Zulmara Torres is a Los Angeles-based salsa dancer, instructor and singer best known for her long-running competition partnership with Abel Peña. Together, Abel and Zulmara became one of the signature LA Style Salsa On1 couples of the ESPN World Salsa Championships era.
Their dancing reflects the classic Los Angeles On1 vocabulary: fast turns, sharp timing, lifts, tricks and a stage style built for competition. The partnership is most closely associated with three consecutive ESPN World Salsa Championships On1 titles, a run that helped make their names familiar to dancers who followed salsa competitions in the mid-2000s.
Zulmara has continued to appear in festival and congress contexts as a performer and instructor, including lineups that present her with Abel Peña and AP Project Dance Company. Her current public work also connects dance with music, with Zulmara presenting herself as a professional singer as well as a salsa dancer and instructor.
As a teacher and performer, Zulmara is a strong reference point for dancers interested in LA-style salsa, partnerwork, stage timing and competition polish. Her work is especially tied to the Los Angeles salsa community and to the generation of dancers who brought high-speed On1 performance to televised salsa competitions.