Salsa in Washington D.C. III - after midnight at Divino’s Lounge

December 2, 2005

From what I heard and read, it seemed like it might be a good idea to arrive late. This way, I thought I would avoid big crowds while still catching better dancers who may decide to show up late. Thus I schemed to arrive a little after midnight; the club hour is advertised as 10 PM to 2 AM. In retrospect, it might have been better to arrive earlier because only a very small number of people arrived after me (and I did not think that the late arrivals were better dancers than early arrivals) whereas I definitely missed out on some of the better (or flashier) dancers who left shortly after my arrival.

Divino's Lounge is the smallest of the three Salsa venues I have been to thus far in Washington D.C. area. The main dance floor was made of a very smooth stone surface - nice for spinning, as it was quite slippery. I estimate that the main dance surface could accommodate 15 couples or so, and the floor was slightly above this capacity at the time of my arrival. There isn't much of an extra dance space outside the main dance floor; one end of the main dance floor was situated between dining tables with inferior surface and the other end of the floor was carpeted and surrounded by furniture.

Total number of people at Divino’s was smaller than both Clarendon Grill and Barking Dog – at least by the time of my arrival. Level of difficulty conducted by top-level leaders looked comparable to Clarendon Grill and slightly higher than Barking Dog earlier this week. Divino's like the other two had fair number of beginners (first-timers) and non-dancers. I ended up dancing with pretty much everyone who stayed until I got around to asking (excepting a few who insisted that they didn't know how to dance). Sergio’s assessment earlier this week – sometimes you find good dancers there, sometimes not – is probably accurate. (Note: Sergio said the same about Barking Dog, Zanzibar, South Beach, H2O, etc. He also said you find better dancers in some special events involving people from New York coming down to D.C., like the one that will happen next weekend when I’m back in Cambridge.)

While I generally enjoyed dancing at Divino’s and have no regrets about tonight, I am getting less and less impressed with D.C. Salsa scene as I visit more venues. Thus far the most disappointing aspect of Salsa in D.C. is that I haven’t had any dance that I found thoroughly enjoyable and made me happy. In general I have gotten more enjoyment out of dancing with some of the “less experienced” followers who do not necessarily know how to follow many of my leads but who nevertheless appear to enjoy dancing with me a great deal. As for the “more experienced” (or flashy) followers, all of them turned out to be disappointing for one reason or other; I often found hand-to-hand connection was too strong while mental/emotional connection was often too weak or absent. No one I danced was good enough or nice enough to cover any mistakes I made and follow everything I tried to lead.

No Salsa lessons are given on Fridays at Divino’s. Cover was $10 (same as Barking Dog, twice as expensive as Clarendon Grill). It may be a good idea to call in advance – apparently there will be no Salsa at Divino’s next week because of a private party but they will return the week after next.