This semester, Unidos Bailamos is the newest addition to many cultural and activity-based clubs at Seton Hall.
The club was founded by Diamond Vasquez, a sophomore accounting major who has dancing experience in hip hop, ballet, tap and ballroom dancing. Vasquez explained what piqued her interest in creating this club and her plans for the organization.
“I know that there are a lot of dance teams and clubs already on campus, but there wasn’t a Latin dance club,” she said.
Diamond also said that this is a dance club as opposed to a dance team, meaning it is inclusive to all levels of dancers.
“I just hope that students will get out of their element and experience Latin dancing and culture,” Vasquez said. “I also want it to be more of a social club as well; that way, students can interact with each other and get to meet new people.”
Vasquez said Unidos Bailamos is a dance club as opposed to a dance team so that it is inclusive to all levels of dancers.
Unidos Bailamos held its first meeting on Jan. 30, which served as an informational session for students to come in and learn more about the club.
Caitlyn Ortega, a freshman biochemistry major, was one of the students at the meeting. She shared about what sparked her interest in the club.
“I think the whole salsa aspect caught my eye since I’m Mexican, and just the level of familiarity and being around other people that can share in the culture,” Ortega said. “Also, there’s dancing, and who doesn’t like dancing?”
Isabella Mayorquin, a freshman economics major, discovered the club during the spring involvement fair.
“I was at the involvement fair and I heard Spanish music, and I was like ‘what?’ I came to the table, and I asked if they were here last semester, which they answered no,” Mayorquin said. “I think another part of what drew me in is the fact that we are going to be learning new dances.”
Both Ortega and Mayorquin have experience with dance classes where they learned styles such as jazz and hip hop. They also had experience with Latin dancing through their families.
Unidos Bailamos already has an established executive board as well. Juliette Linares, a sophomore speech language pathology major and secretary of the club, explained her reasoning for joining the club.
“What interested me was the opportunity to bring people together through dance,” Linares said. “These Latin styles are not as prominent in other dance teams at the school, so having the chance to have a dance club where everyone can get together sounded really cool to me.”
Jiaqi Liu, a freshman public relations and communications major, said that the new organization will help improve the cultural diversity on campus.
Liu said, “I used to do Latino dance in high school, so I think there not being a Latino Dance club here at SHU just seemed like it went against the concept that we should all be inclusive. Not having a Latino Dance Club shows a lack of diversity and inclusion of every nationality and culture, so we just wanted to change that.”
Alexander Krukar can be reached at alexander.krukar@student.shu. edu.
