Dance mob: Participants cut some fluid shapes at last year’s Queens town Salsa Festival PICTURE: FEDE PAGOLA

It’s time to shake your feathered tails with the third annual Queenstown Salsa Festival, starting tonight.

Whakatipu-based Latin dance school Pasion Salsa is again behind the four-day fiesta, with a jam-packed schedule of bootcamps, workshops, a performance showcase and parties to dance the night away.

The event features three renowned international salsa instructors as well as the finest dance exponents from around New Zealand to teach a variety of styles including salsa, bachata, mambo, rueda and reggaeton.

Te Atamira is hosting two bootcamps tomorrow and a weekend of workshops across the different styles from 10.30am to 4pm on Saturday and 10.30am to 2.15pm on Sunday.

Everyone from beginners to seasoned shakers are welcome and will have ample opportunity to show off their new moves at three parties.

A warm-up party kicks off the knees-ups at the Lake Hayes Pavilion tonight.

Queenstown Memorial Centre’s the venue for tomorrow night’s ‘Pura Vida’, or pure life, party, and Saturday night’s hour-long performance showcase given by the top dancers, is followed by an ‘Under the Stars’ party.

Dance instructor and event helper Matias Berirdi — a Queenstowner originally from Uruguay — sums up the festival: ‘‘We learn how to dance by day and then we dance all night.’’

He says the dancing is pure, no-questions-asked, joy.

‘‘No one really asks you what you do for a living, or if you have kids or not, like you just forget all the dramas and everything, it’s cool.’’

Queenstown Salsa Festival tonight till Sunday, tickets from venues, subject to availability. For more info see pasionsalsaqueenstown.com

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