Rebecca Connaughton with her 2024 NZ Latin Dance Industry Award at the New Zealand Salsa Congress.
It doesn’t take much sleuthing to work out how Rebecca Connaughton spends much of her off-campus time – just watch her hands.
When she’s conversing with colleagues about academic matters in the Otago Business School, the Connaughton fingers are off on their own expressive mission, betraying their secret preference for salsa dancing over keyboard tapping.
By day, Rebecca works as the Commerce Division’s Specialist, Academic Committees and Services. As a mostly desk-tethered role, it perfectly counterbalances all the shoulder shimmying and fluid footwork that accompanies her other life as an award-winning salsa performer, teacher, choreographer and judge.
In June, Rebecca received the 2024 New Zealand Latin Dance Industry Award in recognition of her service to the life of the dance community and efforts to nurture an inclusive salsa scene. The thing that thrilled her most about this, was the fact that she was nominated by her own teaching team at Vuelta Dance – a school she established in 2012.
Rebecca first fell for salsa in 2001 while teaching English in Tokyo. Her flatmate took her to a salsa club one night, and it was there that she was immediately snagged by the uplift of the music and graceful dance movements of the Cuban instructors. In fact, she may well be one of the world’s fastest salsa converts.
“Within three seconds I thought, ‘I’ve got to learn this.’”
When she returned to New Zealand from Tokyo in 2003, Dunedin was a Latin dance desert. With only two years of social salsa under her belt, Rebecca didn’t feel especially ready to kickstart the local teaching scene – but bravely fill that void she did.
Her DIY efforts were rewarded. She went on to dance competitively, earning numerous national and international awards with her Vuelta Dance team. She’s also taught and mentored many well-known salseros, choreographed award-winning routines, and judged at competitions here and in Australia.
But ask Rebecca what her biggest salsa career highlight is, and she’ll not mention any of these shiny medals or successes.
“For me, it’s all about the connections. I love the community of people I meet and get to know.”
She loves converting people to dance. The Vuelta team’s motto is ‘every body is a dancing body’, and they work hard to promote salsa’s great intergenerational appeal, with students ranging from zoomer to boomer.
“There are very few dance genres that allow that. We don’t have a particular image or style – it’s a welcoming and supportive environment. We also try to crush some of the gender stereotypes. Instead of referring to males and females as leads and followers we use gender-neutral terminology, because some people like to lead, and others follow.
“We live in a cultural context where a lot of people are frightened by dance. I just want everyone to know how joyful it is.”
She and her team don’t get paid to spread that joy.
“Unlike many other schools, Vuelta Dance is a not-for-profit, so any money our students pay us goes back into the team to pay for studio rent or to subsidise accommodation or costumes if we’re traveling to competitions.”
Twenty years on from that first Tokyo salsa swoon and she’s quite the evangelist.
“Salsa music changes my mood – more than any other music. It just has so much energy. Dance makes me happy. Besides, if you choose to compete or perform you get to wear inappropriate sparkly costumes. Where else do you get to wear sequins and feathers?”
The physical and mental health benefits of dance are well known.
“It increases people’s confidence in general – the way they hold themselves, the way they move. There’s a lot of research that speaks to dance being incredibly important for retention of cognitive abilities. Those neural connections you use in dance can help your brain health.”
Does she think this sort of neural oomph would benefit other University staff?
“Absolutely. Lunchtime salsa lessons should be a thing. Maybe it could be part of the Business School’s health and wellbeing plan: a 30-minute salsa lesson in the atrium one day a week.”
Watch that space. Should you spy a salsa flash mob situation unfolding within the confines of the Otago Business School, Rebecca says, “You know what you need to do.”
Feathers and sequins optional.
– Kōrero by Communications Adviser (Otago Business School) Claire Finlayson