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Andrea Torres has been moving to music nearly her entire life.
Andrea Torres has been moving to music nearly her entire life. At just 2 years old, she started dancing. By 7, she remembers first sharing the stage with her family in Puerto Rico.
At just 2 years old, she started dancing. By 7, she remembers first sharing the stage with her family in Puerto Rico — taking turns dancing with her uncles to salsa music as her grandfather clapped along.
Now 21, Torres is not just dancing. She’s also creating. As a senior at UF, she’s choreographing her own thesis performance while completing a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in dance and a master’s degree in management.
Being Hispanic has influenced her dance tremendously, she said.
“My family was able to understand why I wanted to pursue dance at the university level because they just knew how much it meant to me,” she said. “They saw me grow up with it.”
Torres is the head of communications for UF Dance in a Suitcase, an organization for students in the dance department. By the end of October, she will be working alongside Urban Bush Women, a dance company in New York, collaborating with around 19 other UF students to create and dance in an original piece.
Torres grew up in Spring Lake, North Carolina. Her father was in the army, so her family moved often. Despite this, she said she feels connected to her culture as a Puerto Rican.
“My parents always taught me that we speak Spanish inside the house, so I was able to grow up bilingual and still feel so connected to my culture and my heritage,” she said.
And one thing remains true: her appreciation of culture.
Torres performs West African dance, along with contemporary and ballroom. She has participated several times in Agbedidi, a UF Dance performance that fuses traditional African and contemporary dance.
She also studied abroad in 2024 in Salvador, the capital city of Brazil’s state of Bahia, learning Afro-Brazilian culture and Afro-Cuban dance with traditional skirts.
Augusto Soledade, a 60-year-old UF dance professor, ran the study abroad program and said Torres fits perfectly in the role of “model student.”
Soledade met Torres her freshman year. Now, she’s in his dance ensemble class, where dancers had to audition to perform his original work in the upcoming Agbedidi show.
Soledade said Torres’ impact on the program comes from her personality.
“It’s just such a pleasure to see how she works in this specific environment,” he said. “She has had a great impact in creating the kind of community sense that is so strong within the dance majors.”
Torres’ goal as a dancer is to spread her love of the arts. She hopes to take the stage on Caribbean cruise ships, performing what she loves while staying connected to Puerto Rico. At UF, she wants to be remembered not just for her talent, but for a legacy built on “compassion and love and inclusivity.”
Contact Sofia Bravo at sbravo@alligator.org. Follow her on X @sofiab026.
Sofia is a junior journalism student who is the Fall 2025 enterprise health reporter. She previously worked as a copy editor and translator for El Caimán. In her free time, she enjoys reading and bothering her friends with her digital camera.
