Salsa in Washington D.C. II – Barking Dog

November 29, 2005

Unseasonably warm weather persisted to this evening although a somewhat heavy rain made a short dash from parked car to the Barking Dog a scramble. The pub downstairs appeared downright empty, and the dance floor upstairs did not feel packed either compared to Clarendon Grill. Just as Sergio said last night, the cover fee was twice as expensive as Clarendon Grill ($10 versus $5). After paying the cashier, I was presented with a glowing paper bracelet as receipt on top of a stamp I received on back of my hand presumably as proof of age at the entrance.

The first thing I noticed was the layout of the dance floor, which had a small square wood floor area in the middle with columns on four corners just outside of the wood floor. The wood floor, which could accommodate perhaps 10-12 couples, was surrounded by much larger space covered with tile floors. Also, the temperature inside was not as warm as it was at Clarendon Grill; having no fan was not as a big an issue as it was last night and extra clothing I brought was not used.

Beginner class was still unfinished when arrived, so I went downstairs to visit the toilet, in which I encountered a huge man dressed only in his briefs and getting ready to jump into a rather garish suit. Later I found that this man is the DJ for the evening. Everything about this DJ was big, including his booming voice, which he used liberally throughout the evening with earthshaking volume over which no conversation was possible – at least for me. He also had a strange habit of making random strange gurgling noises – one of my dance partner commented, “Oh, he does that all the time.” without blinking an eye.

The regular instructor for the Tuesdays at Barking Dog is Michelle Reyes, whom Sergio apparently knows fairly well and is a part of a clique that regularly attends Jimmy Anton’s Social in New York (more on this later). However, Michelle was nowhere in sight tonight. Instead of their regular intermediate class (of which I had fairly low expectations based upon the lessons at Clarendon Grill), another woman came out to introduce Casino Rueda for the students. Initially it seemed that I was the only one who had any experience with Rueda among approximately 30 people who were there – however, it turned out there were at least one other who knew something of Rueda and drifted in and out of the circle. Predictably, we did not get very far – I don’t think the instructor had a very big ambition about teaching Rueda tonight. The moves taught are listed below with minimal description.

Basic step (Guapea but not named) – This was done with partners facing each other at all times. Both step back on 1 and come together on 5.

Dame (the instructor pronounced the word very softly – even more so than with any other commands she used – without a microphone and with music on, she was inaudible – an incredible fact in my opinion for a Rueda caller)

High Five – Turn and face backwards to do a high five clap with next follower on 1 (R to R), then finish Guapea

High Ten – Turn and face backwards and do patty cake clap (using both hands - L with R and vice versa) with next follower on 1, then finish Guapea

Fly – Turn and face backwards and clap (I don’t think they jumped) on 1, then finish Guapea

Fly doble – Like Fly but clap on 1 and on 2, then finish Guapea

Besito – Turn and face backwards and kiss air on 1, then finish Guapea

Bota? Vuelta? – Guapea until about 5, then lead follower to spin clockwise for her to face her new partner while leader turns counterclockwise to face his next follower for a Dame

Initially I considered sitting out of the lesson when I realized that they would be doing Rueda with complete beginners. But then I decided that I didn’t really have anything better to do.

Despite heavy rain tonight, Sergio showed up once again to lend “support”. Whatever the reason, it was very nice to have a familiar face around and at least at one point observe his dancing and marvel at his ability to improvise and lead his partner to all sorts of unexpected movements. He had talked about going to New York next weekend to attend among other events, Jimmy Anton’s Social. Apparently in New York, these so-called socials are the place to go for dancing rather than clubs, which attract large share of people who are there for drinking, etc rather than dancing Salsa. A good resource for finding good places to dance apparently can be found in a website called salsanewyork.com and in particular its calendar. Details of events page is also useful. I had been to this website several times previously over the past year but Sergio’s comments gave me additional context to look at the contents of the website with more concrete purpose. I suppose a problem for me would be that I suspect most people there dance on-2, which I haven’t had an opportunity to start learning. In any case, I can’t go to New York for this event this year since I will be back in Cambridge by next weekend.

About halfway through the club hours, there was a performance with tonight’s Rueda instructor as one of the participant. The performers were six women, three in red and three in black but otherwise in seemingly identical dresses. The performance started off with what looked like Offbeat dancing rather than Salsa dancing followed by some rudimentary partner dancing done in unison followed by fairly simple Rueda with some stylizations. I think the big emphasis was on doing stylizations in unison by the women in red playing follower’s part.

The club part of the evening started fairly well – probably slightly better than in Clarendon Grill last night when the first hour from both were compared to each other possibly because I was feeling more relaxed tonight. It might have helped that I recognized some of the faces tonight from Clarendon Grill last night. I was hoping that dancing went better as evening went along as it did in Clarendon Grill. Unfortunately, things more or less plateaued at about the level reached by the halfway point and the start of the Offbeat-Rueda demonstration. Overall, I would guess that Clarendon Grill had many more flashier dancers. Still overall, tonight still was enjoyable with plusses including fairly large pool of decent if not outstanding dance partners throughout the evening and reasonable amount of space equivalent to Club Salsa on Wednesdays and Thursdays.