Combining Cultures Dance Co. brings the heat with salsa

And Lisa, we've got some sunshine in the studio with us. We do. Oh, there's no better way to celebrate diverse cultures than through dance. And that's what our next guests are all about. They just had a performance at the Milwaukee Public Museum for Hispanic Heritage Month just last week. It was fabulous. Now, the Combining Cultures Dance Company, they are here with us in the studio. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having us. Okay, so I'll let you guys introduce yourselves quickly. Okay, I'm Audrey, a captain of Combining Cultures. My name is Mikayla, and I'm a senior female lead. My name is Annalia, and I'm senior captain. I'm senior and I'm a teacher at Lake Geneva Badger High School. Okay, I want to know all about this club, I mean, this dance company here. You guys, obviously, you practice, you work really hard together. What's the vibe here amongst the group? How do you guys come together to make this happen? We do practices every single day, Monday through Thursday. We have Friday off for two and a half hours after school. We're kind of just like a big family, though, so time flies. Really? Now, this is a lot of practice, which honestly makes it great, I think, because you're still staying active after school. When it comes to the dance moves and how you do your choreography, is that something that you do, or do you let them all take part in how they want to add to the style of this? I give them a small snippet. Small. Okay. It's still a small part, though. Yes, it's small. Yeah, and then I just kind of choreograph whatever the music tells me to do and then teach these guys, and then we're able to do it. Okay, we've got to know who you're repping. And tell us what high school you're from. Come on. Badger High School. All right. Okay. When we talk about combining cultures, what kind of cultures are you guys combining? And has it been fun for you all to learn different cultures? It's been really fun. We get to learn a lot of different kinds of dance. A lot of it's from, like, Cuba and stuff. And it's just so much fun to be able to dance all these different moves that so many people have learned before. Now, what would you say is the hardest part when it comes to dancing? Because I've seen you practice earlier. You're all looking like professionals, but we know it doesn't come easy, right? Your hard work really pays off. What is the most challenging part? I think timing, so we all hit the same thing at the same time. Okay, that makes sense. The little nitpick details are definitely a big thing, but that's why we practice so much is to hit all those perfect. Are you guys tough as captains? They have to be. That's what keeps the team running. What is it like for you to make sure that you're immersing your students in these cultures? Well, the administration, first of all, they support everything that we do at Badger. And so I've had the opportunity to go and do this. This is our 24th year. Oh, wow. That's incredible. So shout out to all the former dancers. But I don't know. It's just I'm given an opportunity, you know, on top of being a Spanish teacher, just to go and extend it one step further with the culture. It's not just about the language. It's about all the other things. Yeah. Okay. I wanted you guys to give us a quick little one, two, because they're going to perform for us in just a few seconds. But if those are watching at home, maybe they want to enter into salsa. What are maybe a few little steps they could do? Simple steps. Yes. Adding that, too. These girls are going to take you through the most important move in salsa dancing, and that is basic steps. So I have the girls step forward a little bit. All right. And the counting, we're going to step forward. Girls, you want to go and teach us, actually. Take it over. So you're going to step forward with your right foot on one. And then you're going to step forward with your left on two. Back with your right on three. Then four is just not there. Just pretend it's not there. Okay, it's not there. And then back with your left on five. Back with your right on six. And forward with your left on seven. And then eight. I don't think we did that well, but it doesn't matter because I'm going to see you guys do it. We're going to step out of the way and let you guys perform.