Monica O.
Yelp
'OMG girl, run! I'm afraid he's going to injure you!'
This was an explicit warning I received from fellow (and skilled) salsera Dej M. during one of MACC's Pura Salsa meetups. Some background information:
The gracious Marion and Jason hold these dance socials the first Thursday night in the facility's auditorium. Counterintuitively, they get started early with a 6-7p beginner lesson and continue to blast the salsa jams until about 10p. Start early, end early, for the sake of the 8am weekday workforce. Thank you a thousand times for this, Marion.
There are usually some very skilled partners at these dances, and one lead was able to safely lift my salsera friend and I (off the ground, though not simultaneously) without breaking a sweat, despite our misgivings. He had adequate upper body strength for that feat, fortunately. These meetups are worthy of more dancers than the typical 12-15 couples who are lucky enough to spread out on the auditorium's HUGE wooden floor, so bring on more people, Party People.
Other events hosted by MACC have been a Day of the Dead community celebration, complete with a paint-your-own-sugar-skull crafts area, live latin band, theater dance performance, wacky altars for loved ones gone, and of course a giant paper mâché skull. They currently host flamenco, yoga, power spanish (feel the power!) and martial arts classes as well.
I'm a fan.