About Us -
Casa de la Salsa IN THEIR OWN WORDS
CASA Director, ALMYRA 
Steve and Yunee
Steve "El Conde" Colon - In his words
In spite of being born and raised in the South Bronx, I grew up on Rock & Roll and Motown Soul. Latin music was the background music of my life; my parent's music. That all changed when I got to high school. There is no greater influence on a teenage boy than a girl in a Catholic school uniform. When those girls want to dance, you dance. The Brave New World of Salsa was opened up for me by the chicas of Cardinal Spellman.
I got into Mambo as an adult and have been dancing On 2 since 2001. My experience thus far with Casa has been scary, hilarious, spiritual and humbling. My deepest gratitude to Almyra for the invitation and for sharing her vision and a big shout out to all my mofos!
Yunee "Dragonfly" Lee - in her words
Hi, my name is Yunee and I like playing piano and singing along with all types of pop songs and shaking my body with reckless abandon.
I discovered Salsa dancing by accident in a Spanish cafe near my university in 1998. I danced my first merengue there and found the music extremely interesting. Then when I came to New York that same year, I totally fell in love with Salsa music and dancing. Since then, I've been dancing passionately anywhere I can and have taken classes with everyone from Eddie Torres to Jimmy Anton to Carlos Konig.
Casa de La Salsa is the first dance group I've belonged to and I really love all the dancers and have Great FUN!!!
JAY and JM
Flavio Leonin, Jr.
Flavio, known better as Jay or Don Jay, started dancing 7 years ago. He began at Sandra Cameron Dance Studios, sharpened his skills with Carlos Konig before joining CDLS with his good friend Almyra Ayos. His love for dance started as a competitive roller skater in which he became a 4 time United States Champion in Artistic Dance (Think ballroom dance on skates). Today he divides his time between pharmaceutical clinical research and mambo. The stress and pressure of winning in skating are gone but what is left is his unconditional joy of dance and sharing that with friends.
JM
I used to think I should have been born a latina, but now I realize that I'm really just an Asian-American who happens to love latin music and dance. I started salsa dancing in LA and continued taking classes and going out socially here in NY. In summer 2004 I was honored to be asked to join CDLS . I admire the creativity, talent, patience, and openmindedness of our director Almyra and cherish the relationships that I have formed with each member of the group, past and present. There has always been a special comraderie that does not happen often with any group, dance or non-dance. I feel that I have grown both technically and personally by being part of CDLS over the past 2 years, and look forward to learning that much more.
"Dance like no one is watching!"
Andre and Cindy
Andre...
Andre Degas came to Salsa dancing through playing the conga drums while performing with Afro Haitian and Afro Cuban groups in NYC. He studied with the great Eddie Torres and performed in his student "Jammers" group in 2000. He also performed with Carlos Konig's student group to Tito Puente's "Mambo Gozon". However, he considers his true debut to have been in 2004 with Casa de La Salsa.
Terrence and Sahar
Sahar, an Iranian native, moved to the U.S. at the age of ten where the sounds of Latina culture soothed her difficult transition to American life. Growing up in the Mile High city of Denver she became a young apprentice at Colorado Ballet, and since then has been finding her freedom through dance. Her passion for culture and diversity lead her to New York where she began to Mambo three years ago. In her time in New York she has danced with Razz M’ Tazz Inc., and is now proudly the newest member of Casa De La Salsa.
DAN aka "Supa-Dan"
"My dance career began at several months of age when my parents set me atop their piano and had me parade back and forth on the keys. I had no choice but to associate body movement with musical sound. Years later my size finally put an end to this preoccupation—only my hands remained on the piano keys while the rest of my parading was transferred to the dance floor. Some competitive Latin ballroom dancing ensued, a few unbecoming hip-hop performances, a move into the great NYC and bam!!!
Salsa.
I can't stop."
(Dan is 2nd from left, with his first CASA group, the CASA student performers)
Stay tuned for Cindy,Stacy & Terrence in their own words...