Intro to Mambo Dancing

Series Summary

The upbeat and animated Mambo dance and Mambo music come from Cuba but had Haitian influence contributing to their development. Although, this Latin dance soared in its highest popularity during the 1950's, Mambo has once again gained popularity following the release of a covered version of Mambo Number 5 in 1999. If you would like to learn how to Mambo from a professional or just learn more about the dance enjoy these free videos.

In this free video series learn how to Mambo from our expert dancer Leslie Sack as she demonstrates Mambo dance steps and combinations, and teaches men's and ladies' basic steps, progressive steps, side rocks, back rocks, walk around turns, cross body leads, cross over breaks with turns, cross basics, and Mambo combinations.

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Leslie Sack with expertvillage.com. My website is lesliesack.com and the dance that we are doing is mambo and mambo is really similar to Cha Cha. There is a break in the music on the 2's, little accent on the 2's so we are going to count mambo in 4''s; it goes 1,2,3,4; 1,2,3,4 and the accent is on the 2's so it is 1, 2, 3, 4, 1,2,3,4, 1,2,3,4 and that is really what makes it feel and look like mambo. It is sort of the down into the earth kind of feeling; it is a Latin dance and it has a great front view. You've got your hips are moving, called the Cuban motion. All right we've got all of these Latin dance elements here. Your body can move from side to side so it looks like you are moving a lot without going anywhere. It is just spot dance. So you really don't go anywhere. You are just going to feel like you are in a one little spot light. It is all about remaining with your partner. Just keeping it small and we are just going to be rocking in all different directions and doing turns. Sometimes people hold on and sometimes we let go. It is a great dance. "