the cuban salsa blog

DJ Radar and Charanga Carolina Perform Tonight

Very interesting indeed…fresh and unchartered territory.

Check out Sylvia’s blog for a sneak peek at what’s going down tonight.

Seems that DJ Radar has a gift for integrating turntable scratches right into the rhythm section.

Not quite sure what to make of this, BUT for the longest, Cuban Timba bands have combined classical orchestra music with Afro-Cuban percussion, creating the some of the meanest dance grooves known to man.

I recommend every one from Paso attend this event, not only because it’s free, or because of the inviting wood floors, but because you may never hear anything like this for a long long time…

Cost: Free.

Location: Gerrard Hall at UNC (On the left side of Memorial Hall) on Cameron Ave.

Time: 8-10pm

RSVP for Hip-Hop Workshop on Saturday

Remember to RSVP ahead of time for this Saturday’s Hip-Hop workshop!!

Look for the Evite in your email.

Paso.

Many of you have been asking for a list of good songs for Cuban Salsa dance.

I thought it would be a good idea to go through the dances I enjoy most, and list 5 of my favorite pieces.

For Cuban Salsa I might dance to…

El Solar de California – Issac Delgado
Yo No Me Parezco a Nadie – Bamboleo
Santa Palabra – NG La Banda
Tu Experiencia – Mikail Blanco
El Huracan del Caribe – Arturo Sandoval

For NY Salsa (ON2) I might dance to…

Un Puesto Vacante – Eddie Palmieri
Sabroso Guaguanco – Eddie Palmieri
Quitate la Mascara  - Ray Barretto
Yay Boy – Africando
Periodico de Ayer  - Hector Lavoe

For Argentine Tango I might dance to…

La Yumba – Osvaldo Pugliese
El Pollito – Carlos di Sarli
Negracha – Osvaldo Pugliese
Toda mi Vida – Anibal Troilo
El Amanacer – Carlos di Sarli

For Rumba Guaguanco I might dance to…

Obsesion Sublime  - Los Munequitos de Mantanzas
La Siteria –  Los Munequitos de Mantanzas
Canto a Mantanzas – Los Munequitos de Mantanzas
Several songs from Clave y Guaguanco
Many songs from Los Papines

For West Coast Swing I might dance to…

The Boogie that Be – Black Eyed Peas
Billie Jean – Michael Jackson
The Way You Move – Outkast
Kiss – Prince
The Way You Make Me Feel – Michael Jackson

For Bachata I might dance to…

Voy Pa’lla – Antony Santos
Pena de Amor – Antony Santos
Pegame tu Vicio  - Antony Santos
El Asesina  - Juan Bautista
Me Alejare – Antony Santos

For Orishas I might dance to…
Many pieces from Lazaro Ros or Ballet Folklorico Cutumba

Relax..it's just an illustration.

Due to the awesome support of Haiti benefits by our local dance community, we decided to step out of the box a bit and attack poverty right here in the Triangle.

Mark your calendars folks.

Saturday February 20th, at 2pm, Hip Hop instructor and choreographer J. Wess will be giving a blockbuster beginner workshop for dancers and stiff bodies alike.

I have seen this man turn young children and adults into Hip-Hop BEASTS. Personally, it’s been years since I have taken a Hip-Hop class, but I am confident J Wess can hook me up.

The workshop will be $10 and 100% of the proceeds will go towards Urban Hope of Durham, a non-profit group, headed by none other than our own Bahari Harris.

Just a little of what’s in store..

1. Body movement and isolations for dummies, with authentic style and flair.

2. Mini-routines and footwork. Short and sweet for improvisation, around the 2-4 bar mark.

3. A special treat for Salsa dancers: some short additional phrases that you can actually USE in your Salsa dance.

Keep in mind, your admission will be directly impacting a local organization, headed by Bahari, a  local Salsa dancer.

More details to come…

Paso Goes Ice Skating in Raleigh

For this month’s Paso community event we decided to try something a little different…

The Ice Plex in Raleigh is the only Olympic sized sheet of ice in North Carolina, with plenty of space for you to glide around and perform your double or triple axles -I know I will.

What’s even better?

If you are with the Paso crew, you get 2 hours of skating and skate rental for only $5.50.

Thank Dale Vanderpool down at Ice Plex for the sweet Paso discount.

If you would like to come but don’t attend classes, let us know and we will put you on our list.

When: Sunday, February 28th @ 1:30pm
Where: Ice Plex, 2601 N Raleigh Blvd.
Cost: $5.50 for Paso crew or associates. Includes skate rental.

Preferences are fine, but if a partner who dances a foreign style of Salsa renders your lead limp and impotent, it's time to improve your clarity. No excuses.

“I didn’t dance much  because I couldn’t find any good dancers that could dance XX style Salsa.”

Sorry to say this guys, but there is no need to find a partner that “knows” your style be it Cuban, On1 or On2.

We speak the same language, just with different accents.

All forms of Salsa derive from the Cuban Son, which comes from the Danzon. With slight variations -negligible with sound lead- we are all dancing in 4/4 time with a 3-step rhythm.

Translation: On a fundamental level our dances are not that entirely different. Most of my social dances tend to be with beginner-intermediate dancers who have never danced Cuban. It requires a solid lead and a good imagination, not advanced patterns.

When I  dance with X style follows, my moves don’t work!

Ah. Then you need to make your your lead more clear. Hard reality.

You didn’t notice that in the studio your partner was helping you make those movements work?

It is NOT  your partners job to figure out what you are trying to do.

Depending on our follow to  fill in the blanks of our lead will reap disastrous results -especially if they speak Salsa with a different accent!

Translation: When you are dancing with follows who do not understand your accent, be it Cuban or American, you must make your lead 10x more clear to remain effective.

But I learned this move and the follow puts her hand HERE on count…

Stop bro.

It ain’t going to work in real life unless she knows it.

Instructors must take responsibility and breed leads who are hard-nosed and skeptical about turn patterns.

Pulling this crap out on the dance floor confuses follows and makes them follow the next lead horribly -trying to guess what the lead is doing and screwing up the next man.

Translation: Choreo is fine. But we as teachers need to give our students healthy doses of hard reality about what can be led intuitively and what requires a follow to “be in the know”.

Leads, let’s kill the excuses in 2010.

If it’s not working on the dance floor, either you didn’t say it clearly enough or you said something too complicated.

But never bring someone on stage who isn’t familiar with your magic trick and try to make them disappear.

You might be quite embarrassed once the smoke clears -and they are still standing there!

A collaborative effort by Joe & Eduardo

Some of us want to be the best at what we do, whatever that may be.

In our quest to be the best, we may easily fall into comparing ourselves to others on the dance floor. Kind of like a measuring stick.

This is dangerous.

Comparison is a double edge sword, both sides equally sharp.

I am so much better than them will lead to frustration, concern, and even fear when you feel that someone else is better than you. No one is safe from your comparisons or measurement. Not even yourself.

And if you can’t step outside of the lines you have drawn, try changing them. Why not, measure yourself against yourself?

“As I dance, i’m not going to worry about being the best in the room. I simply need to be the best I can be with this particular partner and this particular song….at this very moment.”

Take this to heart and you will be on your way to creating magic. When you dance like this, others will notice. And if not, your partner will.

Most importantly, you will create your own magic, beautiful in its own right and comparable to none.

Love and appreciate yourself and the way you move. Only then will you be able to feel the same love and appreciation for others.

And that’s our message for the New Year.

My sister sent me this little interesting snippet this morning from http://hercules.gcsu.edu/~jblick/Global.htm.

Not related to dance in particular, but I gather that we could all use some reminding:

“The Global Village
(ca. 1998-2000)

If Earth’s population was shrunk into a village of just 100 people ?? with all the human ratios existing in the world still remaining ?? what would this tiny, diverse village look like? That’s exactly what Phillip M. Harter, a medical doctor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, attempted to figure out. This is what he found:

·                    57 would be Asian
·                    21 would be European
·                    14 would be from the Western Hemisphere (the Americas)
·                    8 would be African
·                    52 would be female
·                    48 would be male
·                    70 would be nonwhite
·                    30 would be white
·                    70 would be non?Christian
·                    30 would be Christian
·                    89 would be heterosexual
·                    11 would be homosexual
·                    6 people would possess 59 percent of the entire world’s wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States
·                    80 would live in substandard housing
·                    70 would be unable to read
·                    50 would suffer from malnutrition
·                    1 would be near death
·                    1 would be pregnant
·                    1 would have a college education
·                    1 would own a computer

Think of it this way: If you live in a good home, have plenty to eat and can read, you are a member of a very select group. And if you have a good house, food, can read, have a college education, and have a computer, you are among the very elite.”

And if you can dance, you are among the very very elite. Be thankful!

especially on the dance floor...

In dance there are no mistakes, no missteps, as long as you keep your mind on dancing and not on the next step.

Isn’t life the same way?

Believing in magic is fine. But don't let Salsa illusions on video get the best of your common sense.

Johnny has been browsing YouTube all evening looking for that “cool move”.

Johnny finds what he is looking for and now wants to try it out in real life.

Sarah is Johnny’s partner.

They get together one sunny afternoon for some Salsa practice, and Johnny is totally excited about what he saw on YouTube. Johnny then proceeds to try out what he learned and not before long, is telling Sarah exactly what she should do in order to look like Carmen, the current Salsa-champion-belt-holder on YouTube and get the move “to work”.

He just knows that she is not doing something right. “NO NO NO”, he spouts. “You have to hold out your arm HERE, and turn THIS way when I do THIS!”

Sarah is skeptical, but wants to make the move work. She does want to be a good follow, right?

After a long and taxing session, they get the entire movement down-packed and tight.

Song after song, Johnny easily glides through the slick pattern with Sarah always remembering her part and doing the right thing and the right time.

Now everything was great until one night Johnny went out and danced with Jenny, a good Salsa dancer. Or so he thought. Johnny proceeds to subtly ignore the music and pull out his very best turn patterns to impress the onlookers, saving his best for last.

BUT WAIT! Something really bad happens here. Jenny doesn’t react the way Sarah did. He tries over and over again.

“Perhaps she just messed up.”, Johnny thought to himself. “Let’s try it again.”

Nope. Johnny tries explaining it to her verbally, waving his arms in the air like a conductor. “No, you see, you are supposed to do THIS!”

Jenny is never dancing with this clown again.

Now here are some pointers that will help you avoid becoming Johnny:

1. Understand the difference between social and stage dancing. Also be aware when instructors teach moves that are “hybrids” of stage and street dancing.

There is little overlap between the two. Being good at one does not make you good at the other. They are completely different beasts with different goals. One is to impress the eyes of an audience, the other to express complex music. Social dancing has utlilitarian concerns, the moves must WORK. Stage dancing tends to be choreographed so the movements don’t need to actually function in order to look good.

Both are great things. But I think there is a LOT of confusion between the two.

There are some common movements taught in Salsa classes that derive from the stage and require a partner to “be in the know” regarding their execution. Most new students have no clue, so naturally they assume that memorization from a follow is cool.

They grow up, and without much time on the streets, get some performances under their belt, and one day begin teaching others moves that are based on a performance style and the cycle perpetuates over and over again. I think this is a very interesting phenomenon that I would love to write more about in the future.

Pure social dancing requires little memorization on the part of the follow. Movements are spontaneous and are created as the music unrolls.

2. YouTube is cool. But keep in mind that no one posts an unsuccessful execution of a Salsa turn pattern. Follows will compensate on video and to the new student, this can be very misleading.

If it’s on YouTube of course it’s going to appear to work. That doesn’t mean all is real. Try it out, but if you find yourself explaining the follows part, just keep in mind that it may not work the way out so well on the dance floor.

3. One thing at a time Johnny. Social or stage, don’t let them bleed over into each other. And avoid the hybridization, please.

A strong separation between the two makes for a better dancer. Understand the different objectives of social and performance dancing. And keep in mind that performance dancing is not a progression from street dancing. If you think this way, you will naturally try to dance “better” by using performance type moves on the social dance floor, ignoring the real challenge of social dance: -interpreting music on the fly while improvising creatively.

Marshall Art Studios - David M

Really? Were you expecting them to?

To start with, male or female, don’t attend a dance social with the slightest expectation of being asked to dance. Assume it’s not going to happen. You are in charge of everything.

This is a great opportunity to change your thinking and empower yourself as a dancer by asking some yourself these simple questions:

1. Am I doing the best I can to improve myself as a lead or follow? What have I improved over the last week?

Are you dancing the same way you did two months or two years ago?  Follows, simply because it’s the lead’s “job” to make you look good, doesn’t mean you can go out there with weak technique!

If I go out swing dancing, the serious dancers won’t be lining up to dance with me. It’s for a reason. Like a courtship, people are watching how you dance the moment you come in, gauging your ’suitability’ for a partner dance.

Don’t selfishly assume that what you know is good enough. If you can’t attend training, give yourself a class in your living room. Or simply make improvement a priority and take little steps to get better. Call me Captain obvious, but the better you are, the more they will want to dance with you.

And if you are not willing to do any of the above, be reasonable about how many people you expect to want to dance with you.

2. Am I doing all that I can to look my best?

People are motivated by beauty. And so are you. Play the human psychology game, and put your best face forward. This is not about pleasing them. You owe it to yourself to look and feel great.

Diet, exercise, meditation, the whole nine yards. Do your BEST. Treat yourself like the special person you are. And others will follow suit.

3. Don’t always assume the worst and don’t put stock into whether or not people dance with you.

People say ‘no’ for various reasons. Trying to understand why they won’t dance with you is fruitless and takes away your power to improve yourself. Forget about it.

4. Stop. Think about your facial expressions. What are they?

When you enter a social, and no one asks you to dance, do you get an ugly face? Well, that’s a sure fire way to repel potential partners.

In summary, it’s all about you. Maximize your dance, attitude and physical appearance. And once people are lining up to dance with you, remember where you came from.