She leads her partner, a salsa teacher she is trying to convert to hustle, to the middle of the parquet floor. Her partner, sporting athletic pants and sneakers, supports Rosado's back as she spins and dips in his arms at a pace that has her out of breath after a few songs. It was almost addictive when I started doing it. I just wanted to keep dancing hustle. I feel a lot of what I'm doing is providing a watering hole for them.
Dance studios say there's been more demand for hustle classes in the last few years.
DanceSport, which is famous nationwide for its hustle classes, now offers 10 a week, compared with about four classes a decade ago. Most of the hustle action happens in dance studios nowadays, as discos have given way to nightclubs and disco music has given way to house, techno, and hip-hop. The studios don't offer alcohol or the drugs that were available in New York's hedonistic disco scene, but patrons say that doesn't bother them. They go out just for the fun of the dance, and the adrenaline of it. They can stay out on the dance floor all night, and they won't even know what time it is until you kick them out.