The mambo as a New York moment

By Frances McInnis
October 5, 2009

It’s a characteristic New York moment: an ethnically diverse group of students learning a New York version of a Cuban dance from a Dominican teacher in Spanish Harlem. From Jerome Robbins’s electric choreography in 1957’s West Side Story, to East Harlem’s Latin Hustle in the 1960s and ’70s, to Jennifer Lopez’s Latin pop in the early 2000s, mambo has long reflected the New York Latino experience, and the Santo Rico Dance School continues to adapt the mambo to reflect the multiculturalism of the city. Read the full story