Baltimore Salsa Blog

Sue Elliott, a native of Baltimore, has been dancing for 6 years and is an innovative and ambitious promoter.  She's currently an organizer with the Baltimore Salsa Meetup and loves to blog.  She keeps the Baltimore folks both informed and motivated through her weekly blog postings (started December 2008).  Her passion for Salsa and commitment to growing the community shines through wherever she goes. Both instructors and dancers hold the highest respect for Sue and often come to her for advice on promoting new venues and events.

Baltimore Salsa Blog began as a vision of creating one site to pull together everything related to Salsa and other forms of latin dancing in Baltimore and surrounding areas.  Frustrated with all the changes occurring almost daily, Sue decided to take the information she was gathering for her own personal use and share it with like-minded people.  The original website was developed using wordpress and still exists today.  Concurrently, Sue began sending out weekly emails to the thousand members of the Baltimore Salsa Meetup in January 2009.  Eventually, Sue moved the information off of Wordpress and onto a new website.  Over time, she realized that her reputation for the "blog" and the website address she had chosen didn't quite match.  Common sense backed by passion and enthusiasm led her to create a name that just made sense - Baltimore Salsa Blog. By summer 2010, out of town visitors began accessing Sue's page to direct their social activities while visiting Baltimore. 

Baltimore Salsa Fest, co-directed by Sue Elliott and Kaya Arus of KayaDance, began with a one day event March 27, 2010. Performers and instructors came from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, and Washington, DC. The evening showcase was followed by a hot night of dancing with Edwin Ortiz y La Orquesta La Romana accompanied by DJ Sonero (Miguel Morales).  Next year's event is March 25-26, 2011.  For the Friday night party at Towson Dance Studio, we are honored to bring back La Romana.  DJ Eddy will be spinning between sets.  On Saturday, we have well-respected instructors who have taught and performed at Congresses all over the world.  We met Manuel Dos Santos at the NJISC 2010 and secured him to teach at BSF 2011 immediately.  We also contracted with Jesse Yip with Signatura as he received the highest accolades at BSF 2010.  DJ Dany J is traveling 3 hours to spin for us at the Saturday night part held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Timonium.  The band contract for Saturday is under review.  Stay tuned. Read more on the Baltimore Salsa Fest official website.

Instructors are plentiful in the Baltimore area, many with backgrounds in both ballroom and club dancing.  However, there are quite a few students turned teachers in recent years.  I highly recommend that you meet with different instructors before dedicating your time and money to any one of them.  The  most important decision you make is who becomes your mentor.  Choose wisely.  Anyone trained to teach Salsa, Cha-Cha, or Bachata is encouraged to send a bio to sue at baltimoresalsablog.com for inclusion. If you need help finding an instructor for your private or corporate event and prefer not to spend hours doing the research, contact me and I'd be very happy to assist for a nominal fee.  Otherwise, check the Instructor page on this website. Review bios and contact them directly.

Clubs consist of studios, night clubs, restaurants, and other venues that welcome salsa dancers.

Weekly Updates is the most current information which guides you to the hottest spots to dance each week.

J-Events is a calendar program listing all upcoming "one-time" significant events in the Baltimore and surrounding areas.

Website Design is not exactly what Sue studied in college or performs at her 9 to 5 job.  However, she has always been fascinated by the immediate gratification of seeing her work in lights or in this case, text.  She is building this website using Joomla - an open source content management system.  One of her very best friends, Ro is helping her with this task.  He's an awesome website designer creating masterpieces for many members of the dance community. If you are ever at a major Salsa event, Ro will be there with a camera taking hundreds of photos. If you need a web designer, I can put you in contact with him.  If you are headed to the BlogWorld Expo this year, please introduce yourself.

Google Voice is one of my favorite tools.  I added this feature to my website on 8/29/10, but I've been using it since January 2010.  It took me about 2 hours to get it up and running on this site due to my minimal knowledge of Joomla. Since I work full-time, I ask that you call me between the hours of 6pm and 9pm.  If I am not available to answer your call, speak slowly when leaving a voice mail.  The Google Voice feature will actually transcribe your message and send it to me via SMS text and email.