This article explores the world of the “on2” salsa dance scene in New York today. Building on long-term participant observation and interviews, I argue that Latinx salsa dancers contest and reconfigure the racialized commodification of salsa dance as a marketable product. They do this by foregrounding Nuyorican and Afro-Caribbean cultural identity and by strategically claiming grassroots urbanity in the hyper-gentrified city. In doing so, dancers step into a nuanced but counter-hegemonic role in power struggles around the right to urban space. In this way, the salsa scene retains its social and political role as a space for Latinx cultural affirmation, community-building, and resistance to cultural erasure in the neoliberal city. The study of salsa dance in late neoliberal New York deepens our understanding of how Latinx creative communities interact with the environment—shaping and being shaped by the changing city while negotiating cultural meaning through on2 salsa as both practice and product.

本文探讨了当今纽约“ on2”莎莎舞现场的世界。基于长期的参与者观察和访谈，我认为拉丁裔萨尔萨舞者将萨尔萨舞的种族商品化竞争并重新配置为可销售的产品。为此，他们着眼于Nuyorican和非洲加勒比海地区的文化认同，并通过战略性地宣称在这个高档化城市中的基层城市化。通过这样做，舞者在围绕城市空间权的权力斗争中扮演了细微但反霸权的角色。通过这种方式，莎莎舞场面保留了其社会和政治作用，成为了新自由主义城市中拉丁文文化主张，社区建设以及抵抗文化擦除的空间。