With Candela: Latin Dance Club having celebrated its first anniversary since its establishment in January 2023, it is now looking forward to further growth and improvement within the organization, now and in the near future. Candela: Latin Dance Club hopes to establish a lasting legacy within the Binghamton community, as well as a sense of community and inclusivity among its members to further spread its philosophy and message that anyone can dance.

Pipe Dream interviewed Joskarly Fermin Rodriguez, co-public relations chair of Candela: Latin Dance Club and a senior majoring in Italian, to gain understanding of Candela: Latin Dance Club and the aspects that make up the organization.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Tell me a bit about Candela: Latin Dance Club. What aspects make up the club?

A: Candela is a Latin dance club that is recreationally based. We strive to share our Latin culture through dance across all types of races, ethnicities and cultures, and we are inclusive for all levels of dance — beginners, intermediates, pros — it does not matter. We want to create a welcoming, supportive and inclusive environment for everyone to come to and to share in the joys that dancing can bring.

Q: Candela: Latin Dance Club was established last year around the beginning of 2023. What inspired the creation and establishment of Candela: Latin Dance Club?

A: Our main founders had a history of performing, and they felt that they still wanted to be a part of the dance community but at a smaller scale, in a way that was a lot less competitive and so Candela was born. We have a lot of people who come to the meetings who feel disconnected from their culture, and they want to be integrated back into it, so we offer that friendly and welcoming atmosphere that makes them want to return.

Q: How does Candela: Latin Dance Club get involved with the rest of the multicultural community on campus?

A: How do we not get involved is the answer, honestly. We are everywhere all at once. We do a lot of collaborations with other organizations, such as Latin American Student Union (LASU), Quimbamba Latin Dance Team and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). We aim to be friendly with all organizations on campus, and so we don’t hold back. Our point is that we are open to any collaborations. If our E-Board feels like it is something we should do and try, we do it.

Q: How does Candela: Latin Dance Club help build a strong community within the organization? How do you get students to become more involved with your organization?

A: Honestly, our organization builds community through word of mouth. We strongly suggest and encourage people to come to our workshops and join Candela. We have our weekly intern practices, in which the E-Board teaches that week’s choreography. When we have workshops, and [when] we have people pop in and check out what we are doing, I encourage them to join.

We post a lot on our Instagram stories, and we just do outreach whenever we can. We build a strong sense of community within the organization by staying consistent.

Q: What goals, short and long-term, does Candela: Latin Dance Club have for the rest of the semester?

A: Outreach has always been our biggest goal. We try to get our name out there and get as many people as we possibly can to come to our dance workshops. We want to pave a long-standing relationship and build a strong legacy with the Binghamton student community for years to come, and to have our overall philosophy of having a safe and fun environment to dance to be understood by the community and have it last. For now, we are focusing on broadening our horizons when it comes to the dances we do. Instead of just doing cumbia and bachata at our workshops, we would like to begin to incorporate flamenco and tango for people to try.

Q: I see that you are the co-public relations chair of Candela: Latin Dance Club. Can you explain what your role is and what motivated you to join Candela in the first place? What have you learned from your role?

A: I have been a part of Candela since 2023, from the moment it was founded. As a transfer student, it was hard to make friends when I arrived, and having something that connected me to a community on campus helped me flourish. Having the support of my co-public relations chair definitely makes it easier to manage the job, as the connection we have allows us to be more creative with our ideas and how we do outreach. Now that we are an established organization on campus, I am just amazed and proud of all the hard work that our E-Board has put in the last year to get us to where we are now. Within one year, we figured out a system for how we do things that work for all of us, and it feels like we now have an established community. Students should definitely keep an eye out for us because we have a lot of exciting things planned.