Virginia Cruz 

Virginia comes from a family of dancers and has danced at family parties since a very young age . In 1992 she began to give free lessons every Sunday for two hours at Foxes Nightclub, a very well known nightclub in Jersey City. She enjoyed teaching others the art of dancing so much that she decided to take lessons herself to perfect her skills and become a professional dancer. Virginia went to an accomplished latin dancer by the name of Luis Zegarra, two months after starting lessons with Luis, she began to perform with Luis' group of professional dancers and helping at the school with the new students. She worked and performed dance shows with Luis for two years.  

After leaving Luis Zegarra's dance group, for a brief period Virginia went on to take lessons from one of the accomplished masters of latin dance, Eddie Torres, better known as the "Mambo King". However, Virginia felt it was time to move on and went on her own. She went back to Foxes Nightclub and began to give lessons again . In 1995 she got herself into choreographing and at the request of her students, she started Latin Rhythm Dance Studio.  

Virginia has performed shows at Broadway 2, Side Street, Latin Quarters, The Festival of 116 Street in New York, The Puerto Rican Day Parade in Newark, and Jersey City, Fiesta Patronal of Newark and Hudson County and New Jersey performance and Arts Center just to name a few. Needless to say, she LOVES dancing. 
 

Javier Almeida 

Coming from a family of 3 brothers and 3 sisters who all enjoyed dancing in one form or another, whether it was the hustle, cumbia, merengue or salsa, dancing has always been a form of entertainment and a hobby for Javier. In 1980, Javier joined the U.S. Air Force where he proudly served for nearly 10 years. But dancing has always been his love and stayed within him throughout his tour of service.  
Upon his return home from his tour of service, he found that salsa had evolved into something different, it was more structured and organized. Driven by the desire to learn how to properly dance this new version of salsa, Javier join a club in his neighborhood that offered salsa dancing lessons under the direction of Luis Zegarra and was introduced to salsa/mambo. 

After taking a few lessons with various instructors, and further investigation, Javier discovered that most of the real good dancers where taking lessons from the renouned "Mambo King" Eddie Torres. He enrolled into one of Eddie Torres' class and is still learning from the master going now on 5 years.  
Inspired by Eddie, Javier has incorporated Eddies' style and methods of teaching into his own to bring together this beautiful and sensual style of dancing to the general public. Javier says "I want to share and pass on this style of dancing to you so that you can enjoy yourself and expand your horizons."  

Minelba (Sweety) Detres 

Minelba Detres, who is affectionally known by her family and friends as "Sweety", has been dancing for as long as she can remember. As Sweety started to get older (and I'm not saying she's old) and was able to go to nite clubs with her friends, she realized that her friend's dancing skills were much more advanced than hers. . Sweety said "I was holding up the walls while my friends were out on the dance floor enjoying themselves"  

Feeling inferior to her friends dancing skills, Sweety started taking lessons to polish the skillS that she had developed while growing up dancing with family and friends. She promptly started taking lessons with Robert and David at Foxes and on January of 1997, she enrolled in one of Eddie Torres' dancing classes, where she met Javier Almeida. Under the strict direction of Eddie and the guidence of Javier, sweety quickly mastered the art of salsa/mambo and stopped holding up walls.   

In October of 1997, Sweety and Javier while continuing to take lessons with Eddie, co-founded their own dancing school calling it "Salsa Sensation". The school remained open until March of 1997 when they teamed up with Virginia to form an unbeatable tandem of salsa instructors. Sweety has performed shows at El Escondite, Flamboyan and Foxes. 

Tito Perez

And the Beat goes on. Latin Rhythm Dance Studio is proud to present the newest member to the already gifted staff of professional dancers.. This young man comes to us by way of Virginia Cruz. Tito is Virginia's oldest son and has been dancing since... Well, let me quote him "I began dancing when I was born. I came out of my mother's stomach, landed on my feet and began dancing right there on the hospitol floor". 

Tito actually started taking classes at the same time his mom, Virginia , did. However being young and vibrant, he decided to drop out to spend more time concentrating on sports, friends and (what else?) girls. In late 1997, a friend of his asked him to perform in a sweet 16 with a group of teenagers. Virginia was asked to choreograph the dance for the 7 couples. While practicing for the sweet 16 dance, Tito started helping with the choreographing by making suggestions. and hasn't stopped making suggestions since. 

Tito went back to taking lessons in 1997 and being around an accomplished dancer, he practiced often with her to develop his skills. In 1998, he became part of the teaching staff and is now a favorite at the studio.  

Home  About Us   Location  Prices   Gallery  Latin Nite

Our shopping center is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, filled with online consumer information and stores with all types of merchandise. Even if your not interested in buying, take a browse through the mall and check it out. Email me with any suggestions.