SalsaNor organized its first Rueda event in 2002. During the years it has grown to be one of the main international events dedicated to Rueda de Casino. We experience that people keep coming back to the event, year after year, and we feel quite sure that one of the keys to this success is our concern for gender balance.

You may ask if it’s really necessary to stick to our routines of having different categories of passes in order to get it right. And yes, we are convinced that it is. Because in this way, we reduce the risk of you ending up without a dance partner, or participating in a workshop with twice as many ladies as men, having to wait a lot, not being able to practice the new figures being taught, and getting disappointed and frustrated. By controlling the sign-up the way we do, we belive that we improve the overall experience each and every participant has during the event.

The next issue we would like to comment on, is the separation of male and female lead as two different categories. Why do we do that, when they both have the same role in Rueda de casino?

The answer is simple: This has to do with the quality of the parties. Our clear experience during the years is that there are more rueda-dancing ladies than men in general, and they are signing up for the event much earlier than the men do. Which means that we can easily fill up the entire congress with only female dancers. For the workshops alone this would not be a problem. But for the parties, having 95% ladies (counting the male instructors and perhaps a few local men turning up for the party) would most probably have a negative effect on the energy in the party, both for the ladies and for the few men. We experience that most females who lead in the rueda doesn’t always like to lead in regular salsa. It would most probably also be quite frustrating for the few men present.

There have been many different opinions about this during the years, from participants and also within our organization. But the vast majority of our participants are very grateful for the way we prepare the event, trying to even out the gender balance as best we can to make sure that not only the classes, but also the parties, are the best they can be. And we can tell you already, that for 2022 it is looking very good!