Meet your new dance teacher...
Marcelo Rivero is your new Maestro dance teacher! He is an award-winning professional dance teacher and performer specializing in Salsa and Argentine Tango for social dancing and competitive exhibitions. Marcelo’s over 25-years of smooth and elegant-style of dancing shows his Mastery on the dance floor - techniques and knowledge he will teach you.
With a passion to teach and patience through your learning process, Marcelo will mentor you through mastering foundational steps, learning to listen to music timing, building your confidence, and train you on sophisticated moves at the right time in your training. Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced, Maestro Marcelo’s proven dance processes will take your social and performance dancing skills to a higher level, guaranteed!
Marcelo's History in Dance
Throughout Marcelo’s 30-years of dance expertise, his dancing and choreography has been sought after in the entertainment industry from movies to TV, including working on the film set in Antwone Fisher (2002) with Denzel Washington and on the TV show Ugly Betty with Selma Hayek.
Marcelo’s Latin roots run deep. Born to Bolivian parents and extended Brazilian family, he grew up in Southern California. Music and dancing was a part of growing up in the Bolivian house. Nurtured by his mother’s beautiful singing voice, he learned very early on about musicality. With socially awkward shyness as a kid, Marcelo did not have interest in dance, but was developing his musical interest through collecting and playing albums. As a youth in the 1980s, he connected with the break dance scene where he danced and created choreography to the electrifying music.
In the 1990s, Marcelo continued to expand his musical expertise by DJ’ing with vinyl records untill...
Salsa dancing caught his attention, and with a burning desire to be a great salsa dancer, he worked hard and applied himself to become a Salsa dance expert. But this was achieved only after a long time circulating through multiple dance teachers to try to find the best ones and thousands of dollars in training. Frustrated by this trial and error with teachers who had little teaching philosophy, he studied on his own and formulated Marcelo’s Salsa System consisting of 5 Basics that all good Salsa dancers do well and combined it with his teaching philosophy. Within 3 years of focused training and system development, he started to teach others how to dance Salsa and perform at competitions.
In 2001, inspired by the dancing and music in the film The Tango Lesson (1997), he wanted to master this dance and add it to his teaching repertoire. Marcelo began his Argentine Tango training across Southern California and expanded his training in 2005-2007 at the Carlos Copelo Tango Academy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His Argentine Tango mentors include internationally renown Carlos Gavito, Pablo Veron and Gabriel Mise. But training with multiple dance teachers again had its challenges – he was spending a lot of time and money with teachers that had conflicting and polarizing philosophies on dance and technique. This led Marcelo to take the best from instruction and independent studying and formulated Marcelo’s Argentine Tango System consisting of 6 Basic categories that all good Tango dancers do well and combined it with his teaching philosophy.
A Maestro Salsa and Argentine Tango dancer and teacher!
After a decade of mastering Salsa and Argentine Tango, Marcelo focused on building his Salsa and Argentine Tango Teaching Systems, so that you can learn how to dance through the breakdown of steps and moves, hear music, apply body mechanics, and communicate through moves and your energy without taking years and overspending to excel at dancing. His Mastery of teaching dance led him to receive the 2012 Orange County/Los Angeles Male Dance Instructor of the Year award. Then placing 1st and 2nd in several local pro/am competitions with his students.
WITH 30 YEARS TEACHING EXPERIENCE (1995-2025) you'll be able to tap into his teaching system that will not only accelerate your learning but personal evolving journey via dance. Start today! Life is a dance itself!
Sample Photos
Subscribe to Our Email List!
Get started with access to free mini video lessons and course updates.
No spam. Check your junk email box.
