DANCE & MUSIC
CLASSES
Classes with Artistic Director Ramón Ramos Alayo​
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​No classes in July
Sundays 4:00pm Cuban kids dance -Shawl Anderson Dance
Mondays 6:45pm Beginning Salsa -Dance Mission Theater
Mondays 8:00pm Intermediate Salsa -Dance Mission Theater
Wednesdays 6:30pm Beginning Salsa -Dance Mission Theater
Wednesdays 8:00pm Advanced Rueda -Dance Mission Theater
Thursdays 7:15pm Afro-Cuban Modern -Rhythmix Cultural Works
Check Out Our Other Artists
CubaCaribe proudly supports artists.
Click on their name to find out more information about their classes!
Susana Arenas Pedroso is an internationally recognized Cuban Folkloric and popular dancer. Born and raised in Havana, Cuba, Ms Pedroso began her career in dance at age twelve, studying at La Casa de Cultura de Matanzas and at Cojunto Folklorico Nacional in Havana. She danced professionally for seventeen years in Cuba with popular, folkloric and theatrical performing groups. Since her arrival in the United States in 1998, Ms Pedroso has performed and choreographed numerous pieces that have been exhibited throughout the United States, Mexico, Cuba and Hong Kong .
Born and raised in Salvador, Bahia, Tania Santiago grew up in the heart of African-influenced Brazil. She has taught, danced, and choreographed for the most well-known companies in Brazil. She spent six years working with Olodum, a highly respected and internationally acknowledged Bloco Afro in Brazil. Tania also choreographed and performed for Olodum on television, at concerts, and at music festivals. Since 1997 Tania has been teaching classes and giving workshops in California, New York, Hawaii, Florida, and Vancouver, Canada.
Bongo Sidibe is a musician from Guinea, West Africa and moved to the Bay Area from Guinea in 2008. He studied drumming from master djembe player Mamady Keita beginning at age 9 and is a culture bearer preserving the rich musical traditions of West Africa. Bongo believes in the power of music to unite people and create a more inclusive world. As the Co-Artistic Director of Duniya Dance and Drum Company, Bongo directs evening-length West African music and dance performances. In addition to being a drummer, Bongo leads the band Bongo Sidibe and the TonTons, which has performed at the Joshua Tree Music Festival, The Chapel SF, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival and more. In addition to djembe, Bongo plays the dhol from Punjab, India. Bongo is a dedicated arts educator and teaches West African drumming with the SF Ballet, Ruth Asawa SF School of the Arts, LEAP, San Francisco Arts Education.
Cunamacué based in Oakland, California, was founded by artistic director Carmen Román. The company promotes the continuity of Afro-Peruvian culture, representing it not as a point in time, but as a living, vibrant and evolving form whose music and dance can be used as a means of contemporary expression. Adapting to its new environment, the San Francisco Bay Area, Cunamacué uses Afro-Peruvian movement vocabulary as well as movements inspired by modern dance and dances of the African Diaspora.
​​​​Cunamacué has performed locally and abroad, having had the pleasure to collaborate with local and international artists to create original compositions in both music and dance.
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YISMARI RAMOS TELLEZ is a Cuban dancer, teacher, and choreographer located in the Bay Area. Ramos is a graduate of the National School of Art in Havana with a degree in modern and Afro-Cuban folkloric dance. She regularly performed on television, in video, and in live shows for the top bands in Cuba.
In 2009, Yismari Ramos Tellez assumed the role of artistic director of LQSS. As choreographer and principal dancer of LQSS, Ramos brings rigorous training, stellar professional experience, and inspired creative vision to the company.
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Tika Morgan is a full-time instructor of Contemporary & Latin Dance with 20 years of professional experience. Her unique teaching style has garnered a devoted following throughout the San Francisco Bay Area dance community.
Tika began dancing at age 4 and performing professionally at age 11. She has worked in several dance companies performing both nationally and internationally. Tika is a graduate teacher of the acclaimed Silvestre Dance Technique (Brazil) and has been working with its founders since 2008.
Tika Morgan Dance workshops are centered around dance as a way of life.
Herencia Guantanamera's mission is to preserve, celebrate, and share the rich cultural heritage of Guantánamo, Cuba. Through our diverse range of events, educational programs, and artistic endeavors, we aim to honor the traditions, music, dance, and history of the region, fostering a deeper appreciation and understanding of Guantanamera culture for present and future generations
Tainah Damasceno Harvey is an Oakland native who has been dancing her whole life. Her dance training began with her mother, Conceicao Damasceno, and included various styles of traditional dance from all over Brazil. At the age of three, Tainah also began ballet training, and her passion for ballet led her to study for five years at the San Francisco Ballet School. As a teen/young adult, Tainah began to explore her roots with Brazilian dance with more depth and scope, eventually taking over teaching the youth classes that she had participated in as a child. Tainah acts as Assistant Artistic Director at BrasArte and has helped produce such shows/festivals as Yemanja Arts Festival, SF Bay Brazilian Day & Lavagem, and Sambrazil!
Laurie Fleurentin was born in Haiti and began dancing at the age of five at Academy of Ballet and Arts under the direction of Heileing Herzog. She studied traditional Haitian dance with Armande J. Piard and Vivianne Gauthier, and received a Graduate diploma in Dance at L’ ENARTS (Ecole Nationale des Arts)Sschool of Arts in Haiti and is a trained vocalist in Haitian Folkloric traditional chants. Laurie became a professional dancer for Vivianne Gauthier Dance Company where she met Florencia Pierre and started dancing for Afoutayi Jaka. She has also performed at San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival with Eloi Movement and the Haitian Festival at San Francisco with Afoutay as well as choreographed and performed at Cubacaribe in San Francisco. Currently, Laurie Fleurentin teaches at San Francisco State University, Destiny Arts Center in Oakland, Dimensions Dance Theater in Oakland and The Beat in Berkeley.
Batey Tambó is a Bay Area-based, women of color-led cultural group grounded in the centuries-old musical tradition of Afro-Indigenous Puerto Rican Bomba, directed by Denise Solis (Bombera de la Bahia) and Julia Caridad Cepeda (Julia Danse). Batey Tambó’s mission is to facilitate a discussion through teaching and sharing space for bomba Bateys (communal spaces) that intervene discussion and practice on racial, gendered and geopolitical contexts by offering an opportunity for dialogue. Batey Tambo offers space for imagining more fluid roles in the tradition of Bomba in facilitating a Batey that is inclusive and open to all gender expressions and taking on the roles that speak to your soul regardless of gender, we value keeping alive the morals of the tradition of Bomba and learning it with humility and respect in honor of our cultural and life elders, ancestors and liberation.
Gladys “Bobi” Céspedes has been at the forefront of representing Cuban music in the Bay Area and internationally for over 40 years. Bobi’s music integrates Cuban folkloric and modern elements in an authentic and distinctive sound. Her resonant voice and dynamic stage presence lead audiences on a journey from Yoruba incantations to the Cuban son. She can belt out a rumba or move you to tears through a heart wrenching rendition of a classic bolero. Along the way she shares her narratives of family life and love, and the wisdom of Afro Cuban fables. Always present is her chambo—that vibrant Cuban soul–creative and resilient.
A vocalist in the Cuban son tradition, composer, band leader and educator, Bobi first won international recognition as director and lead vocalist for the award winning Bay Area band, Conjunto Céspedes. She took a break from the Conjunto to record and tour with Mickey Hart, but soon returned to her calling as band leader, and singer/songwriter, establishing a band under her own name, which she has led for nearly 20 years.
Royland Lobato is originally from Guantanamo, Cuba, and is a founding member of the Havana-based dance company, 7 Potencias, an Afro-Cuban Folkloric dance and music ensemble. With over 20 years as a dance educator, Royland has been teaching Afro-Cuban and Cuban popular dance throughout the Bay Area. He is also an Artistic Director and Choreographer of several acclaimed dance companies. Royland has also participated as a principal dancer and instructor and is an invited guest in performances, workshops and classes throughout the greater Bay Area, Hawaii, New York, Cuba, and Mexico.
Einar “Tito” Leliebre Nuñez is from Santiago de Cuba, the most important city in Cuba for the cradle of son, where there are influences from Haiti, France, Africa and Spain. When he was eight, he began learning from Luis Quintana Palacio, a member of the Ballet Folklórico del Oriente and a commission to evaluate musicians. When Nuñez was ten, he was chosen to begin formal studies in music at Jose Maria Heredia Vocational Art School in Santiago de Cuba. His main teacher was his father, Hector Leliebre Borja: a top-level musician who worked with the Ballet Folklorico Cutumba and the Ballet Folklorico del Oriente. Nuñez also learned from Pachi Israel Rodriguez, the director of Obba Tuke, a group dedicated to preserving the Cuban rumba genre. Since 2003, Nuñez has been a musical director with the national company Teatro del Danza de Caribe.
Denmis Bain Savigne (Jony) is originally from Santiago de Cuba. He has expertise in Afro-Cuban dance, folklore, ballet, jazz, modern dance, contemporary ballet, hip-hop, and singing. He is a principal dancer for Havana Nights Dance Company, and has choreographed for Kenny Ortega, Siegfried and Roy, Emilio Estefan, Manuel Mendive, Havana Nights Dance Company, and the Latin Grammys. He owns the Cuban Rhythm and Rumba dance studio in Vallejo, California.
Roberto Borrell learned traditional and popular Afro-Cuban dance, percussion, and song from master musicians and dancers while growing up in la Havana Vieja, Havana, Cuba. He is a respected dancer and percussionist of Afro-Cuban Yoruba, Abakua (Calabar), Rumba, Arará (Dahony), and Palo (Congo). He also a master dancer and teacher of Cuban popular dance styles such as son montuno, danzón, and cha cha cha.
Mr. Borrell led the Afro-Cuban folkloric group Kubata in Cuba for 10 years before coming to the United States in 1980, where he founded a new company under the same name. Kubata, then based in New York City, performed Roberto’s productions for 10 years in many major East Coast venues. Borrell danced in the front line of the Folklorico Nacional de Cuba and was the co-founder, percussionist and musical co-director of the 11-member Orquesta la Moderna Tradición.
Jose “Cheo” Rojas was born in Guantánamo, Cuba. Rojas began to dance at a young age at the changüicera parties next to his father and at the Cuban-Haitian parties next to his grandfather.
He graduated as a dance instructor from the Escuela Profesional de Arte de Cuba in 1988, as professor and choreographer from the Instituto Superior de Arte de Cuba in 1990, and as a folklore specialist from the Escuela Nacional de Arte in 1996. He began his career as a professional dancer and choreographer with Danza Libre and co-founded and co-directed the internationally renowned Cuban company Banrará.
Cuban born percussionist and vocalist Jesus Diaz arrived in the United States from Habana in 1980. A multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and vocalist, Díaz has established himself as one of the most in-demand performers and studio musicians worldwide. As an educator, he has participated in several prominent clinics and workshops including Berklee College of Music, SFJAZZ, Stanford Jazz Workshop, Drummers Collective NY, and Jazz Camp West to name a few. In collaboration with his group Talking Drums, which includes fellow percussionists Michael Spiro and David Garibaldi, he has contributed to various Warner Brothers instructional books and videos.
Shefali Shah is a dance instructor, singer, songwriter, choreographer, and education consultant. She is the co-director of the Bay Area Bomba y Plena Workshop at La Peña Cultural Center, where she teaches weekly adult and youth Bomba dance classes. She is the founder and artistic director of performance ensemble Aguacero, the youth ensemble Quenepas and is a principal dancer with La Mixta Criolla. Shefali regularly presents at schools, universities, festivals, and events throughout California. For over 25 years Shefali has dedicated herself to the study, practice, and education of Puerto Rican Bomba music and dance. She trained extensively and performed with members of the legendary Cepeda Family.