The air fizzes with energy as I sense an empowered and vital presence. A stranger’s smile lights up the room and a lyrical stream of words, like a melodic machine gun, fills the air with Spanish. From the little I understand (note to self: must learn Spanish), I know that an unusual and interesting woman has entered my world.
From a young age, Joana Vittoria de la Rocha Daher suffered with anxiety. Life was an ordeal, with the simplest of situations triggering stress; she had debilitating palpitations, and a mind and heart that struggled to cope with everyday life.
Now, she is a dancer, a teacher, a writer and a photographer. It was when she discovered dance, particularly Salsa dance, that her life changed.
The power to transform
From the first moment, stepping on to the dance floor transformed her. She felt liberated and truly alive for the first time in her life. Most importantly, she felt safe and confident in herself. Through music and movement she discovered both body and soul. In Salsa, her mind is freed just by feeling the rhythm, the dance, the sounds of the each instruments. Some two decades later, what she has gained from dance has shaped her approach to life, spilling over into her creativity and everything she has planned for her future.
The middle of Bolivia may seem an unlikely place to be a Salsa dancer. but it’s thanks to Salsa that this female force of nature is a wholly different being. This Latin dance has helped Joana Vittoria to grow and blossom into a vibrant, confident woman, comfortable in her own skin. Of course, she still has moments of self-doubt: moments when she feels some anxiety returning, but these no longer rule her life and she can banish it again. It’s obvious that the power of dance was key to driving this change within her.
It’s important to spend time to understand the dance and the way the dancers interprets it
Salsa in Bolivia
So why Salsa, when the local influences are more focussed on South American Latin rhythms? When Joana Vittoria’s journey into dance began at a young age, there was a significant Cuban migrant community in her home town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia. Her entry into the world of Cuban Salsa started in an academy called “Eleguá”. During her first years, she was taught by a professional dancer and, as a result, went on to win several national and international competitions with her dance group, Bembé Bolivia.
Alongside a growing career as a journalist with an interest in well-being; the human condition, and living in a more sustainable world, her future looked bright – until injury put an end to competing. She suffered a serious fracture of her kneecap, which prevented her from even walking unaided for two years. During that time, while she was recuperating and rehabilitating, the dance group disintegrated, with some members migrating to the United States, including her teacher René Barrientos.
A change of circumstances
Yet although her option to dance professionally were curtailed, both by injury and opportunity, her passion for Cuban Salsa was never extinguished. As her rehabilitation therapy progressed, her strength and fitness returned to the level where she could not only dance again, but also teach others, even though any future hopes of competing at the highest level had realistically faded.
Passion for salsa. Joy in the dance
With the realisation that Salsa had transformed her personality, her self-confidence and her life, it was only natural that dance and well-being would fuse at some point in time, and this happened when she joined Carpediem Comprehensive Wellness Centre. A new stage in her life and dance career began, combining Salsa with therapy to improve physical and emotional well-being.
Discovering Salsa-therapy
Salsa-therapy takes Salsa beyond a dance style. It’s transformative, taking the rhythms of Cuban Salsa and blending body movement and the power of music to promote well-being. Working simultaneously on both body and mind, Salsa-therapy draws on elements of social dance and integrates techniques for mindful movement, emotional expression and teamwork. The result? Stress release, reconnection with emotions, a boost to self-esteem and increased self-confidence.
Movement is one of the oldest forms of human expression. Dancing releases endorphins, lower cortisol levels (the stress hormone), and creates a positive impact on mental health. Cuban Salsa – with its dynamic, joyful, and energetic character – is the perfect vehicle to awaken emotions and release tensions.
Understanding the dance – finding the key movements which say salsa or the mood of the dance
Salsa is also sociable by nature, so it builds interpersonal skills like communication and empathy, while its rhythmic movements improve coordination and body awareness. Together, the effects are therapeutic, allowing individuals to explore their creativity and express emotions which they may otherwise find difficult to put into words.
Despite these new opportunities, Joana Vittoria’s road still had some bumps ahead. When the COVID pandemic struck, she was forced to take a three-year break from teaching. During this time she focused on her journalistic skill and started to establish herself as a photographer.
In February 2024, she returned to the dance classroom with more energy than ever, running Salsa-therapy workshops at the Casa Melchor Pinto Cultural Centre in Santa Cruz. The response was overwhelming as society sought a return to some normality, while paying more attention to their personal well-being. Her classes were regularly full and a community of enthusiastic amateur dancers seemed to grow every week.
Frozen motion or selective blur achieved through shutter speed? Colour or B&W?
When the music starts playing, this elegant, beautiful woman comes alive through movement. Her body moves with a languid, liquid rhythm in perfect time with the music. Her joy in dance radiates through both face and body as she loses herself in the dance. Like Tango and the other Latin rhythms, Salsa has both passion and intensity. More importantly, it’s about connection- first with yourself but then also with others on the dance floor.
Translating dance in photography
Photographing any dance or dancer requires a number of skills, not only photographic but also in understanding the movements or movement sequences. It also needs an awareness of human body, body language and how it communicates or expresses mood and emotion. It’s easy to end up with a series of missed moments and opportunities, or pictures which miss or freeze the motion in a less dynamic posture, weakening the message.
Natural light gives a softness and gentleness to images despite the movement, but getting the shutter speed to show both is a very precise process
Like most dances, Salsa can be fast or slow – so as a photographer, you have choices. For example, if you want to capture movement through blur of flowing limbs or clothing, then selecting shutter speeds needs to be precise. Often this is a balancing act between a shutter speed which freezes the key feature – the eyes and facial details – while showing movement in the faster-moving parts of the body, most notably the arms, legs and the dancer’s costume. With flash, the face is easy to freeze, but it also freezes all motion. Combining this with a longer exposure establishes movement but as ghosting either behind or on top of the frozen form, dependent on whether the flash fires at the beginning or end of the exposure – front or rear sync.
Fixed and natural light sources
On this occasion, the opportunity to photograph Joana Vittoria dancing wasn’t planned in advance and a continuous light source – one LED spotlight – was the only available option. Under these circumstances the shutter speed choice is critical. Too fast and all movement is frozen, removing the more evocative motion and gestures, while fixing posture, albeit in a position which hints at motion. Too slow, and the shot becomes mostly or all blur. This is where understanding the movement, in this case the dance, is so essential for a photographer to capture the transitions and changes in direction. These are critical because as the whole or part of the body changes direction, there is often a point where it is static and, even if this is extremely brief, the head can be static for longer.
Mood and movement
Motion can be shown by blurring or freezing motion, or through posture which indicates movement
If you look at the photos in this feature you can see how these shutter speed calculations translate. Sometimes blur in every element works. More often than not, though, you need some part of the dancer – usually the eyes or head – static to anchor the motion. If the eyes are sharp, then the blur in the rest of the frame conveys movement – the arms, legs and hair being the elements which move the fastest. The degree of blur indicates the relative speed of the motion, with the combination of expression, posture, frozen elements and blur conveying the emotion of the dance and/or the dancer.
It is vital to understand that all the motion is relative to shutter speed. You can have very fast movement but if the shutter speed is faster, then the subject will still be frozen. Similarly, slow motion will only blur if the selected shutter speed is slower than that movement and what you might consider a relatively slow shutter speed could still freeze it. Knowing what shutter speed was used in these images is largely irrelevant unless you are in the same light with the subject moving at the same speeds. However, as a guide only, the shutter speeds used here varied from 1/10th to 1/80th sec, handheld with a 200mm lens.
As a dancer moves, the moment when the shutter is released is also critical. It’s not just a case of putting the camera on motor drive and hoping. That’s where the familiarity with the dance movements comes in to predict the instant which best conveys what you’re trying to capture, both in terms of movement and emotion. These are fractions of a second, so the more the photographer understands the dance and even feels it almost as much as the dancer does, the more likely it is that the pictures will show more than just documented posture.
Release through dance
Salsa is, of course, an enjoyable dance. It is joy, passion and courage, but for the dancer – whether their personal mood is angry, sad, happy or melancholic – all these moods can be expressed and released as emotions in gesture and movement through the dance. Just feeling the music and letting them go when dancing is not only emotive but simultaneously therapeutic. It’s important that those feelings, whether they’re negative or positive, have an outlet to emerge and one of the reasons why dance is so uplifting – and yes, therapeutic.
This has never had greater importance in a world where we’re more than ever conscious of our mental health. We’re surrounded by such fast-moving living, facilitated by so much technology, taking us into our own insular, isolated, narrow worlds, that it’s all too easy to lose touch with our emotions and the ability to feel our bodies; our surroundings, or to simply create the space we need to breathe.
Why Salsa?
What does Salsa mean to Joana Vittoria? Once you’ve seen her dance you don’t really need to ask. It is written all over her face and in every movement of her body. In Salsa she discovered herself and now expresses herself. In each and every dance, she grows from those early days when she was paralysed by anxiety. To her, it is the most influential thing in shaping her personality, her self-confidence and in inspiring her creativity.
My first thoughts were that a passionate dance like salsa need to be photographed in colour, but the B&W image is also very powerful, placing the emphasis on form and shape without the distraction of colour
There are other types of dance of course; other rhythms that are beneficial to well-being, that are great fun and that have similar effects, but Salsa was where she began on her path to self-discovery. A path to awakening her mind and expand her consciousness of body, soul and spirit. It also allows her to do the same with other people, both dance partners and dance students
Teaching Salsa-therapy
Joana Vittoria’s an excellent teacher and, watching her with a class of complete beginners, her ability to engage everyone shines. Regardless of how good they are, how natural or awkward their movements are, she brings them all along together, and the many smiling faces are testament to this.
Joana Vittoria’s workshops and salsa therapy are very popular and changing people’s lives
In her workshops, she’s seen students arrive with worries, fears and even physical discomfort, only to watch those burdens begin to melt away as they move to the music. The therapeutic process isn’t just about learning to dance; it’s about moments of connection—with self and with the group.
Her students adore her and it’s not hard to see why. Salsa dance is of course the vehicle, but the therapy element is not about training to be the best or to compete. It’s about giving anyone the opportunity to stay fit and healthy, to discover themselves through movement, to realise emotions and deal with the pressures of daily life and, probably most of all, to have fun with like-minded people.
Joana Vittoria teaches complete beginners, and quickly gets them progressing, as well as more advanced dancers
Whilst she is interested in other forms of dance – the other Latin rhythm and even contemporary dance – her first love lies with Salsa and always will. It would not be too much of a stretch of the imagination to say that she is who she is because of Salsa. It’s transformed her life, or at least shaped that person who so immediately caught my eye when I first sensed her presence across that crowded room.
Building her next passion
As Joana Vittoria seeks to build her skills in writing and her other great passion, photography, it is the self-confidence and creativity which she’s gained from dance, and from helping others through dance, that is over-flowing into these, and everything else she does in life. It has freed her both on and off the dance floor.
Her natural enthusiasm and energy at first give the impression that she is not paying attention or absorbing the conversation. That she is distracted. Coming to that conclusion would be a mistake. She is like a sponge. Intelligent and sharp as a tack, she soaks up everything then moves it to the next level. Pausing to think, this is not such a surprising realisation. She reached the higher levels in competitive dance. You don’t do that unless you assimilate, apply and create with tenacity and inner strength.
With a passion for life, dance and photography, Joana Vittoria will undoubted realise her ambitions
The next step for her is to see her many talents blossom in the rest of her life. I sense photography will be the next to really benefit as she finds time to photograph what she loves, pursuing her own interests and applying those same character skills to both craft and creativity with a camera. It will be interesting to see where they take her. Wherever that is, you can be sure it will be with a smile.
Salsa therapy – Conscienciacolectiva
Instagram – @conscienciacolectiva.net_ and @joana_vittoria
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All images © Chris Coe except for the two Clases de Salsa images
