3 years, 3 months ago in Salsa News. 3 Comments Tags: .

3 Responses to “What is Pachanga dance?”

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  • Dany Joshua - Scarlet Mambo
    3 years, 3 months ago.

    haha. You got this one, Anthony. I was also thinking about this same post. You beat me by 3 days or so. Frankie Martinez has a great Pachanga step as well. Just last Sunday, in his class, I asked him for some pointers on how to build a soulful Pachanga step. “The thing about Pachanga… nobody is born a Pachangero, you gotta work at it. That’s the beauty of it. When you see someone doing the Panchaga, you know they had to work for that”, Frankie said. Maybe I will post a follow up post on Frankie’s Pachanga step. For Cha Cha, it is on all the downbeats (1 2 3 4 5 5 6 7 8), as supposed to the Salsa version (1 3 5 7), due to the tempo variation.

  • Anthony Persaud
    3 years, 3 months ago.

    No, if you have more info or wish to provide more details, another pachanga article would be very useful. I kind of just glanced over the subject to answer a few questions.

  • Tommy Lee
    1 year, 5 months ago.

    Do you knonw anyone in LA that can teach Pachanga?

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