Have you ever wanted to dance salsa, perform on stage and make new friends? Or compete with a give-time championship winning collegiate salsa team? Now’s your chance! Spartan Mambo auditions for the Fall 2026 semester will be held Tuesday, September 8th at 8pm in the Event Center! Open to all SJSU students, no experience or partner necessary! You can find more details on our Auditions page.
Spartan Mambo won the Collegiate Salsa Weekender championship for the second year in a row, becoming the first team in the competition’s history to win back-to-back titles!
The victory is Spartan Mambo’s third championship overall, more than any other team in the history of the competition.
This year’s event was the largest collegiate salsa competition since the pandemic, bringing together teams from across Northern and Southern California, including UC Berkeley, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Long Beach State, CSUN, USC, and others.
USC finished in second place after defeating Spartan Mambo two weeks earlier at the Royal Latin Dance Cup, while UC Berkeley took third. Our dancers responded by practicing nearly every day, continuing to refine the routine, and delivering their strongest performance when it mattered most.
Representing Spartan Mambo were Jesus Jimenez, Isa Landeros, Piero Miranda, Alexis Ng, Raymond Hewett, and Carolina Sandoval-Bardo, and we are incredibly proud of how much they have grown as dancers, performers, and teammates throughout the season.
A huge thank-you to our coaches and captains Dipanwita Ray, Liam Thompson, and Kimberly Lopez for supporting the team throughout the semester, and to Amanda Marquez, Miguel Zagal, and Helen Vazquez for their coaching and feedback.
Congratulations to our 2026 collegiate salsa champions!
Next up: Las Vegas Super Congress!
Spartan Mambo’s competition team earned third place in both the Amateur Teams and Collegiate Teams divisions at the 2026 Royal Latin Dance Cup!
The competition marked another strong step forward for our new routine following its debut at the SF Salsa Festival. We’re proud of the team’s continued growth and the work our dancers have put into improving the performance throughout the season.
Next up is the Collegiate Salsa Weekender, our main competition of the year. We’re excited to keep training, refining the routine, and building on this momentum!
Spartan Mambo’s competition team took the stage at the 2026 San Francisco Salsa Festival, marking the debut of our new competition routine!
Although we did not place this time, the event gave our dancers a valuable opportunity to perform the routine in competition for the first time, receive feedback, and continue building confidence as a team.
The SF Salsa Festival was an important step in our preparation for several upcoming competitions, including the Royal Latin Dance Cup and the Collegiate Salsa Weekender—our main competition of the season.
We’re proud of the team’s hard work and excited to keep improving the routine in the months ahead!
Spartan Mambo returned to the Chase Center on March 25th to perform during halftime of the Golden State Warriors game against the Brooklyn Nets!
Our team brought 48 SJSU dancers onto the court for a salsa routine performed in front of thousands of Warriors fans. Dressed in blue and yellow to represent both SJSU and the Warriors, we performed a medley featuring:
The routine began with our “Mambo de la Luz” choreography before transitioning into new material inspired by Bad Bunny’s recent music and Super Bowl halftime performance.
This was Spartan Mambo’s third time performing for the Golden State Warriors, following our previous halftime appearances in 2017 and 2023. It was an incredible experience sharing salsa with the Chase Center crowd—and the Warriors finished the night with an exciting 109–106 win over the Nets!
The routine was choreographed by Takeshi Young, Dipanwita Ray, Alexis Ng, Piero Miranda, Carolina Sandoval-Bardo, Jesus Jimenez, and Isabel Landeros.
Thank you to all of our dancers, coaches, captains, alumni, friends, and family who helped make this performance possible!
Check out the full halftime performance below!
Want to join Spartan Mambo this semester? Auditions for the new season are coming up!
Audition dates for the Salsa team will be Thursday, September 4th 2025 at 8pm and the audition for the Bachata team will be Friday, September 5th at 4:30pm.
Auditions will be held in the Aerobics room (1st floor) of the Event Center.
You can find more details on our Audition page, and you can also follow us on Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with the latest news about our team.
The Spartan Mambo competition won the collegiate salsa championships held at The Granada LA this past weekend!
Held at The Granada LA in Alhambra, the competition held on Saturday, May 3rd attracted college dance teams from across California including USC, Cal Poly SLO, El Community College, and CSU Long Beach. SJSU previously won the competition in 2023, but fell short last year losing to USC.
The team came back stronger than ever this year, reprising our championship-winning choreo from 2015, exactly 10 years to the day from its last competition win.
In addition to the competition, both the salsa and bachata performance teams performed at the event, including a solo salsa performance by our dancer, Piero Miranda.
Congrats to all the competitors for bringing back the championship title to SJSU!
Spartan Mambo performed this past weekend at the 2024 San Francisco Salsa Bachata Kizomba Festival this past weekend. This Latin dance festival is one of the largest in the country, and both the salsa and bachata teams debut new routines for an audience of over a thousand spectators on Friday night.
Videos of the performances will be posted soon, as soon as we get them!
Enjoy this video of our performance routine from this semester, “El Timbalito, performed on the campus of San Jose State University!
Thanks to Takeshi Young, Julieta Mendiola, Edward Lee, Jewell Claudio & Helen Vazquez for helping to choreograph the routine, and Jonnel Nomberto for help with videogrpahy!
We will be holding auditions again for our Salsa and Bachata teams this Fall!
Audition dates for the Salsa team will be Tuesday, September 5th 2023 and the audition for the Bachata team will be Friday, September 8th.
More details about the exact time and location of the auditions will be announced closer to the beginning of the semester.
Follow us on Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with the latest news about our team.