We are a Maple Grove, MN Dance Company (previously located in Charlotte, NC, Bavaro, Dominican Republic and Stuart FL) featuring the most sophisticated Salsa and Bachata Syllabus' in the world...
The World Mastery curriculum!! Latin Dance Instructor / Latin Dance Company / Professional Dancer / Choreographer, World Team Project Trainer
Cassandra de Mercedes (formerly Parrish) is the owner and Art
istic Director of Baila con Pasión, a Latin dance company based in Maple Grove, MN, previously in Charlotte, NC, Bavaro Dominican Republic, and Stuart, FL and is the artistic director of Salsa con Pasión™ and Bachata con Pasión™, her student performing teams. She is extremely proud to be one of the few Black Belt Salsa™ schools in the entire world and is part of the development team for Black Belt Bachata™! Cassandra began dancing professionally at the age of 13 and has spent nearly 3 decades in the entertainment industry working as both a professional dancer and a professional singer. She is classically trained in ballet, ballroom and Latin dance but upon discovering her love and passion for Latin dance specifically Salsa, Bachata, Bachatango and Cha-Cha, they became her sole career focus. Cassandra has taught thousands of students from Minneapolis, MN to Washington DC to Charlotte, NC to the Dominican Republic and back again and everywhere in between and has been a featured instructor at the largest and most prestigious Bachata Congress in the world, The Washington DC Bachata Congress. She is currently booked to teach at Salsa and Bachata Congresses all over the world and she and her partner were one of few select couples from all over South, Central and North Americas that were invited to compete in the Americas Bachata Masters competition for an opportunity to represent the USA at the finals in Spain in February of 2013. An accomplished dancer, performer and choreographer, Cassandra brings a rare joy and insatiable passion to the dance floor along with her own elegant and graceful style of Salsa and Bachata. As an instructor, Cassandra has a very strong technical emphasis in her teaching, which ensures that her students become extremely well rounded dancers. Her passion for life in general along with her passion for Salsa and Bachata is truly contagious! She continues her own training with regular private instruction from World Champion salsa coaches Anita Santos Rubin, Ezgi Zaman, Abel Pena and Zulmara Torres, Cristian Oviedo, Liz Lira and Edie the Salsa Freak and Sonia Rivera.
