Get to know us
Lewis and Mitsi met back in January 0f 2020 at a congress in London and after knowing each other for one month, Lewis decided to ask Mitsi to be his dance partner and that's where the journey started. When COVID and lockdown hit their debut was unfortunately put on a pause and after 2 years of waiting, they finally got to perform their first and new show together in January 2022. Since then, together they have successfully competed and performed abroad, travelled internationally for professional training, choreographed shows for other dancers, taught regular and weekly classes in London, and lived abroad for 3 months in the capital of Saudi Arabia, where they were teaching, performing and choreographing.
Lewis John Barr
Lewis started dancing salsa at the age of 14 in 2016. It all started from the influence of his dad going to weekly salsa classes with Miguel Rico in Surrey and taking Lewis along with him. Overtime, salsa eventually became a massive part of Lewis' life and towards the end of 2018 he decided to join a salsa team in London. He was trained by Kat And Eddie when he joined their 'Esencia Libre' team and with them he performed all over the UK and also internationally. Whilst in this group he very fortunately became dance partners with Andrea Ardila, where they too performed their show and also taught all over the UK+Internationally. This partnership came to an end when Andrea moved back to Colombia and they performed their last show together at ABCD festival, London in January 2020. And on that same weekend, is where he met Mitsi without knowing what journey they were about to start.
Mitsi Jan Valdivia-Webster
Mitsi has been dancing since the age of 5 when she was first put into children's ballet and gymnastics. She didn't continue with ballet for too long and ended up dedicating her time to gymnastics till the age of 16. Whilst still doing gymnastics, Mitsi joined a group at the age of 9 who were formerly known as 'Gotitas De Sabor' which were a Colombian dance based school. Whilst at this school, Mitsi was learning various different dance styles growing up and only when Cali-style salsa was introduced is when she became more serious about dancing. Once salsa took over, she found it difficult to manage and dedicate herself to dancing and gymnastics so she sadly made the decision to stop gymnastics. And at this point in time, she was also part of a Bolivian Folklore group, dancing 'Morenada'.The salsa group she was in had now become 'Los Rumberos Dance Academy' and was directed by Monica Hernandez and the group was being trained by Santee Hernandez in London. Once 2020 arrived, Mitsi had decided that she wanted to try something new and take a step back from cali style/on1 salsa so she made the decision to explore mambo and salsa on2...and in perfect timing as she had just met Lewis. This journey unfortunately started entering lockdown but Lewis passed all his knowledge onto Mitsi and throughout Lockdown they didn't stop dancing together and were doing non-stop online classes. Mitsi had then made the decision to no longer be part of her group and has now been a part of 'Esencia Libre' ladies team by Kat Gosling and dedicating her time with her partner Lewis Barr and dancing on2 mambo in London.
