PHOTOPHILE- Fancy footwork: 250 evenings of hot salsa

Every Sunday for six years, Charlottesville's Salsa Club has been meeting at the Outback Lodge for dancing and conviviality. Participants enjoy a beginners salsa class at 7:15 and an intermediate class at 8pm. After the classes, everyone puts their new skills to work, dancing all night to the Latin music of DJ O. Movers and shakers recently celebrated the 250th class!  

With about 160 people on a busy night, club president Butch Bailey calls it "social dancing." 

"We've had five salsa marriages in our group," he says, "and one of the couples just had a salsa baby!"  

And there's a humanitarian side to the fun. With revenues in the $4,000-6,000 range, the non-profit organization has also done such good deeds as provide a new ambulance for a small Ecuadorian city.

For modest fees, dance lovers can have fun and feel good about it. Might be worth a new year's resolution: get moving!

Instructors Edwin Roa and Amberlyn Sasser show how it's done.

Sonya Korabelnikova and Daniel Strumlauf get in the spirit.

Brittany Olson and Elijah Bowser demonstrate advanced techniques.

DJ O (Oscar Trujillo) and Salsa club president Butch Bailey

Kira Santulli and Cesar Arce

Elijah Bowser and Edwin Roa

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