A miserable failure

May 5, 2006

"You are very technical," said my dance partner at the end of the song. I did not reply, but I silently thought, "Not technical enough by a mile. I'm still fumbling around all the time with all aspects dancing" I don't even know what she meant by technical. Maybe it has to do with my insistence on staying in time to the music even if my dance partner have difficulty staying in time doing Mambo basic, stationary turns and simple cross body leads. In my mind, more I dance I notice more deficiencies in my dancing.

I suppose there were several nice dances, including some dances that I would rate as all-time best between certain dance partners and me. One dance in particular seemed to draw some gawkers and seemed to help make my dance partner popular and sought after for the rest of the evening. Although I never got to dance with her again (I was her first partner), she left tired and happy. That's good.

Whatever the circumstances (Some partner may accept an invitation to dance thinking, "I danced with this guy before. I think he was okay," and ending up thinking, "That was quite nice. He's better than I remembered." Some partner might think, "It's always nice dancing with him. At worst, it'll be good. At best, it'll be fantastic." Some partner might think, "I cannot believe he asked me to dance with him. He's so much better than me."), it's a nice and powerful feeling knowing (or at least deluding myself into thinking) that I am leaving positive impression on others.

Flip side of the coin is getting your dance partner feeling awful because the dance went poorly feels really awful - fortunately, this does not happen too often.

Most of the dances were fine if not ambitious or provocative. Even with a room full of excellent dance partners, really interesting dances or moments occur infrequently. Chance of having exhilarating dance does not seem to increase by dancing with more experienced or more skilled partners - having a willing accomplice for experiments and surprises is a better bet (at least for me). I recall Sergio saying the other day that he doesn't necessarily enjoy dances with more skilled partners more than dancing with "beginners." (The quotes are there because very few excellent lead in Cambridge dances with real beginners with exception of some but not all teachers.)

Why do people dance?

I guess there are many reasons. I don't know if I have any special overriding reason - it could come down simply to, "It seems like a good idea." I guess if I don't know myself, it would be harder to know reasons for others be it Ivan, Sergio, Rajiv, Sean, Chris, Drew, Richard, Cristian, Jay, Mauricio, Thomas, Gordon, John, Peter, Bodie, Troy, Jason, Sewell, Heinz, Cambiz, Luis, Nanak, Ash, Emmanuel, Theodore, Jin, Sanjay, Patrick, Adam, Mark, Enrico, Liam, Cyrille, Phil, Johnny, Serap, Mimi, Sam, Lindsey, Jane, Natalie, Isabelle, Phyllis, Agnes, Charlotte, Laura, Lorraine, Danie, Marie, Maritza, Caroline, Lizzie, Sarah, Louise, Sally, Diana, Cinzia, Annetta, Ariana, Yola, Zeynep, Zhenzi, Euvian, Angelique, Cristelle, Keira, Alison, Clare, Natasha, Michelle, Marian, Lynne, Helen, Rhona, Dee, Hannah, Josie, Eva, Olivia, Tamaryn, Vera, Lucie, Emily, Marianna, Nina, etc.

That was a bit gratuitous… Now, who's who and who did I forget?

DJing...

It was a failed experiment - a miserable failure. Classic songs simply fare poorly compared to newer songs in the minds of most people. For better or worse, I think one has to pick a spot to sneak in an old song. Having a pre-set playlist is bad idea too, especially if there is to be multiple switches between more than one DJ. In any case, I'm not sure if I like DJing every week.

An interesting side note is that Vishal might be less interested in playing Merengue on Fridays. At one point, it seemed like he was going to forego playing any Merengue before succumbing around 12:40 AM. Maybe he's trying to boost business for Saturday.

Acid - Ray Barretto (1)
Es La Musica - Massimo Scalici (-2%) (2)
Sin Ti - Oliver
Baila Andres - Mezcla Latina (-3%) (3)
Vivo Por Ella - El Rubio Loco
Que Te Pasa - Mario Crespo Martinez
Fragile - Massimo Scalici (4)
Get It Up - Eurocuban Project
With You (Contigo) - Cache (5)
El Pito - Isidro Infante
Amor De Una Noche - N'Klabe
Celia Y Tito - Isidro Infante (6)
Salsa Y Control - Isidro Infante
I Love Salsa - N'Klabe (-2%)
Pecado - Toque D' Keda
Summertime - Ray Barretto (7)
Descarga La Moderna - Ray Barretto (-5%) (8)

Vishal (4-6 Salsa)

Alonzo - Cal Tjader (9)
Abran Paso - Orchestra Harlow (10)
Bongo Loco - Lebron Brothers
Indestructible - Ray Barretto (-5%) (11)
Pa Que Afinquen - Cheo Feliciano (12)
Bailadores (-5%) - Joe Cuba Sextet (13)

(1) Pretty silly. Johnny used a counting track with Acid underneath as the final practice song.
(2) What the heck. I danced to this one.
(3) As well as this one.
(4) And this one. A lot of people danced to this even though my partner (and presumably others) had troubling hearing the beat to this one.
(5) I tried to dance to this one as well. No luck this time. It's popular enough. Vishal wants to borrow it for Battle of the DJs.
(6) I had a nice dance to this one.
(7) There were bunch of ballroom dancers.
(8) Not bad. Up to this point, I think there were no complaints. I was a little bored with Que Te Pasa maybe and Acid was silly.
(9) Possibly disastrous with some people. I am thinking I've lost touch. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if there was no break. Who knows?
(10) Somewhat better, but I don't think this set is going to be good.
(11) Probably the best received of the second set.
(12) For whatever reason, tepid reaction.
(13) Ditto. At least I got to dance to it.

I asked Vishal to play "A Night in Tunisia" by Cal Tjader as request much later in the evening. It was okay but I thought it sounded pretty horrible with the Club Salsa sound system or setting Vishal was using.

The crowd tonight was pretty small. Maybe I'm giving Friday a bad name. We were done by 1:30 AM. My plan for DJing was probably ill-conceived, but a conventional playlist probably would not have made the evening much better. Hmm. What the heck am I saying? The second set was ill conceived given the composition of the crowd - I was just being pig-headed. By the way I noticed that half of the people tonight were ignoring the pace of music most of the time as I mostly stood around and not really seeking out dance partners.

I think I know more or less what to play to keep the crowd happy. I just don't think I could play that way week in and week out without getting completely bored.

p.s. This was meant to be a harsh negative review of my DJing and dancing. The DJing part remained more or less on original target, but dancing part ended up quite a bit more sugar-coated than originally intended.