Casino is what salsa dancing has been called in Cuba, referring to the place where you go to dance. Casino is also the title of this piece.
In Casino, Swedish-Chilean Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Nina Sandino from Nicaragua and Jao Moon from Colombia, move on a fictional dance floor set in a Latin American club for couples dancing. Each dancer brings with them their own relationship to salsa, letting it reverberate in their body through a repertoire of historical and personal memories.
By the engagement of the dancers and the sounds of their steps, the music is present in its absence. In a subtle, restrained, detailed and playful way, the three dancers connect, and fail to connect, simultaneously.
Casino trailer
Contextualizing salsa in Sweden
A big Latino boom took place internationally in the 90’s and 00’s, and we could see artists like Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony. Of course there have been Latino booms and explosions before and after that too. “Latino” is, as we know, also not a genre, Latin America includes Chile in the south to Mexico in the north. However, during the 90’s and 00’s Latin explosion in Sweden, salsa became very popular. Everyone was dancing salsa, and among them the Latin American diaspora.
Chilenos have never really had salsa as a national dance. Instead, it was very big in Cuba, Colombia and the Caribbean. There, every dinner ends with salsa dancing, and every birthday celebration is a dance. In Chile, the social dance has been cumbia, or the folk dance cueca. Nevertheless, salsa gatherings among chilenos became huge in Sweden. The phenomenon grew in Sweden due to its big number of chilenos living here post Pinochet’s dictatorship in the 70-90’s. For the exiled chilenos, salsa became a way to connect to the Latin American background. It became a subculture by the diaspora. And to be latino you needed to know how to dance salsa, a cliché that still haunts us in this piece.
Choreographer's statement
“In my family it was only my uncle Rafael who danced. He even had his own salsa club at the opera restaurant in Malmö in the 90’s. But as salseros mostly drink water from the bar, they had to close, despite the well visited evenings.
When I first traveled to Chile as a grown up I met the blossoming reggaeton scene, and the feminist subgenre neo-perreo. For some years reggaeton was my connection to Latin America and my own heritage, until I stumbled upon salsa. The salsa music has always been part of what’s been played at home, but the dance had been hidden for me. Now salsa is all on my mind. And my newfound way of connecting to a Latin American diaspora, to be Chilean in Sweden, and to be a second generation immigrant.“
– Ofelia Jarl Ortega
Upcoming/presentations of Casino
Casino Mula Festival, Porto, 20 March, 2026
Casino TBA May, 2026
Tanzquartier, Vienna 13-15 November 2025
London Performance Studios, 24-25 October 2025
BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen, 5-6 September 2025
Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, 4-5 April 2025
MDT, Stockholm 27 Feb -2 March 2025
Dansplats Skog, Stråtjära, Sweden, 23 November 2024
Credits
Choreography Ofelia Jarl Ortega in close collaboration with the performers
Performers Jao Moon, Nina Sandino, caterina daniela mora jara, Ofelia Jarl Ortega
Lighting design Johan Sundén
Dramaturge Andrea Rodrigo and Quim Bigas
Costume Erik Annerborn
Producer Terry Johnson (Johnson & Bergsmark)
Photo Milja Rossi, LocknLens
Co-production Dansehallerne (Copenhagen), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), MDT (Stockholm) Residency support höjden studios, Stockholm, Dansplats Skog, Stråtjära
With support from The Swedish Art Grants Committee, The Swedish Arts Council and Stockholms Stad