Cuban Soul

Welcome to

Cuban Soul

We are Stephen and Nikoletta. Between us we have more than thirty years in Latin dance, a fourth place at the Rueda World Championships, and one shared conviction: that anyone can be a great social dancer, and good teaching is what makes it easy to learn.

Nikoletta and Stephen dancing in front of a Cuban flag
  • 30+Combined years teaching
  • 1000sStudents taught to dance
  • 4thRueda World Championships, Denmark 2015
  • 2Male and female instructors available
Nikoletta in performance costume

Co-owner · Instructor

Nikoletta

A professional dancer and performer with more than 15 years in Latin dance, teaching Cuban salsa, Rueda de Casino and authentic Dominican bachata.

Nikoletta has had a lifelong passion for movement and rhythm. She was a professional athlete in Hungary, competing as a member of the National Springboard Diving team, and came to Latin dance through ballroom before falling in love with the sabor and flavour of Cuban salsa.

She has taught for several leading Sydney dance schools including Latin Spirit, Tropical Soul and Buena Vista Dance, and taught and performed for many years at the Sydney Cuban Salsa Congress and the Byron Bay Latin Festival. She has performed as a professional dancer at venues including La Bodeguita del Medio.

Her career highlight came in 2015, competing in the Rueda World Championships in Denmark with the Australian team and placing 4th in the world. She combines the technical precision of an elite athlete with a passion for Cuban music and a Hungarian temperament.

Book a lesson with Nikoletta

Stephen dancing

Co-owner · Instructor

Stephen

A professional dancer with more than 15 years in Latin dance, teaching Cuban salsa, Rueda de Casino and authentic Dominican bachata.

Australian born, Stephen has travelled to both Cuba and the Dominican Republic multiple times to learn authentic salsa and bachata directly from top masters in each country. He spent many years teaching salsa and bachata for Buena Vista Dance in Sydney.

He has performed and competed at national and international level: twice first place in the Australian Bachata Championship as an amateur, second place in the Open Latin Solo, and in 2013 a member of the professional rueda team that won first place in the Australian Rueda de Casino Championship. In 2015 he competed in the Rueda World Championships in Denmark as part of the Australian team, placing 4th in the world.

His teaching emphasis is practical social dance ability: partner communication, musical connection, and helping students feel comfortable dancing outside the classroom.

Book a lesson with Stephen

Why Cuban, and why like this

Where we learned it

Nikoletta still says the first thing that hooked her was the sabor, the flavour in the music, and that she heard it before she could dance to it. She came to Cuban salsa from ballroom, and before that from a Hungarian national springboard diving team, which is a stranger route into a Havana dance than most. What she brought with her from all of that is an ear. The reason our classes spend time on the music rather than only on the steps is hers.

Stephen learned rueda from El Moro, at El Moro’s school, Buena Vista Dance in Sydney, where he went on to teach for many years. One of the calls we still teach was made in that room, and the calls page explains how it got its name.

The two of us went to Denmark with the Australian team in 2015 and placed 4th in the world in the Rueda World Championships. Competition is not what a Monday night is for, but it is why the rueda we teach on Mondays is the real thing rather than a simplified version of it.

In their words

What our students say