Students take part in the salsa workshop at the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 24: A weeklong salsa workshop being held at Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, (XIMB) is not only helping the participating students learn some scintillating moves, but is also proving to be a welcome break from the students’ hectic schedules.

Dance group Anu’s Dance Freak is imparting lessons in the Latin American dance form. About 14 trainers are teaching the 40-odd student couples who enrolled for the workshop.

Anupam Nayak, head of the dance group, said: “Though the workshop was envisioned as a stress buster for students, I was surprised to see the students learning the dance form with utmost sincerity. They picked up the steps pretty fast.”

“Salsa requires a lot of brisk foot and hand movements, stretching, balance and synchronisation. It can teach students team work,” he said.

Hailing from Puri and trained in New Delhi, Nayak has been imparting lessons in international dance forms for nine years now.

In the two-hour dance sessions in the evening, the students are taught to perfect the steps such as “cross body lead”, “open break”, “copa style” and “valentino”. To lighten up the mood, each day’s sessions conclude with Bollywood dance steps.

The management students, who hardly get time for physical activities, said they wanted such fun activities be organised more often.

“We have continuous meetings and classes. Such activities should take place more often. Seniors and juniors from various branches have come together to learn the art with equal enthusiasm. It also acts as an ice-breaking session where one can make a lot of new friends,” said Pradeep Sethia, a business management student who has teamed up with Snehal Hora from the human resource branch.