Launch of Cambridge Latin Central

March 25, 2006

Latin Collective with Salsa Allegra & Espiritu Latino – Advanced with Tiz & Nikki

1,2,3,5,6,7 basic Mambo
1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL ending with R-R
1,2,3,5,6,7 connect L-L underneath, prepare and lead touch-and-go double clockwise stationary turn for follower ending with L-L on top
1,2,3,5,6,7 Copa (L-L over follower’s head) and R forearm on follower’s back to stop any extra turn by follower on 3, use R-R to lead follower forward on 5 and 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise with a handoff to R-L and toss to reconnect R-R at leader’s back R waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break with L showing for L-L connection low while R-R leads follower forward on 2 and then goes over follower’s head on 3 – use R-R for windmill effect and use L-L to continue follower’s traveling clockwise 1 1/2 turn with L-L ending behind follower’s R back waist – switch to R-L (with optional leader’s counterclockwise turn)
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower forward with R-L still pointing towards the direction the follower came from ~3 with follower turned around 1/2 counterclockwise and bring R-L around along the follower’s line to get R-L wrapped around follower’s waist (R-L connection on follower’s R waist) and get L-R connection made at follower’s front L shoulder
[note: The movement of R-L should be continuous from open break onwards. I don’t think I have this lead down pat yet – I still have R-L pausing at 3 as if I was going to lead a Copa variation. I guess I need a lot more practice to get this right. Maybe I should try open break and slowly bring in R-L as follower is led forward while gets turned around then make a sweeping slow round lead with a start towards follower’s point of origin.]
1,2,3,5,6,7 New York jazz preparation and lead follower forward and into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn (led with L-R and with R-L disconnected)
[note: There was a bit more after this – I think there’s a leader’s turn at the end and maybe a drop catch to R-R, followed by another open break and getting follower wrapped at waist and maybe change to L-R followed by CBL with clockwise traveling turn but I cannot remember for sure. The ending (taught with very little time left) did not make a strong impression for me.]

For me the most useful part of the class was being able to refine touch-and-go double turn (which was okay to begin with) and windmill (which was just beginning to get useful). It’s all about training that cerebellum for muscle memory.

The large hall in Cambridge Guildhall had a very large and slippery dance floor and with very high ceiling and a large elevated stage. I thought it might be too slippery at first but I got used to it fairly quickly. Because of the way the tables and chairs for seating were configured in addition to the bar and entry point, the main dance floor area took up only about 1/2 of the entire hall. Thus the room for dancing was probably comparable to the small hall (without chairs, etc) of Cambridge Guildhall. The large hall itself probably is larger than Mary Ward Hall, which hosts the London SOS.

About 140 people showed up from all over the place – including a very large number of people from outside of Cambridge. Only about 40-60 people partook in the lessons despite the fact that there was no additional cost for taking lessons.

The dance performance was by Tiz and Nikki. La Palomilla by Joe Cuba strikes again; it was the song used for the tonight’s performance, which by the way seemed very well executed and was pleasant to watch.

Dancing was fabulous throughout. For the most part I was sticking to tried and comfortable moves either learned in class (in some cases refined or retooled) as well as improvised over past several weeks. With partner work, I suspect I’m close to exhausting options in discovering interesting new things based upon moves I already know. However, more options for improvisation presumably should reveal themselves, as I learn and become comfortable with new techniques.

A pair of dances with Serap was particularly illuminating (educational), unique and entertaining. Both dances were made up of mostly of shines (at least 50% and as much as 80% if open, semi-open and closed shines are combined). She told me she was using a mirroring approach, which probably gave the dance(s) a choreographed look. The first one felt more at Rumba speed rather than Salsa, and I can’t imagine ever duplicating that dance even if the same song (an unfamiliar tune) were played again. For the second dance, we had some audience who seemed to get a kick out of watching the spectacle of us dancing with a combination of aforementioned pseudo-choreographed looking and highly extended shines and humorous interplay or communication. I briefly became worried that Serap wasn’t enjoying dancing with me, but she reassured me that this was far from true. In retrospect I’m not sure why I even worried because Serap sometimes gets bored with conventional dances without surprises and without freedom to express self. Also she did look like she was having fun with herself and with me with those dances.

I am getting to a point where categorizing myself as beginner, improver, intermediate or advanced is getting laughable. This is because I find myself correcting my technique at beginner levels to intermediate levels all the time. I’m still learning (either in class or simply discovering new moves that I would have seen in a class setting eventually) new improver level moves. I can “lead” a lot of the advanced level routines in many of the “advanced” level classes, but I can lead only a tiny fraction of them in real dances without “doctored” followers. Based upon this, probably the best description for me is intermediate level Salsa dancer. For me this is highly amusing because I had considered myself intermediate as early as 10 months ago (probably wrongly although not without reasons warranted given the state of CBL Salsa in Cambridge then), and I’m light years further along compared to 10 months ago.