Salsa classes at Cuba Café

As much as I love it, it’s hard to think of Manchester, all concrete and drizzle, as a hotbed of the musical fusion that emerged from Cuba, Puerto Rico and New York. Salsa, however, has become very much a part of the club, bar and restaurant scene in Manchester; it’s just about knowing where to look.

When it came to choosing a dance class, it became clear to me that I wasn’t exactly familiar with what Salsa actually is. Before now, the word has always conjured a mental image of Alesha Dixon and, for some reason, that scene from Dirty Dancing where Baby practices her dance moves by sashaying solo around the holiday camp footpaths. Not exactly great starting points but luckily the majority of classes do cater for absolute beginners.

I’d already heard good things about classes in Copacabana and La Tasca, so I thought I’d try somewhere different and decided on the Cuba Café. The bar is tucked away on Port Street, in an area of the Northern Quarter that looks like it’s been classed as ‘developing’ for a while now.

The website promised a ‘little piece of Cuba’, and with its wooden shutters open to let the warm (ish) night air in and the beat of the Salsa music out, it didn't disappoint. Once inside my dance partner and I found a very tiny bar complete with an awning and a dance floor filled to bursting point with its dozen or so occupants. The 150 capacity that the club purportedly boasts seemed ambitious and with Moulin Rouge posters on the walls and bicycles on the ceiling, Cuba Café is like the Aladdin’s cave of cultural kleptomania.

The only person who appeared to be running the place seemed to be the one stood in the middle of the dance floor, wearing a fedora and Hawaiian shirt. This was Mo-Ji ‘the innovator’, owner and Salsa expert. Unfortunately, due to us being temporarily unable to find Cuba Café, we had arrived too late to enter the beginners class.

“I’m sorry,” announced Mo-Ji, gesturing to the other 12 people in the bar, “it’s too full.” We were about to admit defeat when he told us to come back for the next class. This was for ‘improvers’, but Mo-Ji didn’t seem too phased by our panicked expressions and, with a hefty pat on our backs, he boomed that he’d see us soon. Mo-Ji is very much the human embodiment of his bar.

At the Cuba Café there is, on average, one guy to every five girls. Make that one exceedingly happy guy. The spare girls hover next to couples, waiting for their turn to cut in when Mo-Ji shouts for everyone to switch partners; it appears like a frantic, Salsa-orientated speed dating service. It would be unfair to say that every person there was looking for a date, but there was one – I’ll call him Snake Hips – who sashayed his way over to my friend and I as soon as the music stopped to demonstrate how he could dance and flirt at the same time.

It turned out that Alesha Dixon made it look deceptively easy. As far as I see it, Salsa is the only high contact sport performed to a Latino beat. I don’t know many people who are keen on having a stranger hold their hand and pull them in close, but in all honesty, you’ll be concentrating too much on trying not to trip up over them to care too much.

Mo-Ji assigned us to Clive, a very keen teacher who kept us away from the real dancers and tried to drill some steps into us. I’ve never heard anyone shout the word ‘tap!’ so enthusiastically before. Having said that, where else would you get one-on-one tuition when you’d arrived late for the class you should have been in? And afterwards, as Mo-Ji took me for a whirl around the dance floor to show off my new moves (albeit wobbly), he spoke to me about my ambitions and told me Salsa would help me achieve them. Apparently, no one puts newbies in the corner (sorry).

Snake Hips’ gyration aside, this was an utterly unique experience. Where else can you find a toilet with a fish patterned shower curtain for a door? And a dance instructor who runs a bar while teaching, then stops to explain his Salsa life story when everyone else has gone? This was a Cuban sandwich of dance and madness. I loved it.

Salsa classes with Mo-Ji, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Beginners Class at 6pm or 7pm, Improvers Class at 8pm, all £5 per person.

Cuba Café, 43 Port Street, Off Piccadilly, Manchester, 0161 236 3630, www.cubacafe.co.uk