Back when NYC was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic the dance community continued to gather to dance, mostly self-organizing through group pages on social media, practicing unsafe behaviors. That immediately took me back to the AIDS crisis in 1991. I saw many similarities between the COVID-19 pandemic and the AIDS epidemic regarding the abandonment of minority communities. The AIDS crisis relied on activists such as Larry Kramer from Act Up, to speak out against inaction. The dance community has had nobody, not even to identify the need and urgency. Since the pandemic first broke, the social dance community is stuck between business-oriented promoters and politics. The fact is that social dancers will continue to dance. This practice goes beyond a lifestyle. It’s their cultural identity. Therefore enforcing the community to stop dancing during the pandemic is the same as asking people to stop having sex during the AIDS epidemic. The strategy must be to provide a structured safe environment for the dance community to exercise their cultural identity.  When the City Council passed a legislation that allows for artists to apply for permits to perform outdoors in open spaces, I saw an opportunity to take action and help rebuild my dance community from the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic hit, NYC was home to hundreds of social dancing spots where people from all five boroughs and surrounding states came together, usually in dance studios, ballrooms, and outdoor public spaces. The pandemic has drastically affected cultural venues, small businesses, and the real estate industry in these areas. The closure of these businesses has greatly jeopardized the very existence of the social dancing culture in the city. Iconic venues such as the nightclub Copacabana (1940-2020) were forced to close their doors and the dance community is now faced with fear and uncertainty with no prospect of what lies ahead. Social dancers are now faced with a major cultural identity crisis and are in crucial need to reconnect to themselves through their communities. With the vast majority of the traditional venues that hosted long-run socials having closed, I identified the urgency in the salsa dance community to restore a fragile cultural identity and have dedicated in helping reassess the dance culture. Once again, NYC is home to reinventing and innovating, as it did back in the ’70s with Salsa and Hip Hop.