
	Cuba A-Z


		Salsa, Rueda, Reggaeton Hot days with Cuban dance partners in Havana

"Muevete a lo Cubano"
Journey for dance and experience, intensive programme
Emphasis on Salsa and Salsa isolation techniques
Havana, April 4th - April 18th 2009

"Muevete a lo Cubano" is a dance workshop, which offers two weeks of intensive Salsa dancing as well as a specific preparation for the movement dynamics of Latin American dances. The methodology of individual learning within a group developed especially by "Danza y Movimiento" makes this offer suitable for both, beginners and advanced dancers. The Salsa classes give you an individual learning guideline, which allows you to advance together with your Cuban dance partner according to your own speed. Movimiento, the class for Salsa-isolation techniques, teaches you the basic repertoire for all Caribbean dances from Salsa to Reggaeton. This preparation of dance techniques is important, because Salsa doesn't become accessible by the practising of step combinations and figures, but because of the security you have when working with your own body. The classes are completed by the typical Cuban Rueda de Casino, in which the dancers move in a circle and change partners constantly.

There is an offer of group meetings taking place on ten worshop days for all the participants interested in a conscious contact with the dance experience and the Cuban everyday environment. The meetings are supervised by Matthias Möbius, who will accompany your journey. During the meetings, there is space for questions and exchange. On several days, Cubans are invited and you can learn about Cuban life and the Cuban mentality. A chance to experience the time in Cuba more intensively.

We stay at carefully selected Casas Particulares. This is the Cuban form of "Bed and Breakfast". Apart from the fact that the houses chosen by us equal the standard of a Cuban 3* hotel, this personal contact with Cubans allows you to avoid the anonymous perspective of a hotel while protecting your privacy. The participants of the workshops stay close to each other. Thus, there is also the possibility to make appointments with the others.

Of course, the aspect of vacation and relaxation is also important. Thus, the group journey does not only include 40 instructional units given during the afternoon dance programme, but also a guided city tour with lunch, a day trip to the beaches of Playas del Este and enough leisure time at your disposal.

The German travel management is a competent partner for your questions and for other advice concerning dancing, shopping and excursions. Not belonging to the course schedule, there is also an opportunity to relax from the exercises and to prepare for the evening by enjoying a sensual-relaxing massage.

The dance classes are arranged by Caruca and her team. For more information on Caruca and Salsa, please click here.

And if you would like to know about the inpressions of participants of similar group journeys you can read their feedbacks here.

Travel dates: April 4th - April 18th 2009

The basic price for our journey staying in a double room in a Casa Particular (private accommodation), is (per person)

1180.- Euro

Arrival: 04/04/2009
Start of programme: 05/04/09 Sunday, 10 o'clock (city tour)
Departure: 18/04/09




		Your travel representative: Matthias Möbius Co-founder of Danza y Movimiento and of the Tantra-institute No-Guru in Hamburg. Activity in the fields dance and theatre for many years, for instance five years in his own institute for dance and theatre in Ecuador. Since 1996, development of an attractive individual programme for culture and self-awareness journeys to Cuba, Argentina, Ecuador and other countries.

This group journey offers and the price includes:

Individual transfer on arrival from the airport
Accommodation (14 nights including breakfast)
City tour showing you the old part of Havana, lunch
Day trip to the beaches of Playas del Este
20 instructional units, 60min. each, of Salsa with personal Cuban dance partner(DyM - methodology)
20 instructional units 45min. each, of Movimiento (Isolation training)
10 meetings for exchange of ideas and reflection (60 min. each)
a good city map of Havana
two CDs with Cuban music for your travel preparations (will be sent together with your travel documents)
Salsa-certificate for successful participation in the course
German travel management

Please read the following details attentively, because they include more information on the journey:

You can make a binding pre-reservation for this journey until 15/11/2008 and thus make sure that you are one of the participants. For this pre-reservation it is not necessary to have booked the flight already.
Premium members of the DyM-Club receive a price discount of half of the annual fee. Please ask! !
Single room supplement Casa Particular: 170.- Euro.
On request, we can also calculate an individual offer for the programme staying at any other hotel in Havana preferred by you.
Arrival: Individual and not included in the price.
The city tour is in German.
Your travel management speaks English, German, Spanish, Italian and a little bit of French.
Do you have children? Cuba likes children... We organise a basic Spanish course for children or teenagers from the age of 10 to 15 in the mornings and Salsa dance classes with Cubans of the same age in the afternoons! The children can also choose one of the two programmes, in case they prefer to spend their mornings, for example, doing sightseing or going to the beach.
You can also combine this offer with classes of Spanish, Drums, Percussion, Afro Cuban or Folklore dances. The price for the additional course is only 245.- Euro! (Afro 279.- Euro) These courses take place in the mornings.
For bookings and enquiries, please use our form.
We confirm your application by email. You receive a written travel confirmation/ invoice by mail or as a pdf-document by email after all the services included are confirmed. Deviating from our General Terms, the deposit for this journey is 250.- Euro per person. The rest of the price has to be paid at the latest 30 days prior to departure. In case of a cancellation until 30 days before the start of the journey, 250.- Euro are to be paid, 15-29 days before the start of the journey 50% of the travel price. Please compare the information given in our General Terms for cancellations of 14 days or less before the start of the journey. If you don't live in the EU and the payment is made by credit card, we will charge your credit card account with the corresponding amounts.
You can take out a travel cancellation insurance policy or other travel insurance policies up to 14 days after having received your booking confirmation. This is easily done by internet. You only have to click here.
If your arrival or departure dates should vary due to flight schedules, or if you simply wish to arrive earlier or to stay longer, we calculate the extra nights separately.
If you have the time and if you would like to spend a week close to Havana at the Playas del Este prior to our programme or after the programme, we can recommend and organise private accommodations as well as various hotels. 7 nights in a double room including breakfast start from 200 Euro per person. (This offer is only valid in combination with the booking of the basic package.)
Please do not forget to tell us your previous Salsa knowledge when booking.
Minimum number of participants: 6. If there should be less bookings, we will still offer the alternative programme "Salsa und Movimiento".

For more information on the content of the journey or the travel management, please contact us by using our contact page. If the travel dates of this journey should not suit you, please note that we offer Salsa courses in small groups throughout the year! You can get more information here.

This is what participants of Salsa group journeys told us about their experience with the DYM methodology

Thomas W. writes:

Hallo Matthias, as you already know, it took me some effort to convince my girlfriend to book this journey. But the "effort" has not only been worthwhile for myself. She enjoyed Cuba as much as I did. This was my most beautiful vacation so far.

I think the main reason for this was the group journey, the group. To me (us), not speaking Spanish very fluently, it also made things easier. The voluntary (evening) events were also nice, they always kept us busy. During the whole time, we only made it to the beach twice, and this is talking about a beach fanatic like myself... I didn't even miss it!

How can one describe this journey to somebody else, well, I will try: Cuba is poor, the people don't have anything. The houses are run-down and the meals nothing to write home about. I think, everybody should know that. I learned for myself that we can be quite happy here in Germany and that the world is somehow distorted. People in Cuba are always happ, singing, dancing and laughing. We Germans are always complaing about something. We are really too well off and / or we don't do it right.

So much about the background. Now, I am getting to the real purpose of my (our) travel, the music and the dancing. Apparently, this journey was heaven on earth for me. It is incredible how the Cubans move and what sort of occasions can make you dance. I am only thinking about our day trip to the beach at the weekend... The dancing during Caruca's classes is sudorific and, without exaggeration - a mere drill. But it was also lots of fun, and who else has the opportunity to dance and practise for 20 hours with the best Cuban dancers?

Karl R. writes:

Cuba has thrown me out of my everyday routine quite a bit, and it will probably take some time to adjust again, especially now, as it has become so cold again, I would like to stumble towards a mojito service station at 5.30pm with a steaming soul and a T-Shirt ready to be wrough out, to sit dizzily at the Malecon without knowing if even a single step will work, if the women wouldn't lead us so wonderfully through the labyrinth of setenta y unos or dos, well, all gone, now we have to be real men again and lead ourselves or not, but everything has gone back to normal too quickly or it should be and one rather functions a bit Cuban here, thus with an enormous diesel consumption, and so it is a bit too early for a résumé, especially for a definitive one: in any case this has been a unique vacation, hard to compare to anything else and thank you very much.

Georg S. writes:

first of all I would like to thank you for the organisation and the tour guidance in Havana. I couldn't tell you personally, because I didn't meet you on my departure day, Friday. I hope the final night was as good as the 14 days before; I would have really liked to be there. The time in Cuba was very beautiful for me: with lots of impressions and experiences. But I also returned thoughfully: some things and some people I only started to understand bit by bit towards the end of the journey. It is an island one probably begins to understand when going there the second time. But there is something fascinating, I cannot say what it is. I think I wasn't there for the last time.
I especially liked that we had the chance to get to know a lot of people, also Cubans, in an extremely short period of time. Of course, not all of them were "friends", "true friends" but still... I prefer it this way when visiting a new country. This begins with the accommodation (even if I had some problems in the beginning and if I would have preferred it differently) and it ends with the dance course and our Cuban dance partners. I also liked our travel group and I will probably meet one or the other here. The drum classes with Ruy were lots of fun; he is a very good musician and a good teacher at the same time, which is not always the case. In fact, the dance course was were demanding physically, but just great. It was lots of fun give full power! The Caruca is pure energy and she is doing a very good job, even if she demanded a lot from us; I was very lucky with my two main dance partners: they were very patient with me being a total beginner at Salsa dancing. When they weren't there one day, I noticed the difference very clearly. Now I have to find out if I am actually able to lead myself. But in any case I will stick to the new achievement of Salsa dancing!
The excursions with Yvonne and Gladys were also very good: I especially remember the visit to the conservatory and the introduction to the Santeria religion: unfortunately I couldn't accept the Babalao's offer of a future cooperation: despite the internet and similar things!?
One has to get used to the music and dance events sometimes (noise and procedure, especially in the Casa de la Musica), even if it wasn't the first contact with similar circumstances (Brazil), but also there, I enjoyed the informality between locals and tourists. To me, the journey already included many prior arrangements, thus there wasn't a lot of time to see a bit more than just the city, but I was aware of that and it requires another trip to Cuba!
After all, an overall interesting vacation!

Angelika L. has used or feedback form ...

1. All in all, my journey was
( x ) very good

2. Concerning the services booked with Danza y Movimiento I was
( x ) very content

2.1 Accommodation
( x ) good

2.2 Course(s) booked
( x ) very good (Spanish)
( x ) good (Salsa)

4. My expectations:
( x ) What I experienced, exceeded my expectations.

... and Julia L. as well:

1. All in all, my journey
( x) very good

2. Concerning the services booked with Danza y Movimiento I was
( x ) very content

2.1 Accommodation
( x ) very good
The family was extremely nice. I have learned a lot about Cuba because of this close contact. The breakfast was excellent.

2.2 Course(s) booked
(x ) very good
Caruca was an outstanding teacher, The dance partners led very well.

2.3 Other services worth mentioning
City tour, day trip to the beach
( x ) very good

4. My expectations:.
( x ) What I experienced, exceeded my expectations.

I am still thinking a lot about Cuba. It was an especially nice and intensive holiday!

Jsabelle W. writes:

well, the Salsa journey took place a while ago, but I am still thinking a lot about it. Beforehand, I had prepared myself with books and movies in order not to get a shock there. But I noticed that all the preparation is not useful , because this country is just too special to be described in books. I had had the expectation to meet Cubans in their normal lives, but I had to experience that it is not easy at all to get hold of any serious Cubans. I would like to travel to Cuba again in order to rise to this challenge, but I am convinced that it would take at least a month to really get to know this island. Even if I spent a weekend in the country, this visit was too short to be able to say that I got to know Cuba. On every street corner, I was challenged to deal with the Cubans. I was often struck by the rip-off mentality, and often, I didn't manage to keep away from these situations. On a different journey, I would mainly go to smaller towns, because I am sure that it would be easier to get contact with the people without having to be cautious all the time in order to avoid rip-offs. But as to Salsa dancing it was definitely worthwhile staying in the capital of 3 million. I had also had great expectations about being able to get the maximum profit out of the 2 weeks, and my expectations were actually exceeded. The dance school was super, and I learned a lot of new things.

"Muevete a lo Cubano" Journey for dance and experience, intensive programme Emphasis on Salsa and Salsa isolation techniques Havana, April 4th - April 18th 2009

1180.- Euro

This is what participants of Salsa group journeys told us about their experience with the DYM methodology

"Muevete a lo Cubano"
Journey for dance and experience, intensive programme
Emphasis on Salsa and Salsa isolation techniques
Havana, April 4th - April 18th 2009