What Do U Dance On?

"What do you dance on?" is a question that salsa dancers often ask each other, referring to either dancing "on 1" or "on 2"–the beat in a bar of music a dancer accentuates. Comprised of 8 actor-dancers and a live salsa band, this work refers to West Side Story by segregating the performers into two salsa groups representing New York/Puerto Rican and Cuban styles. The performance stages and critiques stereotypes in satirical vignettes, building to a dance battle that embodies the complex and multi-faceted internal relations among salsa dancing Latina/os, contesting their homogenization in the mainstream imagination, and thereby advancing progressive social change.