Co-founder and co-director of DC Casineros, Adrian has been dancing and performing Son, Casino, and other popular Cuban dances for 10 years. He has also been teaching classes infused with Afro-Cuban dance for the past four years. He won first place in the couple’s competition in Miami Rueda congress of 2009. Adrian has traveled nationally and internationally to participate and to teach in the major Rueda de Casino and Afro-Cuban dance conferences. Along with DC Casineros, he has performed and taught locally, nationally, and internationally at prestigious and popular venues, conferences, and congresses including: the Kennedy Center, Smithsonian, DC Salsa Congress, San Francisco, New York, Miami and Atlanta Rueda Congresses, and the Nicaragua Salsa Congress.

MTV 3 Latino recently featured Adrian and his partner and Director Amanda Gill to talk about Casino as a Cuban Popular dance in the DC area.

Adrian and DC Casineros also brought the critically acclaimed All Stars Dance Company from Santiago de Cuba, and collaborated on a 1 and a half hour production in DC.

Born in Venezuela, Adrian grew up in a family of dancers and musicians, which heavily influenced his love for the arts. Adrian currently trains under the guidance of Afro-Cuban dance Masters Duane Wrenn, Kati Hernandez, Yudisleidy Valdes, Jorge Luna Roque, Yoel Marrero, Oscar Rousseaux and Aramis Pazos. He teaches Son, Casino and Rueda de Casino, rumba at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. His casino style emphasizes the power and intricacies of Son, Rumba, and at times Orisha dances.

Founder and President of DC Casineros, Amanda has been choreographing, teaching, and performing Casino infused with Afro-Cuban dance for the past seven years. Her experiences of sensuality, vitality, and community health in Rueda de Casino led her to study its connections to dance/movement therapy in graduate school.

Born in northern VA, she trained professionally in Ballet and Modern dance as a young adult; this versatile foundation of Ballet and African dance has led her to perform with companies like Ashe Moyubba, George Mason University Dance Company, Carla & Company. While studying modern and folkloric dance in 2004 at el Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana, she
also danced Rueda de Casino daily with a neighborhood team, and performed on the TV program Para Bailar. Not only is Amanda an aficionada for Cuban dance, but an admirer of Cuba’s free dance education and expansive dance therapy movement.

Her casino style highlights the body isolations and dynamism of son and rumba, subtleties of orisha dances, and lyrical free styling of modern dance. After completing her MA in Dance/Movement Therapy at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA she worked as a family therapist in Boston and taught Rueda de Casino at the Masacote School. In 2012 she returned to DC to offer Rueda dance therapy programs and to co-direct and perform with DC Casineros.