Trinity has a good assortment of student dance groups on campus, ranging from Swing Bums to the hip-hop dance of Loon-E Crew, but two students felt there was something missing.

Enter junior Christian Tovar-Vargas and first year Anthony “Scuba Steve” Sanchez. The two students recently co-founded Trinity’s very own Latin Dance Society, and the club is now official with Campus and Community Involvement.

“Throughout last semester, we kept hearing students point out that there’s swing dancing and hip-hop dancing here at Trinity, but there’s no Latin dance. The idea has been thrown around, so it just needed the people to make it happen,” said Sanchez, vice president for the Latin Dance Society.

Tovar-Vargas, the president of the Latin Dance Society, has now taken all of the dance courses offered by Trinity’s physical education department. He wants to share his passion for dance with other students and give them a fun weekend night option on campus.

“I really thought it would be awesome if we had a place on campus where people could come learn dance and not get charged. We really want to teach people a new style of dance,” Tovar-Vargas said. “We want to teach as many people as we can, give them a venue to practice in and help them embrace the culture.”

Although the new organization is still finalizing its schedule for the semester, Tovar-Vargas tells students what they can expect from the dance club.

“We plan to have a weekly lesson and social dance every Friday night for two to three hours, and then we also plan to have a major social event every month that’s themed after a particular style of Latin dance,” Tovar-Vargas said.

Sanchez explained how the teaching portion of the Friday dances are valuable.

“The reason why we set up our events this way is because we can teach whoever comes, and then they apply it. It’s not one of those things where you learn it then never use it again,” Sanchez said.

Junior Kelly Seeber heard about the Latin Dance Society because she is friends with Tovar-Vargas. Tovar-Vargas knew she enjoyed dancing, so he kept her updated on the development of the club.

“I’m incredibly excited to learn about new types of dancing,” Seeber said. “I am already a member of the Swing Bums, and the chance to learn more dancing excites me a lot.”

Tovar-Vargas and Sanchez are aware that Swing Bums also hosts dance lessons on Fridays, so they purposely set the time for Latin Dance Society later in the night. They hope to collaborate with Swing Bums for future events that blend the two genres.

“We pick our times on Friday so that it’s after Swing Bums. We don’t want to interfere with any other dance groups on campus,” Sanchez said. “We want to be highly supportive of everybody, and we hope to work together with groups like the Swing Bums to organize even bigger dance sessions for the Trinity community.”

The Latin Dance Society will have a kick-off dance starting at 8 p.m. tonight in Lightner Tea Room. The first 30 minutes to an hour will be dedicated to teaching merengue. A social dance will follow the teaching session and will last roughly until 11 p.m.