November 27, 2006
This was the ninth evening in a row involving some sort of dancing; I chose not to write a post about barn dancing on Saturday. I was not particularly enthusiastic about doing yet another Salsa night, but habit won out. It was a rather quiet night – probably not helped by last week and especially yesterday having been so busy.
The instructors today were Joe, Russell and Aiste.
Intermediate with Joe
Theme was called Copa fake – Copa anti-turn
1,2,3,5,6,7 crossed hold R-R on top – open break and bring follower in on R somewhat like Copa with connections together (about chest level and slightly to R of leader’s body) – lead follower back into 1 1/2 clockwise turn with a windmill-like lead (down and up) with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise [I think follower’s footwork may involve making hooking turn step on 6 – but the lead for the turn supposedly comes on 4 – keep connections together as follower’s turn is led]
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower in on L side of leader with R-R draping over follower’s head – R-R will be let go and use L-L low to lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with L-L ending behind follower’s R waist – get free R hand on follower’s L shoulder [this is a Copa fake - see below for a practice from a different easier angle]
1,2,3,5,6,7 use palms of L-L to help lead follower to twist properly on 1 and on 3 – lead follower forward on 5 with free R hand and lead follower into 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn (minimize traveling) with L-L coming up after completion of follower’s first turn … see couple of options next
option 1 Joe’s version – overtake on R side while getting back into closed hold and move around follower on her R side to change follower’s line during next 1,2,3 [some people referred to this as around-the-world] – finish with simple CBL finish on 5,6,7 or one can keep turning as a unit indefinitely
option 2 a version I was trying out a little … I think it’s a reasonable alternative worth practicing given an opportunity – leader turns 1/2 counterclockwise and end with L-L above leader’s L shoulder – bring L-L down while doing L foot cross over behind R foot on 1, then move to L on 2,3 to make a lane for follower while switching to R-L then lead follower into one of many possible versions of 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn or full traveling counterclockwise turn into wrap, etc.
practice of Copa fake above from a different easier angle - crossed hold R-R on top
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break facing follower and bring follower in on R side with R-R draped over follower’s head – keep follower moving in the same direction and use L-L low to lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn so that L-L ends behind follower’s R waist
open hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 start with standard Copa start and lead follower immediately back into 1 1/2 clockwise turn (on 4) with lead coming from R-L low with L-R high simply keeping follower in place and not traveling too much – L-R preferably goes over leader’s head immediately after completion of follower’s turn
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower in on leader’s R side (somewhat like leader’s back side with leader also turning almost 1/2 counterclockwise maybe?) – lead follower forward on 5 and into what amounts to be a simple CBL finish with L-R briefly raised and leader facing away from follower line with R-L behind leader’s L waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and lead follower forward (with leader facing direction follower is headed) and into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with leader moving into the line with clockwise turn with free L hand going over and switching to L-R … there are couple of options here
option 1 – by next 1,2,3 leader make enough of clockwise turn to get into CBL position and finish with simple CBL
option 2 – by next 1,2,3 leader turns enough to end facing away from follower with another switch to end with R-R or R on follower’s R wrist connection – lead follower forward on 5 and into 1 1/2 free counterclockwise traveling turn with leader turning clockwise and getting back into closed hold
I left after a little under an hour. I need more sleep. I won't say that I will try to cut down on how often I go out dancing - I've said it too many times without sticking to it. I probably could do some serious re-write of the Pasion de Invierno (such horrible unsatisfactory writing!), but I probably won't do that either. I'm spending way too much time on this…
Cambridge Salsa event of the year
November 26, 2006
Pasion de Invierno - The CDC Salsa Winter Ball
After a dinner at a bistro near Grafton Center with some co-workers, we walked to University Arms Hotel arriving about 30 minutes late. We found the hotel swarming with kids wearing boxing gloves, which added an interesting atmosphere. Once inside the Newton Suite, I was struck by there being so many people wearing formal dresses (ball gowns, neckties, etc), which made me one of the more casually clothed people in the room.
My original intent was to either skip the class or take one of the easier classes to help out women from my workplace. However, one of the women decided not to show up until much later (in fact she never made it), and there were two other men from work who could help her out. There were other hang-ups too and in the middle of a lull, Sally spotted me and volunteered me into taking part in her level 3 class, which was couple of men short. I was late again, so it took me a moment or two to catch up.
Level 3 class instructed by Sally
R-R hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead double stationary clockwise turn for follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 crossed hold L-L underneath R-R – CBL and lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn ending in something like a wrap
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower straight back on 1,2,3 underneath L-L – lead follower into stationary clockwise turn with R-R over behind leader and with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise (let go L-L briefly)
1,2,3,5,6,7 reconnect L-L open break and Copa with L-L going over and R hand on follower’s shoulder and standard 1 1/2 counterclockwise Copa turn for follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break reconnect R-R underneath and lead follower into full counterclockwise turn on 2,3 with each connections ending above follower’s shoulders – lead follower into touch and go 2 1/2 clockwise traveling turn
1,2,3,5,6,7 drop catch to get R-R underneath L-L open break and lead follower in on leader’s R side – with all connection kept close to each other until 7 or so lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with windmill motion with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise and splitting hands around 7 to get into reverse crucifix (or Titanic or whatever)
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader turns 1/2 clockwise on 1,2,3 as follower is also turned 1/2 clockwise on 2,3 with R-R (L-L briefly let go before reconnecting) and catch L-L to lead follower into stationary counterclockwise turn (I am not sure if this would involve broken left turn for follower)
The university students dominated this event. I am now guessing that quite a number of people who I have seen at Club Salsa during classes must be students. Perhaps I should have guessed that, but I never thought about it very much until now. Aside from people from my workplace, the only people I knew for sure were not with the CDC were the people I recognized from Rhona and Helen’s Rueda group, couple of women I remembered from SOS (I was a little surprised that they would choose to come to Cambridge rather than sticking to SOS), small number of regulars from Club Salsa, some ex-team members (Rico and Drew). My guess is that most people from my work would have felt a little out-of-place in tonight’s setting (although they said they enjoyed the band, etc) – oh well.
One of the thoughts that came to my mind immediately upon entering the Newton Suite was that Cyrille missed out on a really good Cambridge Salsa event – I can’t imagine that it is possible to get any better than this in Cambridge. It might be possible to equal the crowd and the atmosphere, but I really doubt that it can get significantly better. My advice to the CDC would be to stay in the same room and go for another sold-out event or two before moving to a bigger room. Having a crowded floor (the floor space was pretty close to ideal in my opinion) just gave it a great atmosphere – even if it was sometimes difficult to figure out where some of my favorite dance partners were at several different times. In retrospect, it is no surprise that a big non-profit organization like CDC given enough willpower would be in better position to hold top notch Salsa event.
Palenke was excellent. Their first song was a like a baptism by fire – there were so many transitions and tricky bits. They really kept me on my toes. They also played at least one Bachata, one Merengue and at least 3 Cuban songs. Funny thing was that I glanced at the lead singer a few times during this first song and whenever I did this, I saw her looking at me dancing. I also had similar experience with couple of other band members on several other occasions throughout the evening. At the end of the evening, I approached some of the band members and thanked and complimented them for excellent music, and they told me that they had fun watching me dance; they said I had an unusual style (seemingly not in a bad way - although I have yet to see how silly I look) and referred to the fact that I kept changing the way I dance (well… I do try to change things depending on the music and my dance partner – sometimes with more success than others).
There were two wood floors right next to each other; the one on the South side close to the bandstand was nicer and bigger. I generally avoided the one closer to the entrance because of gaps between wooden panels being a potential hazard. The room was also a little on the warm side - I felt I was in danger of dehydration (something I had not had to worry about for a very long time).
In addition to many excellent dances with Euvian, Agnes, Zhenzi and Stephanie (at least two or more likely three dances with each of them - I seem to dance with them so often that I wonder if I will be suffering from dearth of dances partners who know most if not all of my moves when all of them go away for vacation, etc), I had memorable dances with Nina (a very old and nifty sounding song while Ivan was DJing – a gem of a dance after suffering through a Reggaeton), with Isabel (a major spin-fest to a fast (not sure if Ivan slowed it down a little) Indestructible by Ray Barretto – Isabel did not seem mind what many would consider insane amount of spinning), with Nicola (another one of the songs where I caught the Piano player or was it the Conga player checking me and my partner for long parts of the song), with Lindsey (I tried to make the dance more like Sergio’s, but doing so successfully might take years of practice), with Jane (final dance of the evening to Perdoname by Gilberto Santa Rosa – unusual because most dance I had with her this year were dance to Mambo and generally faster songs – thus this made for a big change of pace and was very relaxing). There were also a number of fun dances with Tamaryn (I recall a band member of two checking us out doing a number of extended shines during our first dance – Tamaryn had her back to the band so she would not have noticed – I might also have tried too hard to make some of the later dances with her too irregular (redrawing the line without rhyme or reason many times, etc)); I hadn’t seen Tamaryn in a couple of months… again (well… she seems to have many other obligations on top of studies). Hmm. I probably am sticking my neck out for decapitation – I have been warned that no good will ever come out of talking about how good or bad my dances with specific persons in public. Maybe having a live band, a really great atmosphere and tons of people I know well and like dancing with resulted in many highlights. Olivia was back after close to a year away (and just one dance was not enough to get ourselves readjusted to each other). Thinking about it more, there were bunch of really nice dances earlier in the evening too – Cinzia and Cristelle definitely (I remember them better because I don’t see them regularly) and the only Bachata dance of the evening with Anastasia. Thinking even more, the whole thing was a little ridiculous in that there were probably at least 30 women I would have made strong effort to dance with on a typical night at Club Salsa. As it was, I danced with only a few of them and only because they happened to be at the opportune time and location (or simply because they made the effort to ask me – now that’s one surefire way to get pretty much any male Salsa dancer to the dance floor). I didn’t even dance with the woman from work. I don’t think I danced with Susie either (because she was holding some cards for Sam???). Or Sam (but then again she had tired ankles and wanted to rest them for her dance performance)! I could go on, and I am realizing anew that there are many good reasons to avoid talking about individual dances. There’s no end especially if there are so many. I really should shut up now, and I am going to make minimal effort to make this paragraph readable.
However, there are other things that should be mentioned.
The Salsa demonstration by Sam and Mark was really superb and quite fun to watch. I think we may have a big-time front-runner for this year’s Cuppers competition (I mention this because of a rather prominent appearance made by the Cup) – talking about the Cuppers by the way does not do enough justice. More appropriate statement would be that this raised the bar for future Cambridge Salsa performances if nothing else because Sam and Mark made judicious use of shines and body movement (very common in performances in London and at Brit Salsafest but until now not so in Cambridge). I don’t recall for sure if I made comments about lack of shines at appropriate moments on other performances I have seen (but if I did, maybe Sam and/or Mark read about it and gave it some consideration). More likely it was simply a product of them having become more exposed to the Salsa scene outside Cambridgeshire (e.g. SOS, Scala, Congress) with increased frequency. After congratulating Mark and Sam for a very well-done performance, I went to Ivan and told him that he did a very nice job with choreography – because I assumed that he put most of it together. Not so. Ivan said it was 99% Mark and Sam. This meant that I had to go back to Mark and Sam to compliment them all over again.
The Rock and Roll demonstration by contrast was a bit anticlimactic. Acrobatics was certainly fun and at times scary to watch, but it suffered from lack of musicality. It was a bit of relief that they were putting safety first at one point rather than going on recklessly.
Listening to the single Merengue song played by Palenke helped to confirm in my mind that I do have one or two Merengue songs in some of my CDs. Merengue from 70's... One potential problem - I was asked to dance to this Merengue, and it wasn't clear at all to me that she realized that the song was Merengue (even though the lead singer clearly said it was the only Merengue they will play all night).
I had my CDs with me just in case they asked me to DJ - there was some confusion about it. It was just as well that I didn't for many reasons: most importantly I would have missed out on many dances (I wish I could have danced more); playing for 30 minute slot for a crowd I didn't know well would have been a little challenging (for whatever it's worth I did have several songs on top of my list - Vitamina, El Abaniquito, Malanga Amarilla, La Fiesta de Pilito, and at least one slow Salsa song, and one purely instrumental Salsa/Mambo/Latin Jazz song (newer version of Vietnam Mambo maybe?), possibly two Bachata songs like Musica Ligera and possibly Lamento Boliviano, one Cha Cha/Boogaloo song (Push, Push, Push) … all of these songs would have been picked in large part because of their brevity); and as a matter of principle at least a CDC member discount at the very least. This made absolutely no difference by the way - it was great to have extra time for dancing.
The music ended at midnight. I milled around chatting with people before leaving. I also had difficulty sleeping afterwards. I am going to be so tired on Monday…
Quote of the day - "I saw you checking me out."
It took my breath away - or at least left me at loss for sensible words...
Congratulations for a job very well done to everyone involved. Mark and Sam of course, some of the team members, Sally and Ivan, Caroline and others who did much to sell tickets and other volunteers (incl. Shila at the entrance/admissions) - I probably don't know everyone who helped. This was by far the most spectacular Salsa event I have seen in Cambridge.
Pasion de Invierno - The CDC Salsa Winter Ball
After a dinner at a bistro near Grafton Center with some co-workers, we walked to University Arms Hotel arriving about 30 minutes late. We found the hotel swarming with kids wearing boxing gloves, which added an interesting atmosphere. Once inside the Newton Suite, I was struck by there being so many people wearing formal dresses (ball gowns, neckties, etc), which made me one of the more casually clothed people in the room.
My original intent was to either skip the class or take one of the easier classes to help out women from my workplace. However, one of the women decided not to show up until much later (in fact she never made it), and there were two other men from work who could help her out. There were other hang-ups too and in the middle of a lull, Sally spotted me and volunteered me into taking part in her level 3 class, which was couple of men short. I was late again, so it took me a moment or two to catch up.
Level 3 class instructed by Sally
R-R hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead double stationary clockwise turn for follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 crossed hold L-L underneath R-R – CBL and lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn ending in something like a wrap
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower straight back on 1,2,3 underneath L-L – lead follower into stationary clockwise turn with R-R over behind leader and with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise (let go L-L briefly)
1,2,3,5,6,7 reconnect L-L open break and Copa with L-L going over and R hand on follower’s shoulder and standard 1 1/2 counterclockwise Copa turn for follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break reconnect R-R underneath and lead follower into full counterclockwise turn on 2,3 with each connections ending above follower’s shoulders – lead follower into touch and go 2 1/2 clockwise traveling turn
1,2,3,5,6,7 drop catch to get R-R underneath L-L open break and lead follower in on leader’s R side – with all connection kept close to each other until 7 or so lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with windmill motion with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise and splitting hands around 7 to get into reverse crucifix (or Titanic or whatever)
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader turns 1/2 clockwise on 1,2,3 as follower is also turned 1/2 clockwise on 2,3 with R-R (L-L briefly let go before reconnecting) and catch L-L to lead follower into stationary counterclockwise turn (I am not sure if this would involve broken left turn for follower)
The university students dominated this event. I am now guessing that quite a number of people who I have seen at Club Salsa during classes must be students. Perhaps I should have guessed that, but I never thought about it very much until now. Aside from people from my workplace, the only people I knew for sure were not with the CDC were the people I recognized from Rhona and Helen’s Rueda group, couple of women I remembered from SOS (I was a little surprised that they would choose to come to Cambridge rather than sticking to SOS), small number of regulars from Club Salsa, some ex-team members (Rico and Drew). My guess is that most people from my work would have felt a little out-of-place in tonight’s setting (although they said they enjoyed the band, etc) – oh well.
One of the thoughts that came to my mind immediately upon entering the Newton Suite was that Cyrille missed out on a really good Cambridge Salsa event – I can’t imagine that it is possible to get any better than this in Cambridge. It might be possible to equal the crowd and the atmosphere, but I really doubt that it can get significantly better. My advice to the CDC would be to stay in the same room and go for another sold-out event or two before moving to a bigger room. Having a crowded floor (the floor space was pretty close to ideal in my opinion) just gave it a great atmosphere – even if it was sometimes difficult to figure out where some of my favorite dance partners were at several different times. In retrospect, it is no surprise that a big non-profit organization like CDC given enough willpower would be in better position to hold top notch Salsa event.
Palenke was excellent. Their first song was a like a baptism by fire – there were so many transitions and tricky bits. They really kept me on my toes. They also played at least one Bachata, one Merengue and at least 3 Cuban songs. Funny thing was that I glanced at the lead singer a few times during this first song and whenever I did this, I saw her looking at me dancing. I also had similar experience with couple of other band members on several other occasions throughout the evening. At the end of the evening, I approached some of the band members and thanked and complimented them for excellent music, and they told me that they had fun watching me dance; they said I had an unusual style (seemingly not in a bad way - although I have yet to see how silly I look) and referred to the fact that I kept changing the way I dance (well… I do try to change things depending on the music and my dance partner – sometimes with more success than others).
There were two wood floors right next to each other; the one on the South side close to the bandstand was nicer and bigger. I generally avoided the one closer to the entrance because of gaps between wooden panels being a potential hazard. The room was also a little on the warm side - I felt I was in danger of dehydration (something I had not had to worry about for a very long time).
In addition to many excellent dances with Euvian, Agnes, Zhenzi and Stephanie (at least two or more likely three dances with each of them - I seem to dance with them so often that I wonder if I will be suffering from dearth of dances partners who know most if not all of my moves when all of them go away for vacation, etc), I had memorable dances with Nina (a very old and nifty sounding song while Ivan was DJing – a gem of a dance after suffering through a Reggaeton), with Isabel (a major spin-fest to a fast (not sure if Ivan slowed it down a little) Indestructible by Ray Barretto – Isabel did not seem mind what many would consider insane amount of spinning), with Nicola (another one of the songs where I caught the Piano player or was it the Conga player checking me and my partner for long parts of the song), with Lindsey (I tried to make the dance more like Sergio’s, but doing so successfully might take years of practice), with Jane (final dance of the evening to Perdoname by Gilberto Santa Rosa – unusual because most dance I had with her this year were dance to Mambo and generally faster songs – thus this made for a big change of pace and was very relaxing). There were also a number of fun dances with Tamaryn (I recall a band member of two checking us out doing a number of extended shines during our first dance – Tamaryn had her back to the band so she would not have noticed – I might also have tried too hard to make some of the later dances with her too irregular (redrawing the line without rhyme or reason many times, etc)); I hadn’t seen Tamaryn in a couple of months… again (well… she seems to have many other obligations on top of studies). Hmm. I probably am sticking my neck out for decapitation – I have been warned that no good will ever come out of talking about how good or bad my dances with specific persons in public. Maybe having a live band, a really great atmosphere and tons of people I know well and like dancing with resulted in many highlights. Olivia was back after close to a year away (and just one dance was not enough to get ourselves readjusted to each other). Thinking about it more, there were bunch of really nice dances earlier in the evening too – Cinzia and Cristelle definitely (I remember them better because I don’t see them regularly) and the only Bachata dance of the evening with Anastasia. Thinking even more, the whole thing was a little ridiculous in that there were probably at least 30 women I would have made strong effort to dance with on a typical night at Club Salsa. As it was, I danced with only a few of them and only because they happened to be at the opportune time and location (or simply because they made the effort to ask me – now that’s one surefire way to get pretty much any male Salsa dancer to the dance floor). I didn’t even dance with the woman from work. I don’t think I danced with Susie either (because she was holding some cards for Sam???). Or Sam (but then again she had tired ankles and wanted to rest them for her dance performance)! I could go on, and I am realizing anew that there are many good reasons to avoid talking about individual dances. There’s no end especially if there are so many. I really should shut up now, and I am going to make minimal effort to make this paragraph readable.
However, there are other things that should be mentioned.
The Salsa demonstration by Sam and Mark was really superb and quite fun to watch. I think we may have a big-time front-runner for this year’s Cuppers competition (I mention this because of a rather prominent appearance made by the Cup) – talking about the Cuppers by the way does not do enough justice. More appropriate statement would be that this raised the bar for future Cambridge Salsa performances if nothing else because Sam and Mark made judicious use of shines and body movement (very common in performances in London and at Brit Salsafest but until now not so in Cambridge). I don’t recall for sure if I made comments about lack of shines at appropriate moments on other performances I have seen (but if I did, maybe Sam and/or Mark read about it and gave it some consideration). More likely it was simply a product of them having become more exposed to the Salsa scene outside Cambridgeshire (e.g. SOS, Scala, Congress) with increased frequency. After congratulating Mark and Sam for a very well-done performance, I went to Ivan and told him that he did a very nice job with choreography – because I assumed that he put most of it together. Not so. Ivan said it was 99% Mark and Sam. This meant that I had to go back to Mark and Sam to compliment them all over again.
The Rock and Roll demonstration by contrast was a bit anticlimactic. Acrobatics was certainly fun and at times scary to watch, but it suffered from lack of musicality. It was a bit of relief that they were putting safety first at one point rather than going on recklessly.
Listening to the single Merengue song played by Palenke helped to confirm in my mind that I do have one or two Merengue songs in some of my CDs. Merengue from 70's... One potential problem - I was asked to dance to this Merengue, and it wasn't clear at all to me that she realized that the song was Merengue (even though the lead singer clearly said it was the only Merengue they will play all night).
I had my CDs with me just in case they asked me to DJ - there was some confusion about it. It was just as well that I didn't for many reasons: most importantly I would have missed out on many dances (I wish I could have danced more); playing for 30 minute slot for a crowd I didn't know well would have been a little challenging (for whatever it's worth I did have several songs on top of my list - Vitamina, El Abaniquito, Malanga Amarilla, La Fiesta de Pilito, and at least one slow Salsa song, and one purely instrumental Salsa/Mambo/Latin Jazz song (newer version of Vietnam Mambo maybe?), possibly two Bachata songs like Musica Ligera and possibly Lamento Boliviano, one Cha Cha/Boogaloo song (Push, Push, Push) … all of these songs would have been picked in large part because of their brevity); and as a matter of principle at least a CDC member discount at the very least. This made absolutely no difference by the way - it was great to have extra time for dancing.
The music ended at midnight. I milled around chatting with people before leaving. I also had difficulty sleeping afterwards. I am going to be so tired on Monday…
Quote of the day - "I saw you checking me out."
It took my breath away - or at least left me at loss for sensible words...
Congratulations for a job very well done to everyone involved. Mark and Sam of course, some of the team members, Sally and Ivan, Caroline and others who did much to sell tickets and other volunteers (incl. Shila at the entrance/admissions) - I probably don't know everyone who helped. This was by far the most spectacular Salsa event I have seen in Cambridge.
A Toke D Keda Friday
November 24, 2006
Playlist
La Llave – Grupo Latin Vibe (1)
Brujeria – El Gran Combo (-1%)
Que Bueno Baila Usted – Oscar D’Leon (-1%)
Idilio – Willie Colon (-1%)
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (-1%) (Mamborama version) (2)
Prestame Tu Mujer – Ray Barretto*
Bailando – Frankie Ruiz
Vitamina – Sonora Carruseles (3)*
El Swing De Fruko – Fruko Y Sus Tesos (-3%)
Babarabatiri – Tito Puente
Abran Paso – Orchestra Harlow (Ismael Miranda)
Playa No More – Crystal Sierra (4)
Experto En Ti – Cheo Feliciano*
My Favorite Things – New Swing Sextet
Debo Pensar – Toke D Keda (or Toque De Keda) (5)
Apretoncito – Toke D Keda*
Mambo – Cachao
Descarga La Moderna – Ray Barretto (-4%)
Avisale A Mi Contrario – Roberto Roena*
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (Mambo Birdland version)
Hacha Y Machete – Hector Lavoe (6)
Ven Morena – Oscar D’Leon (-3%)
Negro Esta Cocinando – Los Van Van*
Te Extrano – Toke D Keda*
Musica Ligera – Toke D Keda (7)*
break
La Murga Panamena – Willie Colon (8)**
Salsa Y Control – Isidro Infante (9)
La Fiesta De Pilito – El Gran Combo
Aguadilla – Ray Barretto*
Felices Horas – Hector Lavoe*
Un Verano En Nueva York – El Gran Combo (10)
Fuiste Tu – Toke D Keda* (11)
Lamento Boliviano – Toke D Keda (12) [click link at the bottom of the post]
Tocate – Toke D Keda* (13)
(1) I know I played this as the first song last week too. I might do it again next week.
(2) This one was for the new elderly couple.
(3) Emmnuel seems to like the songs, including and especially this one.
(4) There was a request to play some songs for beginners who were having difficulty. I played this despite the trepidation that Vishal will play it again when he comes in. [note: He did – right away.]
(5) I had Aguadilla by Ray Barretto on before changing my mind.
(6) I had Alejate by Hector Lavoe on before switching to this song instead.
(7) Vishal arrived while Los Van Van was playing. He took over to play a Merengue song followed by… you guessed it! Playa No More!
(8) Vishal had played maybe 4 songs during which I had one dance with Louise (her first dance of the evening too). I was in the middle of a dance with Serap (whom I had not danced with in about a month) when Vishal motioned me over to take over as DJ again. Urgh. I had less than 1 1/2 minute to get a new song ready. I loaded one of my CD to the left CD player on the Numark mixer (the more reliable black CD players not being present). Predictably this CD player had difficulty reading my CD. I eventually ran out of time and simply played next song on Vishal’s CD. It turned out to be this song – not too bad all things considered.
(9) Original choice was El Pito, but I had a second thought after remembering what happened last week. The song skipped a few times near the beginning.
(10) Cyrille liked this song and asked for the song name and the artist. When he realized that it was El Gran Combo, he slapped his head in disbelief. I might also mention that it was the last song I danced to on Wednesday night when Cristian played it – I wasn’t going to miss such an opportunity on a Wednesday, but Cyrille obviously wasn’t paying attention that night.
(11) This might be the weakest playable song by Toke D Keda. I wasn’t going to play it, but…
(12) Then again, I wasn’t going to play this song either. A number of people were singing loudly along as they were dancing! One would have difficult believing that this is for all intents and purpose a very obscure song by an obscure group of musicians.
(13) Well… I suppose there is no need for me to ask me not to write about this on my blog. This song by the way is Reggaeton. I think I greatly amused a couple of people by playing Reggaeton.
Total 34 songs. 27 Salsa (7 new* from my collection and 1 “new”** from Vishal’s CD). 6 Bachata (4 new*). 1 Reggaeton (1 new*). 7 songs by Toke D Keda.
Tonight’s crowd was very nice – very into dancing. There was a very little lull on the dance floor tonight – they seemed to like everything. Probably the biggest misses were Negra Esta Cocinando (despite Johnny’s enthusiastic dance to this song), La Murga Panamena and Salsa Y Control (I think I will blame these on having been caught off guard about coming back to DJ when I did… although I tend to lose the crowd at the start of my second stint pretty much every week). Vishal generally does not have difficulty following my first round of DJing (I like to think that this is because I have the crowd primed well), but I find it difficult to “right the ship” and get the crowd back to where I like them after Vishal has a go at the DJ booth.
I had a great time DJing tonight – no complaints at all. One person came to ask for an easy song for beginners (check). Another asked about Merengue (but just once and Vishal played one soon enough). Luis commented that aside from some weird songs, it was great (I say that people will have to take “weird” or even “bad” with me if they want the “good” stuff too).
Still, having only 1 1/2 dance for the entire evening seemed a bit too extreme. An attempt to dance was aborted because the song turned out to be Merengue – no wait, the worst Merengue song ever! I had a more fun watching other people struggling with this nightmare of Merengue (not to say that I like ANY Merengue, but this one was particularly odious). After skipping another Cuban song (Ping Pong), I finally had another dance – thus bringing the total to 2 2/3.
Quote of the day – “It’s just another Friday. I just come here for the music.”
Thanks. It’s such a nice thing to hear. By the way, while there may not have been many good people to dance with, it really was a nice crowd – many of them seemed happy and very enthusiastic about dancing.
Some new guy asked me when is best Salsa night in Cambridge either near the end of my first DJ session or the beginning of the second session. He also asked whether they have dance competitions, etc. I answered him as best I could. Perhaps we have another good new Salsa dancer in the scene. I didn’t see him dance at all so there is little else to tell (and perhaps I am generating false hype). While there’s no guarantee that he will show up again, I thought he sounded pretty keen about finding a good Salsa night.
Unspoken thought of the day – Just because you can count 1,2,3,5,6,7 to a song does not mean you should or would want to dance Salsa to that song.
Now, back to Toke D Keda - Lamento Boliviano (hopefully this is legal)
Click the play button above to start the song. Make use of the volume control. Enjoy.
Playlist
La Llave – Grupo Latin Vibe (1)
Brujeria – El Gran Combo (-1%)
Que Bueno Baila Usted – Oscar D’Leon (-1%)
Idilio – Willie Colon (-1%)
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (-1%) (Mamborama version) (2)
Prestame Tu Mujer – Ray Barretto*
Bailando – Frankie Ruiz
Vitamina – Sonora Carruseles (3)*
El Swing De Fruko – Fruko Y Sus Tesos (-3%)
Babarabatiri – Tito Puente
Abran Paso – Orchestra Harlow (Ismael Miranda)
Playa No More – Crystal Sierra (4)
Experto En Ti – Cheo Feliciano*
My Favorite Things – New Swing Sextet
Debo Pensar – Toke D Keda (or Toque De Keda) (5)
Apretoncito – Toke D Keda*
Mambo – Cachao
Descarga La Moderna – Ray Barretto (-4%)
Avisale A Mi Contrario – Roberto Roena*
Ran Kan Kan – Tito Puente (Mambo Birdland version)
Hacha Y Machete – Hector Lavoe (6)
Ven Morena – Oscar D’Leon (-3%)
Negro Esta Cocinando – Los Van Van*
Te Extrano – Toke D Keda*
Musica Ligera – Toke D Keda (7)*
break
La Murga Panamena – Willie Colon (8)**
Salsa Y Control – Isidro Infante (9)
La Fiesta De Pilito – El Gran Combo
Aguadilla – Ray Barretto*
Felices Horas – Hector Lavoe*
Un Verano En Nueva York – El Gran Combo (10)
Fuiste Tu – Toke D Keda* (11)
Lamento Boliviano – Toke D Keda (12) [click link at the bottom of the post]
Tocate – Toke D Keda* (13)
(1) I know I played this as the first song last week too. I might do it again next week.
(2) This one was for the new elderly couple.
(3) Emmnuel seems to like the songs, including and especially this one.
(4) There was a request to play some songs for beginners who were having difficulty. I played this despite the trepidation that Vishal will play it again when he comes in. [note: He did – right away.]
(5) I had Aguadilla by Ray Barretto on before changing my mind.
(6) I had Alejate by Hector Lavoe on before switching to this song instead.
(7) Vishal arrived while Los Van Van was playing. He took over to play a Merengue song followed by… you guessed it! Playa No More!
(8) Vishal had played maybe 4 songs during which I had one dance with Louise (her first dance of the evening too). I was in the middle of a dance with Serap (whom I had not danced with in about a month) when Vishal motioned me over to take over as DJ again. Urgh. I had less than 1 1/2 minute to get a new song ready. I loaded one of my CD to the left CD player on the Numark mixer (the more reliable black CD players not being present). Predictably this CD player had difficulty reading my CD. I eventually ran out of time and simply played next song on Vishal’s CD. It turned out to be this song – not too bad all things considered.
(9) Original choice was El Pito, but I had a second thought after remembering what happened last week. The song skipped a few times near the beginning.
(10) Cyrille liked this song and asked for the song name and the artist. When he realized that it was El Gran Combo, he slapped his head in disbelief. I might also mention that it was the last song I danced to on Wednesday night when Cristian played it – I wasn’t going to miss such an opportunity on a Wednesday, but Cyrille obviously wasn’t paying attention that night.
(11) This might be the weakest playable song by Toke D Keda. I wasn’t going to play it, but…
(12) Then again, I wasn’t going to play this song either. A number of people were singing loudly along as they were dancing! One would have difficult believing that this is for all intents and purpose a very obscure song by an obscure group of musicians.
(13) Well… I suppose there is no need for me to ask me not to write about this on my blog. This song by the way is Reggaeton. I think I greatly amused a couple of people by playing Reggaeton.
Total 34 songs. 27 Salsa (7 new* from my collection and 1 “new”** from Vishal’s CD). 6 Bachata (4 new*). 1 Reggaeton (1 new*). 7 songs by Toke D Keda.
Tonight’s crowd was very nice – very into dancing. There was a very little lull on the dance floor tonight – they seemed to like everything. Probably the biggest misses were Negra Esta Cocinando (despite Johnny’s enthusiastic dance to this song), La Murga Panamena and Salsa Y Control (I think I will blame these on having been caught off guard about coming back to DJ when I did… although I tend to lose the crowd at the start of my second stint pretty much every week). Vishal generally does not have difficulty following my first round of DJing (I like to think that this is because I have the crowd primed well), but I find it difficult to “right the ship” and get the crowd back to where I like them after Vishal has a go at the DJ booth.
I had a great time DJing tonight – no complaints at all. One person came to ask for an easy song for beginners (check). Another asked about Merengue (but just once and Vishal played one soon enough). Luis commented that aside from some weird songs, it was great (I say that people will have to take “weird” or even “bad” with me if they want the “good” stuff too).
Still, having only 1 1/2 dance for the entire evening seemed a bit too extreme. An attempt to dance was aborted because the song turned out to be Merengue – no wait, the worst Merengue song ever! I had a more fun watching other people struggling with this nightmare of Merengue (not to say that I like ANY Merengue, but this one was particularly odious). After skipping another Cuban song (Ping Pong), I finally had another dance – thus bringing the total to 2 2/3.
Quote of the day – “It’s just another Friday. I just come here for the music.”
Thanks. It’s such a nice thing to hear. By the way, while there may not have been many good people to dance with, it really was a nice crowd – many of them seemed happy and very enthusiastic about dancing.
Some new guy asked me when is best Salsa night in Cambridge either near the end of my first DJ session or the beginning of the second session. He also asked whether they have dance competitions, etc. I answered him as best I could. Perhaps we have another good new Salsa dancer in the scene. I didn’t see him dance at all so there is little else to tell (and perhaps I am generating false hype). While there’s no guarantee that he will show up again, I thought he sounded pretty keen about finding a good Salsa night.
Unspoken thought of the day – Just because you can count 1,2,3,5,6,7 to a song does not mean you should or would want to dance Salsa to that song.
Now, back to Toke D Keda - Lamento Boliviano (hopefully this is legal)
Click the play button above to start the song. Make use of the volume control. Enjoy.
More festivities on a Thursday night
November 23, 2006
Intermediate/Advanced combined? with Sally
L-R hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower in and lead her into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with R hand on follower’s L shoulder with leader turning full clockwise on the spot as follower is finishing her traveling turn to end with L-R ending up on follower’s L shoulder and R hand preferably on or underneath follower’s R arm close to her shoulder
1,2,3,5,6,7 allow follower to step backwards on 1 as both of leader’s hands get under each of follower’s arm so that her arms can be tossed upwards (to get her arms into diving position or similar) on 2 – move to follower’s L side as follower’s is led straight backwards on 5,6,7 with hands on follower’s waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 using R hand on follower’s R waist, lead follower into doing a hook turn behind leader on 1,2,3 – then lead follower forward on leader’s left side and into a 1 1/2 traveling clockwise turn – get back into closed hold and…
1,2,3,5,6,7 into closed hold and simple CBL end with R-R hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead a touch-and-go double turn for follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader turns 1/2 clockwise with L-L high briefly and bring all connections down to waist level – while keeping follower in place, first establish L-R on leader’s L waist followed by connecting R-L on leader’s R waist [but do not shake hips and do the Macarena]
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower under arm on leader’s L side – then lead follower straight back into traveling full counterclockwise turn with L-R low to get L-R behind follower’s L waist and switch to R-R
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer L hand in front to establish L-L while getting into CBL and lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn with leader almost overtaking on her R side to get ready to place follower into handcuffed position
1,2,3,5,6,7 get follower into handcuffed position but instead of getting around follower counterclockwise completely, return to original position by 3 – lead follower to step forward on 5 and then lead follower straight back into a counterclockwise (?) turn (more or less stationary turn) using L-L for the lead with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise to end with L-L over leader’s L shoulder
1,2,3,5,6,7 do the SuperMario’s version of bringing L-L down and switching to R-L behind leader’s back while moving to L of follower, then lead follower into 1 1/2 free traveling counterclockwise turn [note: tonight’s class version focused mostly on getting to the L side of follower whereas SuperMario’s version involves a slight step to R with a crossing over behind R foot on 1 - this might help with bringing down L-L smoother]
I was a bit late once again. It looked like the Intermediate and Advanced classes were combined.
For the social part of the evening, I started off dancing with three or so people from second hour’s class. Then the pattern changed quite a bit as Merecumbe (presumably the Los Titanes version) came on and I asked Nicola to dance with me. This started off a series of increasingly experimental freestyle dances, which reached their height of nuttiness with Stephanie and Agnes. In fact I told Agnes in our last dance together that I was going to try to confuse her as much as possible (as well as confuse myself – within seconds of making this statement, I managed to confuse her by a very dodgy/hesitant/uncertain lead… On the whole what I did was not to lead anything out of ordinary (I didn’t even lead a broken left turn) but to try to lead from as many different angles and with many changes of the line… also the number of multiple spins were significantly greater than usual). What I did not tell Agnes was that the dance before the last one was arguably more bizarre; for the much of the song, I was watching Sergio dance with Lindsey and tried to imitate their turn patterns one bar of music later (without too much success of course). Needless to say, it made the dance a bit silly and probably highly confusing for Agnes (perhaps it's a wonder that she agreed to dance with me again to the song that came on immediately thereafter).
Cyrille’s birthday dance happened fairly early in the evening. El Pito played by Isidro Infante was used. Jane started as Cyrille’s first partner. After having been accused of being responsible for spreading the information by Sergio, I thought I might as well complete my part by prompting various women at the club to take part in the birthday dance. I think all in all, 7 people took part. Most gave token resistance to taking part, but some others declined or resisted mightily. In particular Stephanie, who is as slam-dunk candidate to take part in this dance (Rajiv obviously had the same thought), was very difficult to convince; I thought I used up more energy trying to drag her onto the dance floor than I would usually spend having a fairly intense dance. In the end, she did dance with him but only for 3-4 bars of music at the very end of the song.
The most amusing sight was Steve and Adam dancing as if they were conjoined twins. I have seen them do a three-some dances before, but the way they did it tonight had an extra twist - they were arm-in-arm with each other with one leading with his left hand while the other led with his right hand. I suppose the effect for the follower was somewhat akin to dancing with someone with a very wide body. Hmm. That sounds a little gross whereas the overall effect in fact was cute rather than grotesque in my opinion. It certainly succeeded in starting a small Rueda circle. I thought someone was inspired by this to use the term Stevadam at the end of the evening (which then led to people trying to combine Cyrille and Sergio into Cyrillio).
After watching one of many dances between Ivan and Nina, I asked Ivan, "How many years have you been dancing with each other?" Ivan gave an oblique answer, "Many years."
By the way, either Agnes or Stephanie (or both maybe?) told me that I had to convince Cyrille to come to the CDC party on Sunday. Speaking of the CDC party, I failed to purchase tickets for myself and others from my workplace because somebody (let's give him/her a pseudonym - Marx) had a "gig" in London. Now I have to go through rigors of writing a personal cheque and then go on a quest to hand deliver the precious cheque to a distant fortress guarded by a fearsome maiden magician-warrior.
Factoid of the day - This was the first time I was told not to mention something that happened tonight by someone using a microphone.
The evening ended shortly after midnight with people still milling about and not in a hurry to leave (with Liam being one of the notable exception - he has work to do… then again just the fact that he showed up again would suggest that his opinion of Cambridge Salsa has changed a bit, no?).
I probably will hate the way this post is written, but I have spent too much time writing it as is. Oh well.
Intermediate/Advanced combined? with Sally
L-R hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower in and lead her into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with R hand on follower’s L shoulder with leader turning full clockwise on the spot as follower is finishing her traveling turn to end with L-R ending up on follower’s L shoulder and R hand preferably on or underneath follower’s R arm close to her shoulder
1,2,3,5,6,7 allow follower to step backwards on 1 as both of leader’s hands get under each of follower’s arm so that her arms can be tossed upwards (to get her arms into diving position or similar) on 2 – move to follower’s L side as follower’s is led straight backwards on 5,6,7 with hands on follower’s waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 using R hand on follower’s R waist, lead follower into doing a hook turn behind leader on 1,2,3 – then lead follower forward on leader’s left side and into a 1 1/2 traveling clockwise turn – get back into closed hold and…
1,2,3,5,6,7 into closed hold and simple CBL end with R-R hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead a touch-and-go double turn for follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader turns 1/2 clockwise with L-L high briefly and bring all connections down to waist level – while keeping follower in place, first establish L-R on leader’s L waist followed by connecting R-L on leader’s R waist [but do not shake hips and do the Macarena]
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower under arm on leader’s L side – then lead follower straight back into traveling full counterclockwise turn with L-R low to get L-R behind follower’s L waist and switch to R-R
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer L hand in front to establish L-L while getting into CBL and lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn with leader almost overtaking on her R side to get ready to place follower into handcuffed position
1,2,3,5,6,7 get follower into handcuffed position but instead of getting around follower counterclockwise completely, return to original position by 3 – lead follower to step forward on 5 and then lead follower straight back into a counterclockwise (?) turn (more or less stationary turn) using L-L for the lead with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise to end with L-L over leader’s L shoulder
1,2,3,5,6,7 do the SuperMario’s version of bringing L-L down and switching to R-L behind leader’s back while moving to L of follower, then lead follower into 1 1/2 free traveling counterclockwise turn [note: tonight’s class version focused mostly on getting to the L side of follower whereas SuperMario’s version involves a slight step to R with a crossing over behind R foot on 1 - this might help with bringing down L-L smoother]
I was a bit late once again. It looked like the Intermediate and Advanced classes were combined.
For the social part of the evening, I started off dancing with three or so people from second hour’s class. Then the pattern changed quite a bit as Merecumbe (presumably the Los Titanes version) came on and I asked Nicola to dance with me. This started off a series of increasingly experimental freestyle dances, which reached their height of nuttiness with Stephanie and Agnes. In fact I told Agnes in our last dance together that I was going to try to confuse her as much as possible (as well as confuse myself – within seconds of making this statement, I managed to confuse her by a very dodgy/hesitant/uncertain lead… On the whole what I did was not to lead anything out of ordinary (I didn’t even lead a broken left turn) but to try to lead from as many different angles and with many changes of the line… also the number of multiple spins were significantly greater than usual). What I did not tell Agnes was that the dance before the last one was arguably more bizarre; for the much of the song, I was watching Sergio dance with Lindsey and tried to imitate their turn patterns one bar of music later (without too much success of course). Needless to say, it made the dance a bit silly and probably highly confusing for Agnes (perhaps it's a wonder that she agreed to dance with me again to the song that came on immediately thereafter).
Cyrille’s birthday dance happened fairly early in the evening. El Pito played by Isidro Infante was used. Jane started as Cyrille’s first partner. After having been accused of being responsible for spreading the information by Sergio, I thought I might as well complete my part by prompting various women at the club to take part in the birthday dance. I think all in all, 7 people took part. Most gave token resistance to taking part, but some others declined or resisted mightily. In particular Stephanie, who is as slam-dunk candidate to take part in this dance (Rajiv obviously had the same thought), was very difficult to convince; I thought I used up more energy trying to drag her onto the dance floor than I would usually spend having a fairly intense dance. In the end, she did dance with him but only for 3-4 bars of music at the very end of the song.
The most amusing sight was Steve and Adam dancing as if they were conjoined twins. I have seen them do a three-some dances before, but the way they did it tonight had an extra twist - they were arm-in-arm with each other with one leading with his left hand while the other led with his right hand. I suppose the effect for the follower was somewhat akin to dancing with someone with a very wide body. Hmm. That sounds a little gross whereas the overall effect in fact was cute rather than grotesque in my opinion. It certainly succeeded in starting a small Rueda circle. I thought someone was inspired by this to use the term Stevadam at the end of the evening (which then led to people trying to combine Cyrille and Sergio into Cyrillio).
After watching one of many dances between Ivan and Nina, I asked Ivan, "How many years have you been dancing with each other?" Ivan gave an oblique answer, "Many years."
By the way, either Agnes or Stephanie (or both maybe?) told me that I had to convince Cyrille to come to the CDC party on Sunday. Speaking of the CDC party, I failed to purchase tickets for myself and others from my workplace because somebody (let's give him/her a pseudonym - Marx) had a "gig" in London. Now I have to go through rigors of writing a personal cheque and then go on a quest to hand deliver the precious cheque to a distant fortress guarded by a fearsome maiden magician-warrior.
Factoid of the day - This was the first time I was told not to mention something that happened tonight by someone using a microphone.
The evening ended shortly after midnight with people still milling about and not in a hurry to leave (with Liam being one of the notable exception - he has work to do… then again just the fact that he showed up again would suggest that his opinion of Cambridge Salsa has changed a bit, no?).
I probably will hate the way this post is written, but I have spent too much time writing it as is. Oh well.
Album Review - Version 2.0 by Toke D Keda (Bachata)
Artist: Toke D Keda (aka Toque De Keda)
Album: Version 2.0
As can be gleaned from the album title, this is the second full album of sorts for this band. Their first album was called Picando Alante or Te Extrano (same album essentially - different album title). I say that it is a second full album of sorts in part because three of the songs from their first album are included in Version 2.0 without any changes. First, the song titles include…
1. Fuiste Tu
2. Apretoncito
3. Tocate
4. Bajo La Luna
5. Dame Lo Que Quiero
6. Machachita
7. Recordare
8. Musica Ligera
9. Lamento Boliviano
10. Debo Pensar
11. Te Extrano
12. Debo Pensar (remix)
Fuiste Tu is their first Bachata "single," and it apparently reached #1 in Italian Bachata chart - whatever it means. It starts with a telephone ring - a possible homage to Obsesion (Aventura). While I feel that Fuiste Tu is certainly nice enough song to be played for dancing, there are better songs such as Apretoncito and Musica Ligera. My opinion is that Musica Ligera is their best new song.
Three songs that were included in their first album are Lamento Boliviano (their signature hit as far as dancers are concerned), Debo Pensar (I played this couple of times at Club Salsa), and Te Extrano. All three of these songs had been listed as one of one of 10 Bachata songs in my collection back in February by me. Te Extrano is the only one of the original 10 not to have been played by me (or anyone else for that matter) in Cambridge to date.
Another way of seeing it is that Version 2.0 lacks 3 other so-called playable Bachata songs in Picando Alante: Pecado, No Me Resigno, and Quiero Hacerto el Amor.
One more notable item about Version 2.0 is that it has 3 Reggaeton tracks: Tocate, Bajo La Luna and Dame Lo Que Quiero. I am even less of an expert in Reggaeton than in Bachata (this is after all only the fourth album containing Bachata for me), but I didn't think that these songs were any worse than many of the Reggaeton songs, which gets played all the time at Club Salsa.
With a caveat that I am speaking from perspective of someone who doesn't know the Bachata scene very much, I find both of Toque De Keda (or Toke D Keda) albums to be more listenable throughout compared to other Bachata CDs I have. Perhaps this is because their songs tend to have more energy (helped in part by incorporation of hip hop into their songs) compared to mostly sappy romantic material found in other Bachata artists. Another possible reason is that their music seems to result from a strong group effort rather than being dominated by the vocalist headliner(s). Dominic Marte has some good songs, but I couldn't sit through his entire album. Listening to admittedly rather limited sampling of some of other big Bachata artists I found on the web did not make me think that other Bachata artists are any better (even if they are bigger names).
With a caveat that I have no idea how one might go about buying this album (I purchased my autographed copy from Tony Lara, and he probably has more - For the band members in Miami reading this, you should work on better a distribution method), I would recommend it to any Bachata fan in Cambridge (especially if they don't have their first album already).
--
Update - January, 2007
According to Jalen (one of the band members), the real version 2.0 will be in stores in 2007 with a total of 11 songs including 3 more bachatas no one's heard yet. The album I have is a limited edition (tour) preview CD.
Album: Version 2.0
As can be gleaned from the album title, this is the second full album of sorts for this band. Their first album was called Picando Alante or Te Extrano (same album essentially - different album title). I say that it is a second full album of sorts in part because three of the songs from their first album are included in Version 2.0 without any changes. First, the song titles include…
1. Fuiste Tu
2. Apretoncito
3. Tocate
4. Bajo La Luna
5. Dame Lo Que Quiero
6. Machachita
7. Recordare
8. Musica Ligera
9. Lamento Boliviano
10. Debo Pensar
11. Te Extrano
12. Debo Pensar (remix)
Fuiste Tu is their first Bachata "single," and it apparently reached #1 in Italian Bachata chart - whatever it means. It starts with a telephone ring - a possible homage to Obsesion (Aventura). While I feel that Fuiste Tu is certainly nice enough song to be played for dancing, there are better songs such as Apretoncito and Musica Ligera. My opinion is that Musica Ligera is their best new song.
Three songs that were included in their first album are Lamento Boliviano (their signature hit as far as dancers are concerned), Debo Pensar (I played this couple of times at Club Salsa), and Te Extrano. All three of these songs had been listed as one of one of 10 Bachata songs in my collection back in February by me. Te Extrano is the only one of the original 10 not to have been played by me (or anyone else for that matter) in Cambridge to date.
Another way of seeing it is that Version 2.0 lacks 3 other so-called playable Bachata songs in Picando Alante: Pecado, No Me Resigno, and Quiero Hacerto el Amor.
One more notable item about Version 2.0 is that it has 3 Reggaeton tracks: Tocate, Bajo La Luna and Dame Lo Que Quiero. I am even less of an expert in Reggaeton than in Bachata (this is after all only the fourth album containing Bachata for me), but I didn't think that these songs were any worse than many of the Reggaeton songs, which gets played all the time at Club Salsa.
With a caveat that I am speaking from perspective of someone who doesn't know the Bachata scene very much, I find both of Toque De Keda (or Toke D Keda) albums to be more listenable throughout compared to other Bachata CDs I have. Perhaps this is because their songs tend to have more energy (helped in part by incorporation of hip hop into their songs) compared to mostly sappy romantic material found in other Bachata artists. Another possible reason is that their music seems to result from a strong group effort rather than being dominated by the vocalist headliner(s). Dominic Marte has some good songs, but I couldn't sit through his entire album. Listening to admittedly rather limited sampling of some of other big Bachata artists I found on the web did not make me think that other Bachata artists are any better (even if they are bigger names).
With a caveat that I have no idea how one might go about buying this album (I purchased my autographed copy from Tony Lara, and he probably has more - For the band members in Miami reading this, you should work on better a distribution method), I would recommend it to any Bachata fan in Cambridge (especially if they don't have their first album already).
--
Update - January, 2007
According to Jalen (one of the band members), the real version 2.0 will be in stores in 2007 with a total of 11 songs including 3 more bachatas no one's heard yet. The album I have is a limited edition (tour) preview CD.
Time and time again
November 22, 2006
Beep beep. My phone made a noise to let me know that I had a message, “Hey, it is Cyrille’s Bday tomorrow, so few of us thought of having dinner with him at 730 this evening at Brown’s. Can you make it?” The message was from Zern. I texted him back asking whether the dinner was tonight or tomorrow. Then I looked at timepiece on my phone, which said it was 1800. Hmm. Only about an hour or so to finish work… This is cutting it close…
Zern texted back within minutes to confirm that it was tonight. Well… I certainly did not want to miss this one. As I went about my task of getting the barest minimum amount of work that needed to be tended to, I soon realized that it was only 5:15 or so rather than 6:15. I had not changed my clock to adjust for the end of daylight savings hour; some years I go through the whole winter without changing any of my clocks.
I was the last to arrive; I left work at 7:15 and ended up parking some distance away from the restaurant. At the table were some of my best friends in the Cambridge Salsa scene: Sergio, Mimi, Euvian, Zern and the birthday boy Cyrille. I’ll leave out details of what transpired at dinner except to say that merry times were had by all with everyone feeling free to say silly, outrageous and mean things to each other in an affectionate manner. It was hard to believe that I have known these people (except for Sergio) for less than a year (as well as the fact that we probably won’t stay as a group for a very long time – our time in Cambridge will seem so fleeting when it's over). Was it really just 8-9 months ago when Mimi, Cyrille and I were conversing during a lull after one of the classes, and Cyrille proposed that three of us should start up a Salsa school? By the way I wasn’t going to write about the dinner at all except we ended up going to Club Salsa afterwards – predictable, aren’t we?
I was less than fully prepared for dancing; I was wearing what could qualify as hiking boots and glasses. The latter is something of a health hazard when dancing (even Ivan, who sometimes uses his glasses as a prop, has been seen to get his glasses knocked out of his face by his dance partners in middle of her spins). Sergio too was less than fully prepared (glasses and wet shoes) while Mimi claimed to have wrong shoes and wrong outfit (I thought she looked great, but then again she always looks great). Euvian on the other hand seemed more prepared (well… I think it was she who brought the cake).
We arrived at Club Salsa around 10:30 or shortly thereafter. Agnes, Stephanie and Nina were present, as well as Nicola and Susie. Generally I kept my dances simple for myself (because of my heavy shoes) – meaning in this case that I made my partner do more work. The exception was with Mimi, who earlier said she didn’t have appropriate shoes for spinning (of course, there’s no need to spin the girls a lot to have a nice fun enjoyable dance).
Towards the end, it looked like Mimi, who was perhaps the most reluctant to go dancing tonight (this girl really has a lot of things on her plate – she plans to get up at 3 in the morning tomorrow for her classwork or something), was the last among us to leave the dance floor. And then Cristian put on Un Verano En Nueva York (El Gran Combo), which prompted me to get Stephanie on the dance floor and spin her around like mad – perhaps leading a pair of double-quadruple turns. I think I was a bit out of control, but Stephanie fortunately was willing and able to put up with me. Thus I ended up being the last one among my original party on the dance floor.
Cristian played a few Bachata songs while we were there, and I was gratified to see many from yesterday’s class using the routine taught yesterday to a nice effect.
On the drive back, Mimi saw that my car clock read 12:45 and lamented that she knew she was going to end up staying too late before Sergio and I told her that my clock was one hour early. Also on the same drive, Sergio mentioned that he received his message from Zern around 3 and that he too was confused about the date of the dinner. When I finally got home, I checked Zern’s original message again. It was sent at 1:40. So my building being very efficient at blocking mobile phone signals apparently made it seem like I was getting the invitation at the last minute. I guess I was lucky that the signal became strong enough when it did so that I did receive the message before whenever I would have left work otherwise. I guess I wasn’t meant to get a lot of work done this week.
I believe everyone at Club Salsa was aware or by the end of the evening became aware that tomorrow is Cyrille’s Bday. Everyone else will be clued in soon enough.
Exchange of the day (not exact… but it would take too long to try to get a full transcript) – “Why would you want to go to Istanbul in June?” “Why not?”
I had a song going through my head during this exchange...
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night
Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way
So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks
Istanbul (abridged)
They Might Be Giants
Beep beep. My phone made a noise to let me know that I had a message, “Hey, it is Cyrille’s Bday tomorrow, so few of us thought of having dinner with him at 730 this evening at Brown’s. Can you make it?” The message was from Zern. I texted him back asking whether the dinner was tonight or tomorrow. Then I looked at timepiece on my phone, which said it was 1800. Hmm. Only about an hour or so to finish work… This is cutting it close…
Zern texted back within minutes to confirm that it was tonight. Well… I certainly did not want to miss this one. As I went about my task of getting the barest minimum amount of work that needed to be tended to, I soon realized that it was only 5:15 or so rather than 6:15. I had not changed my clock to adjust for the end of daylight savings hour; some years I go through the whole winter without changing any of my clocks.
I was the last to arrive; I left work at 7:15 and ended up parking some distance away from the restaurant. At the table were some of my best friends in the Cambridge Salsa scene: Sergio, Mimi, Euvian, Zern and the birthday boy Cyrille. I’ll leave out details of what transpired at dinner except to say that merry times were had by all with everyone feeling free to say silly, outrageous and mean things to each other in an affectionate manner. It was hard to believe that I have known these people (except for Sergio) for less than a year (as well as the fact that we probably won’t stay as a group for a very long time – our time in Cambridge will seem so fleeting when it's over). Was it really just 8-9 months ago when Mimi, Cyrille and I were conversing during a lull after one of the classes, and Cyrille proposed that three of us should start up a Salsa school? By the way I wasn’t going to write about the dinner at all except we ended up going to Club Salsa afterwards – predictable, aren’t we?
I was less than fully prepared for dancing; I was wearing what could qualify as hiking boots and glasses. The latter is something of a health hazard when dancing (even Ivan, who sometimes uses his glasses as a prop, has been seen to get his glasses knocked out of his face by his dance partners in middle of her spins). Sergio too was less than fully prepared (glasses and wet shoes) while Mimi claimed to have wrong shoes and wrong outfit (I thought she looked great, but then again she always looks great). Euvian on the other hand seemed more prepared (well… I think it was she who brought the cake).
We arrived at Club Salsa around 10:30 or shortly thereafter. Agnes, Stephanie and Nina were present, as well as Nicola and Susie. Generally I kept my dances simple for myself (because of my heavy shoes) – meaning in this case that I made my partner do more work. The exception was with Mimi, who earlier said she didn’t have appropriate shoes for spinning (of course, there’s no need to spin the girls a lot to have a nice fun enjoyable dance).
Towards the end, it looked like Mimi, who was perhaps the most reluctant to go dancing tonight (this girl really has a lot of things on her plate – she plans to get up at 3 in the morning tomorrow for her classwork or something), was the last among us to leave the dance floor. And then Cristian put on Un Verano En Nueva York (El Gran Combo), which prompted me to get Stephanie on the dance floor and spin her around like mad – perhaps leading a pair of double-quadruple turns. I think I was a bit out of control, but Stephanie fortunately was willing and able to put up with me. Thus I ended up being the last one among my original party on the dance floor.
Cristian played a few Bachata songs while we were there, and I was gratified to see many from yesterday’s class using the routine taught yesterday to a nice effect.
On the drive back, Mimi saw that my car clock read 12:45 and lamented that she knew she was going to end up staying too late before Sergio and I told her that my clock was one hour early. Also on the same drive, Sergio mentioned that he received his message from Zern around 3 and that he too was confused about the date of the dinner. When I finally got home, I checked Zern’s original message again. It was sent at 1:40. So my building being very efficient at blocking mobile phone signals apparently made it seem like I was getting the invitation at the last minute. I guess I was lucky that the signal became strong enough when it did so that I did receive the message before whenever I would have left work otherwise. I guess I wasn’t meant to get a lot of work done this week.
I believe everyone at Club Salsa was aware or by the end of the evening became aware that tomorrow is Cyrille’s Bday. Everyone else will be clued in soon enough.
Exchange of the day (not exact… but it would take too long to try to get a full transcript) – “Why would you want to go to Istanbul in June?” “Why not?”
I had a song going through my head during this exchange...
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night
Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way
So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks
Istanbul (abridged)
They Might Be Giants
Tony Lara IV cancelled?
November 21, 2006
Over a phone call around noon, Tony and I agreed to meet for a bite to eat at Sauce at 6 before the start of the class. I arrived at 5:58 according to the clock in my car. After a brief runaround to find a working ATM (the first one was out of service), I hurried back to the Sauce.
Odd. There was no sign of Tony. Last three times, he was almost exactly on time. After 5-10 minutes, I decided to go into Sauce by myself and have a drink – probably J2O Orange Cranberry. At 6:40, there was still no sign of Tony and Daniela. Around 6:30, I tried calling the number Tony used to call me earlier in the day. This number led to someone who was involved with BritSalsafest – obviously not Tony’s personal number. Tony’s Italian phone number was not in service. Ditto for the mobile phone Tony used during his last visit. Having finished my drink for a while now, I decided not to stay for another drink by myself (although I did notice that there were couple of people dining by himself at the Sauce).
Instead of freezing myself, I decided to hang out at Tandoori Station Restaurant and chat a little with Bulbul (no idea if I have his name spelled correctly). There was a customer doing a takeaway, and I sat down in the chair she was using when she left with her order. A little later, Vishal apparently got in contact with people at the restaurant to let me know that he was running a little late as well. My thoughts included – (1) This was not a type of disaster I had expected (I was more prepared for very small number of people showing up for the class) and (2) Serious car accidents happen and can very easily explain why Tony had not contacted me (cases in point – Sally and Lindsey this summer and Piers in a fatal crash last fall) and (3) It would be easy to avoid getting roped into hosting another major Salsa/Bachata event if this one turned disastrous. I twiddled my thumbs as three groups of customers walked in – a pair of women with reservations arrived first, followed by a walk-in couple and finally an elderly trio.
Around 7:10, I stepped out of Tandoori Station Restaurant. Almost immediately, Sergio and Natalie arrived, and I let them know of the situation. While they went to get a snack, Vishal opened Club Salsa. Same talk again. One of the first to arrive was Lindsey and the same talk happened again with predictable “I know about that” when I mentioned my car accident theory. As more and more people filed in, I had them wait downstairs without collecting money (after all, it was looking as if a cancellation was a distinct possibility).
At 7:25, my phone rang. It’s Tony. His car is in Cambridge. There was a massive traffic jam, and it took him 4 hours to get to Cambridge (from London presumably). He’ll be arriving in 5-10 minutes tops. Apparently, Tony had sent a text earlie but to a wrong number. I breathed a sigh of relief, and then scrambled to collect money, etc.
Surprisingly large number of people was there for the first hour of lesson advertised as intermediate level already, and it looked like I wasn’t going to lose serious amount of money. I couldn’t recognize quite a large number of people, which lead me to wonder, “Where did these people come from?” Of four people I ended up speaking to verbally about the Bachata class, two (Sergio and Cyrille) came – I did not see Sean around for past several days so he’s not one of the four. Everyone else either heard about the event via internet (this blog, Club Salsa website and Cambridge Latin Dance website) or via posters and fliers at Club Salsa (distributed by Vishal mostly) or methods unknown to me (mostly word-of-mouth presumably). In the end, I did break even after giving what might have been amounted to a 10 pound profit to Vishal.
Tony & Daniela Improver/Intermediate Bachata
zig zag step (more for women – given in men’s timing here)
1 twist to L with L foot pointing to L (but turning momentum apparently comes in part from R foot)
2 twist to R with R foot pointing to R
3 twist to L with L foot pointing to L
4 pause or Bachata hip movement
5 twist to R with R foot pointing to R
6 twist to L with L foot pointing to L
7 twist to R with R foot pointing to R
8 pause or Bachata hip movement
syncopated step (more for men) – this was covered once before
1,2,3 basic movement to L
4 R foot behind L and R foot slightly forward on 4 1/2
5,6,7 basic movement to R
8 L foot behind R and L foot slightly forward on 8 1/2
reverse turn (traveling)
the turn timing is the same as normal turning step but it is more like a long hook step (using R or L foot depending on timing …. turn starts on 2 by the way)
turn pattern
1,2,3,4 basic to L
5,6,7,8 lead normal traveling turn for follower
1,2,3,4 leader opens up to start with and do a fake turn (only turning about 1/4) with L-R going over leader’s head for what is essentially a drop-catch or slam dunk (using Joe’s terminology) – after the fake turn leader is essentially stepping forward facing the direction he (and his partner) is moving towards – ends with R-R hold
5,6,7,8 lead follower into traveling turn with R-R – finish with R-R extended high and catch L-L low
1,2,3,4 lead follower into traveling turn with both connections intact (but not keeping hands together as often is the case in Salsa turn patterns) – end with L-L behind leader’s head (like a hat)
5,6,7,8 leader’s normal traveling turn letting go L-L briefly to get L-L behind leader’s back R waist
1,2,3,4 something Joe would have called the Matrix movement to swing follower’s arms in alternating circular movement with L-R ending high
5,6,7,8 lead normal traveling turn for follower with L-R and end with follower positioned to L of leader
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 lead follower to walk around leader in a counterclockwise walk (with pauses on 4 and 8 of course)
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 dip (swerving)
Total number of people taking part in the classes was around 36. Perhaps another dozen and half people showed up after the class for a dance.
A good number of people were impressed enough to inquire when they will be teaching again. Natalie for one was disappointed to learn that they won’t be back next week and that this would not be a regular ongoing class. Cyrille seemed satisfied too – his assessment was that it was a little slow at first but an enjoyable turn pattern for the second half or so. Sam on the other hand seemed mildly disappointed about it being a little too easy; although my thought was that the turn pattern for the second half was just as intricate as any of the previous Bachata classes given by Tony. I can't imagine that Sergio was enthralled although he might have gotten something out in terms of trying some simple but different basic footwork for Bachata (e.g. syncopated basic). Perhaps she was remembering the Salsa classes given last two times, which made the classes last 2 whole hours for those who were taking both Bachata and Salsa classes (as opposed to there being little point in taking 2 hours of classes given tonight’s format). It probably didn't help that Tony called the class improver level. Because of shortage of men for the second class, some men from the first hour’s class took part in it as well (and presumably received varying degree of useful practice).
I had a very good night of dancing. Somehow I ended up getting away with mixing up my turn patterns with large number of people. Perhaps the afterglow of SOS somehow survived last night largely unscathed. Even though I had a pair of very nice dances with Daniela (one Salsa and one Bachata), they did not stand out as being “totally out there” compared to many other dances I had tonight. One of the more amusing moment included having Daniela remembering Tony’s Salsa class material from last time in the middle of the dance – I guess the pattern in question is something that sticks out in Daniela’s mind as something fairly unique (or perhaps one of favorite patterns) of Tony’s.
Tony tried to talk me into going to another Salsa event involving a Banquet in Kent this Saturday but I had to decline because of another engagement (Barn dancing!). It's rather far away (south of London), but it could have been interesting to see a new place, share a dinner table with the featured guests, etc. So the next time I’ll see him would be on the night of the Scala (with the LDA social as a possible complicating factor).
Among other things, I purchased a new Toque D' Keda (or Toke D Keda) CD. Vish declined to get a copy claiming that he already had one. Tony seemed a little surprised as he commented, "They just came out." I certainly don't remember Vishal playing a new song by the band, but he does have a slow trigger. I don't know how or where I would have gone about buying this CD. It does have 3 songs from their first album, so that could be a possible source of confusion. In any case expect something new this Friday. I might write something about the album in another post too. Perhaps something on his DVD vols 2 and 3 too.
Trends in music. While chatting with Tony, Vishal said that he was tired of too much Mambo. Too much Mambo at Congresses. Too much Mambo at all-nighters like Scala. Mambo nothing but Mambo. Tony nodded and said that it gets to be too much sometimes. He also said that everyone wants more and more Mambo in Europe too. I chimed in towards the end saying, "I like Mambo."
Apparently Danielle is doing a student dance performance at her school - possibly using Mambo Mongo (among other songs). This led to me and Tony talking about songs from 70's and remakes of the same songs in 90s and 00s (with key question of whether the new covers add something or not).
Tony's music collection. As I remembered from last couple of times, Tony has his CDs organized into various categories. There would be some 8 or so CDs containing Bachata songs. Perhaps a dozen CDs labeled Cubana. Dozen or so CDs labeled SalsaBrava (these would include artists like Joe Cuba). While briefly manning the DJ booth, I noticed that he also was carrying both CD releases by Grupo Latin Vibe, so I played La Llave (I thought it matched the sound quality of what was being played at the time). When Tony asked me whether it was my CD (it stopped inexplicably for a second or two at about 10 second after starting), I said I had both CDs in my collection but that I was using his CD. Tony decided to play another Grupo Latin Vibe song later in the evening. When I was at the DJ booth, I was simply playing whatever song was on cue next. The only other time I made a musical choice was using La Quiero (by Dominic Marte). Much of what was played was from Tony's Cubana collection - with smooth sounds. One song I remember being played towards the end was a mellow sounding cover of Manos Duras (original artist is Ray Barretto).
When asked about possible recommendations for Bachata CDs, Tony said that the same problem of there being only one good song in each album existed in Bachata - just like it usually is in Salsa. Toke D Keda (or Toque De Keda or whatever) CD he brought with him was recommended. He also talked about an R&B Bachata fusion song to be released as a part of another Salsa.IT compilation to be released in about a month.
So will there be Tony Lara V? Thus far I more or less broke even on even numbered events and lost a lot of money on odd numbered ones - this reminds me of Star Trek movies. For better or worse, tonight's event did not give me an easy out; many loved it according to Vishal. In addition to ones I mentioned earlier, people like Rajiv always shows appreciation for me doing this sort of thing and presumably would want me to continue. Well. Whatever happens will happen, and I did get away with spending fairly small amount of time organizing Tony Lara IV.
Quote of the day - "Does he like dancing??? Just look at his dancing shoes! They are shoes of someone who loves dancing!" - Daniela speaking to Tony
I knew I wasn't the only person checking out kind of shoes people wear. I swear I never did this before I took up Salsa dancing.
Over a phone call around noon, Tony and I agreed to meet for a bite to eat at Sauce at 6 before the start of the class. I arrived at 5:58 according to the clock in my car. After a brief runaround to find a working ATM (the first one was out of service), I hurried back to the Sauce.
Odd. There was no sign of Tony. Last three times, he was almost exactly on time. After 5-10 minutes, I decided to go into Sauce by myself and have a drink – probably J2O Orange Cranberry. At 6:40, there was still no sign of Tony and Daniela. Around 6:30, I tried calling the number Tony used to call me earlier in the day. This number led to someone who was involved with BritSalsafest – obviously not Tony’s personal number. Tony’s Italian phone number was not in service. Ditto for the mobile phone Tony used during his last visit. Having finished my drink for a while now, I decided not to stay for another drink by myself (although I did notice that there were couple of people dining by himself at the Sauce).
Instead of freezing myself, I decided to hang out at Tandoori Station Restaurant and chat a little with Bulbul (no idea if I have his name spelled correctly). There was a customer doing a takeaway, and I sat down in the chair she was using when she left with her order. A little later, Vishal apparently got in contact with people at the restaurant to let me know that he was running a little late as well. My thoughts included – (1) This was not a type of disaster I had expected (I was more prepared for very small number of people showing up for the class) and (2) Serious car accidents happen and can very easily explain why Tony had not contacted me (cases in point – Sally and Lindsey this summer and Piers in a fatal crash last fall) and (3) It would be easy to avoid getting roped into hosting another major Salsa/Bachata event if this one turned disastrous. I twiddled my thumbs as three groups of customers walked in – a pair of women with reservations arrived first, followed by a walk-in couple and finally an elderly trio.
Around 7:10, I stepped out of Tandoori Station Restaurant. Almost immediately, Sergio and Natalie arrived, and I let them know of the situation. While they went to get a snack, Vishal opened Club Salsa. Same talk again. One of the first to arrive was Lindsey and the same talk happened again with predictable “I know about that” when I mentioned my car accident theory. As more and more people filed in, I had them wait downstairs without collecting money (after all, it was looking as if a cancellation was a distinct possibility).
At 7:25, my phone rang. It’s Tony. His car is in Cambridge. There was a massive traffic jam, and it took him 4 hours to get to Cambridge (from London presumably). He’ll be arriving in 5-10 minutes tops. Apparently, Tony had sent a text earlie but to a wrong number. I breathed a sigh of relief, and then scrambled to collect money, etc.
Surprisingly large number of people was there for the first hour of lesson advertised as intermediate level already, and it looked like I wasn’t going to lose serious amount of money. I couldn’t recognize quite a large number of people, which lead me to wonder, “Where did these people come from?” Of four people I ended up speaking to verbally about the Bachata class, two (Sergio and Cyrille) came – I did not see Sean around for past several days so he’s not one of the four. Everyone else either heard about the event via internet (this blog, Club Salsa website and Cambridge Latin Dance website) or via posters and fliers at Club Salsa (distributed by Vishal mostly) or methods unknown to me (mostly word-of-mouth presumably). In the end, I did break even after giving what might have been amounted to a 10 pound profit to Vishal.
Tony & Daniela Improver/Intermediate Bachata
zig zag step (more for women – given in men’s timing here)
1 twist to L with L foot pointing to L (but turning momentum apparently comes in part from R foot)
2 twist to R with R foot pointing to R
3 twist to L with L foot pointing to L
4 pause or Bachata hip movement
5 twist to R with R foot pointing to R
6 twist to L with L foot pointing to L
7 twist to R with R foot pointing to R
8 pause or Bachata hip movement
syncopated step (more for men) – this was covered once before
1,2,3 basic movement to L
4 R foot behind L and R foot slightly forward on 4 1/2
5,6,7 basic movement to R
8 L foot behind R and L foot slightly forward on 8 1/2
reverse turn (traveling)
the turn timing is the same as normal turning step but it is more like a long hook step (using R or L foot depending on timing …. turn starts on 2 by the way)
turn pattern
1,2,3,4 basic to L
5,6,7,8 lead normal traveling turn for follower
1,2,3,4 leader opens up to start with and do a fake turn (only turning about 1/4) with L-R going over leader’s head for what is essentially a drop-catch or slam dunk (using Joe’s terminology) – after the fake turn leader is essentially stepping forward facing the direction he (and his partner) is moving towards – ends with R-R hold
5,6,7,8 lead follower into traveling turn with R-R – finish with R-R extended high and catch L-L low
1,2,3,4 lead follower into traveling turn with both connections intact (but not keeping hands together as often is the case in Salsa turn patterns) – end with L-L behind leader’s head (like a hat)
5,6,7,8 leader’s normal traveling turn letting go L-L briefly to get L-L behind leader’s back R waist
1,2,3,4 something Joe would have called the Matrix movement to swing follower’s arms in alternating circular movement with L-R ending high
5,6,7,8 lead normal traveling turn for follower with L-R and end with follower positioned to L of leader
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 lead follower to walk around leader in a counterclockwise walk (with pauses on 4 and 8 of course)
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 dip (swerving)
Total number of people taking part in the classes was around 36. Perhaps another dozen and half people showed up after the class for a dance.
A good number of people were impressed enough to inquire when they will be teaching again. Natalie for one was disappointed to learn that they won’t be back next week and that this would not be a regular ongoing class. Cyrille seemed satisfied too – his assessment was that it was a little slow at first but an enjoyable turn pattern for the second half or so. Sam on the other hand seemed mildly disappointed about it being a little too easy; although my thought was that the turn pattern for the second half was just as intricate as any of the previous Bachata classes given by Tony. I can't imagine that Sergio was enthralled although he might have gotten something out in terms of trying some simple but different basic footwork for Bachata (e.g. syncopated basic). Perhaps she was remembering the Salsa classes given last two times, which made the classes last 2 whole hours for those who were taking both Bachata and Salsa classes (as opposed to there being little point in taking 2 hours of classes given tonight’s format). It probably didn't help that Tony called the class improver level. Because of shortage of men for the second class, some men from the first hour’s class took part in it as well (and presumably received varying degree of useful practice).
I had a very good night of dancing. Somehow I ended up getting away with mixing up my turn patterns with large number of people. Perhaps the afterglow of SOS somehow survived last night largely unscathed. Even though I had a pair of very nice dances with Daniela (one Salsa and one Bachata), they did not stand out as being “totally out there” compared to many other dances I had tonight. One of the more amusing moment included having Daniela remembering Tony’s Salsa class material from last time in the middle of the dance – I guess the pattern in question is something that sticks out in Daniela’s mind as something fairly unique (or perhaps one of favorite patterns) of Tony’s.
Tony tried to talk me into going to another Salsa event involving a Banquet in Kent this Saturday but I had to decline because of another engagement (Barn dancing!). It's rather far away (south of London), but it could have been interesting to see a new place, share a dinner table with the featured guests, etc. So the next time I’ll see him would be on the night of the Scala (with the LDA social as a possible complicating factor).
Among other things, I purchased a new Toque D' Keda (or Toke D Keda) CD. Vish declined to get a copy claiming that he already had one. Tony seemed a little surprised as he commented, "They just came out." I certainly don't remember Vishal playing a new song by the band, but he does have a slow trigger. I don't know how or where I would have gone about buying this CD. It does have 3 songs from their first album, so that could be a possible source of confusion. In any case expect something new this Friday. I might write something about the album in another post too. Perhaps something on his DVD vols 2 and 3 too.
Trends in music. While chatting with Tony, Vishal said that he was tired of too much Mambo. Too much Mambo at Congresses. Too much Mambo at all-nighters like Scala. Mambo nothing but Mambo. Tony nodded and said that it gets to be too much sometimes. He also said that everyone wants more and more Mambo in Europe too. I chimed in towards the end saying, "I like Mambo."
Apparently Danielle is doing a student dance performance at her school - possibly using Mambo Mongo (among other songs). This led to me and Tony talking about songs from 70's and remakes of the same songs in 90s and 00s (with key question of whether the new covers add something or not).
Tony's music collection. As I remembered from last couple of times, Tony has his CDs organized into various categories. There would be some 8 or so CDs containing Bachata songs. Perhaps a dozen CDs labeled Cubana. Dozen or so CDs labeled SalsaBrava (these would include artists like Joe Cuba). While briefly manning the DJ booth, I noticed that he also was carrying both CD releases by Grupo Latin Vibe, so I played La Llave (I thought it matched the sound quality of what was being played at the time). When Tony asked me whether it was my CD (it stopped inexplicably for a second or two at about 10 second after starting), I said I had both CDs in my collection but that I was using his CD. Tony decided to play another Grupo Latin Vibe song later in the evening. When I was at the DJ booth, I was simply playing whatever song was on cue next. The only other time I made a musical choice was using La Quiero (by Dominic Marte). Much of what was played was from Tony's Cubana collection - with smooth sounds. One song I remember being played towards the end was a mellow sounding cover of Manos Duras (original artist is Ray Barretto).
When asked about possible recommendations for Bachata CDs, Tony said that the same problem of there being only one good song in each album existed in Bachata - just like it usually is in Salsa. Toke D Keda (or Toque De Keda or whatever) CD he brought with him was recommended. He also talked about an R&B Bachata fusion song to be released as a part of another Salsa.IT compilation to be released in about a month.
So will there be Tony Lara V? Thus far I more or less broke even on even numbered events and lost a lot of money on odd numbered ones - this reminds me of Star Trek movies. For better or worse, tonight's event did not give me an easy out; many loved it according to Vishal. In addition to ones I mentioned earlier, people like Rajiv always shows appreciation for me doing this sort of thing and presumably would want me to continue. Well. Whatever happens will happen, and I did get away with spending fairly small amount of time organizing Tony Lara IV.
Quote of the day - "Does he like dancing??? Just look at his dancing shoes! They are shoes of someone who loves dancing!" - Daniela speaking to Tony
I knew I wasn't the only person checking out kind of shoes people wear. I swear I never did this before I took up Salsa dancing.
Calm before the storm – on the eve of Tony Lara IV
November 20, 2006
Intermediate with Joe
1,2,3,5,6,7 crossed hold R-R on top – Copa with both connections going over – lead follower into Copa 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn with windmill motion – traveling is minimal for follower – leader turns full clockwise at the same time as follower’s final turn [note: This was by far the most difficult bit – no one in the class came close to finishing the 1 1/2 turn in time with some finishing it as late as on next 3, 4 or even 5. Not even Joe was managing to lead this in class at anything resembling normal speed by the way. It’s certainly not an impossible move; I might have seen some other people (maybe Rajiv) lead something very similar if not identical to this move.]
1,2,3,5,6,7 [This part is not that bad except it requires that previous move be finished on time. Because the connections are so tangled, there is no obvious alternate entry that I could think of] leader turns 1/2 clockwise and brings L-L down to R chest level on 1,2 then turns 1/2 counterclockwise on 3 as L-L is briefly released and reconnected underneath R-R on 3 – R-R is draped over follower’s head on 5 (like a hat but keep the connection) [in an accelerated version, follower is then brought forward into Cuban walk (thus 1/2 clockwise traveling turn) with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise to get into reverse crucifix position)]
The draping over part can be started on 1, and the other parts should be fairly easy to do if so. In fact, I don’t think the move is that difficult even if draping is started on 5 – it just needs some practice. In any case, it’s worth thinking about in terms of breaking down the components into easier bits before trying the most difficult version demonstrated today.
In any case… after the reverse crucifix…
1,2,3,5,6,7 men’s shine from semi-open position (reverse crucifix) cross over walks LRL RLR with a 1/2 clockwise turn on 7,8
1,2,3,5,6,7 double hat for follower on 1,2,3 to get back to closed postion
Joe suggested that this move (centered around men’s shine) is nice when piano does a little crescendo…
starting with crossed hold R-R on top and ending with R-R on top
1,2,3,5,6,7
option 1. lead a touch-and-go double turn with extra touch-and-go at the end
option 2. lead a single turn for follower with leader turning full clockwise at the end keeping all connection intact throughout
option 3. lead a touch-and-go double turn for follower with leader turning full clockwise at the end keeping all connections intact throughout
crossed hold with R-R on top
1,2,3,5,6,7 Copa with R-R going over – lead follower into Copa turn by lowering R-R (pulling the zipper move) to get R-R behind follower’s L waist
R-R behind follower’s L waist
option 1
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer L in front of follower’s face – into CBL – use R-R to lead follower forward and let go only after 5 – use L-L to lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn (leader should be able to get back into the original position at the end)
option 2
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer L in front of follower’s face – into CBL – lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn (overturning her a bit at the end) and start to overtake from the R side (from leader’s perspective) on 7 in preparation for bringing follower’s L hand behind her R waist (while keeping R-R behind her L waist – I think I had referred to this position once as straighjacket position, but I suppose something like a reverse straightjacket or handcuffed position would be more appropriate)
1,2,3
easy option 2a – simply get around 1/2 by 3/4 (this would mean 2 full turns for follower starting from previous 1)
more challenging option 2b – get around completely (full walk) by 3/4 and in the process turning follower a further 1/2 counterclockwise (this would mean 2 1/2 turns for follower starting from previous 1)
5,6,7 lead follower into 1 1/2 unwrapping counterclockwise traveling turn with L-L connection intact (kept low)
note on shines
Triple spiral
minimize those kicks or at least make movements smaller and subtler – when the kick is made like a real kick and especially with R foot caught flat-footed, the movement appears to lose a lot of grace.
name (it’s been around a while but I didn’t know how exactly it went til now)
1,2,3,5 basic Mambo
6 L foot forward and slightly to R
7 R foot on toe crossed behind L
8 R foot slightly back
1 L foot in front of R foot (crossed in front of)
2 R foot slightly back
3 L foot on toe crossed in front of R
4 L foot slightly forward
5 R foot behind L (crossed behind)
6 L foot slightly forward
7 R foot behind L
8 L foot bunny hop
1 basic Mambo
Apparently this is Tiz’s last class at Club Salsa for foreseeable future. According to Joe, Nicky [Price, probably] will substitute for Tiz. Russell will be back at some point. Adam Leilani probably will come back now and then too.
While the overall number of students seemed no different, the number of more experienced followers has dropped considerably over past several weeks. With caveat that there were people who have been learning Salsa for longer duration of time, Susie probably was the most experienced follower in class tonight – or at least the person who could follow the most number of turn patterns I can lead.
Possibly many people stayed away tonight in anticipation of busy week this week. There’s the Bachata event tomorrow. some people will have the Salsa team practice on Wednesday (and an outing to Club Salsa thereafter for some), Thursdays have been a strong night of dancing for some time now, and the CDC Salsa ball will be held on Sunday. It was a little regrettable that I couldn’t make any use of residual aftereffect of having had a good SOS trip yesterday. The contrast between SOS yesterday and Club Salsa tonight was stark. Then again, the class especially during the first hour was brutal and my legs were feeling quite tired by the end of the second hour. Also I was feeling a bit sleepy as well.
It was amusing to note that the frequency of declines I get for a dance from strangers in London or in Cambridge on a given night is still about the same (arguably higher in Cambridge).
Intermediate with Joe
1,2,3,5,6,7 crossed hold R-R on top – Copa with both connections going over – lead follower into Copa 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn with windmill motion – traveling is minimal for follower – leader turns full clockwise at the same time as follower’s final turn [note: This was by far the most difficult bit – no one in the class came close to finishing the 1 1/2 turn in time with some finishing it as late as on next 3, 4 or even 5. Not even Joe was managing to lead this in class at anything resembling normal speed by the way. It’s certainly not an impossible move; I might have seen some other people (maybe Rajiv) lead something very similar if not identical to this move.]
1,2,3,5,6,7 [This part is not that bad except it requires that previous move be finished on time. Because the connections are so tangled, there is no obvious alternate entry that I could think of] leader turns 1/2 clockwise and brings L-L down to R chest level on 1,2 then turns 1/2 counterclockwise on 3 as L-L is briefly released and reconnected underneath R-R on 3 – R-R is draped over follower’s head on 5 (like a hat but keep the connection) [in an accelerated version, follower is then brought forward into Cuban walk (thus 1/2 clockwise traveling turn) with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise to get into reverse crucifix position)]
The draping over part can be started on 1, and the other parts should be fairly easy to do if so. In fact, I don’t think the move is that difficult even if draping is started on 5 – it just needs some practice. In any case, it’s worth thinking about in terms of breaking down the components into easier bits before trying the most difficult version demonstrated today.
In any case… after the reverse crucifix…
1,2,3,5,6,7 men’s shine from semi-open position (reverse crucifix) cross over walks LRL RLR with a 1/2 clockwise turn on 7,8
1,2,3,5,6,7 double hat for follower on 1,2,3 to get back to closed postion
Joe suggested that this move (centered around men’s shine) is nice when piano does a little crescendo…
starting with crossed hold R-R on top and ending with R-R on top
1,2,3,5,6,7
option 1. lead a touch-and-go double turn with extra touch-and-go at the end
option 2. lead a single turn for follower with leader turning full clockwise at the end keeping all connection intact throughout
option 3. lead a touch-and-go double turn for follower with leader turning full clockwise at the end keeping all connections intact throughout
crossed hold with R-R on top
1,2,3,5,6,7 Copa with R-R going over – lead follower into Copa turn by lowering R-R (pulling the zipper move) to get R-R behind follower’s L waist
R-R behind follower’s L waist
option 1
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer L in front of follower’s face – into CBL – use R-R to lead follower forward and let go only after 5 – use L-L to lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn (leader should be able to get back into the original position at the end)
option 2
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer L in front of follower’s face – into CBL – lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn (overturning her a bit at the end) and start to overtake from the R side (from leader’s perspective) on 7 in preparation for bringing follower’s L hand behind her R waist (while keeping R-R behind her L waist – I think I had referred to this position once as straighjacket position, but I suppose something like a reverse straightjacket or handcuffed position would be more appropriate)
1,2,3
easy option 2a – simply get around 1/2 by 3/4 (this would mean 2 full turns for follower starting from previous 1)
more challenging option 2b – get around completely (full walk) by 3/4 and in the process turning follower a further 1/2 counterclockwise (this would mean 2 1/2 turns for follower starting from previous 1)
5,6,7 lead follower into 1 1/2 unwrapping counterclockwise traveling turn with L-L connection intact (kept low)
note on shines
Triple spiral
minimize those kicks or at least make movements smaller and subtler – when the kick is made like a real kick and especially with R foot caught flat-footed, the movement appears to lose a lot of grace.
name (it’s been around a while but I didn’t know how exactly it went til now)
1,2,3,5 basic Mambo
6 L foot forward and slightly to R
7 R foot on toe crossed behind L
8 R foot slightly back
1 L foot in front of R foot (crossed in front of)
2 R foot slightly back
3 L foot on toe crossed in front of R
4 L foot slightly forward
5 R foot behind L (crossed behind)
6 L foot slightly forward
7 R foot behind L
8 L foot bunny hop
1 basic Mambo
Apparently this is Tiz’s last class at Club Salsa for foreseeable future. According to Joe, Nicky [Price, probably] will substitute for Tiz. Russell will be back at some point. Adam Leilani probably will come back now and then too.
While the overall number of students seemed no different, the number of more experienced followers has dropped considerably over past several weeks. With caveat that there were people who have been learning Salsa for longer duration of time, Susie probably was the most experienced follower in class tonight – or at least the person who could follow the most number of turn patterns I can lead.
Possibly many people stayed away tonight in anticipation of busy week this week. There’s the Bachata event tomorrow. some people will have the Salsa team practice on Wednesday (and an outing to Club Salsa thereafter for some), Thursdays have been a strong night of dancing for some time now, and the CDC Salsa ball will be held on Sunday. It was a little regrettable that I couldn’t make any use of residual aftereffect of having had a good SOS trip yesterday. The contrast between SOS yesterday and Club Salsa tonight was stark. Then again, the class especially during the first hour was brutal and my legs were feeling quite tired by the end of the second hour. Also I was feeling a bit sleepy as well.
It was amusing to note that the frequency of declines I get for a dance from strangers in London or in Cambridge on a given night is still about the same (arguably higher in Cambridge).
Planes, trains and automobiles
November 19, 2006
Commuting can be stressful and exhausting, and having a car can save a lot of hassle. When one becomes used to having a car, it is very easy to become dependent on the car to the point of it becoming a near necessity rather than luxury – even if it really is luxury. Long and tiring commute certainly claimed Cyrille as its victim this weekend and prevented him from joining Sergio and me for a trip to SOS.
Driving to SOS is not really faster in winter compared to taking a train thanks to Londoners driving back after their weekend holidays (but not staying later because of earlier sunset) and causing heavy traffic around the time when it is convenient to travel to SOS. As we were making plans to leave for SOS, I thus told Sergio that it would be faster by train on the way to SOS, but that it would be faster by car on the way back - we took my car anyway and risk a long trip a.k.a. a test drive. The traffic tonight was a little worse than usual. It did not help that I missed an exit on A12 and that I failed to find a parking spot quickly when we finally arrived. Thus we arrived only shortly before 9 PM – Liam who had a later start from Cambridge arrived at SOS before we did so he obtained ammunition to tease me more about my driving, etc.
One other mishap had to do with my iPod battery. Shortly before I left work to have dinner before picking up Sergio, I noticed that my batteries were running low. I charged the batteries during what little time I had while at work. When I arrived home, I plugged my iPod to my laptop thinking that this would help to recharge the battery as well. Unfortunately, I learned that my laptop drains power from iPod if the computer is not turned on (or if the laptop is in sleep mode and is closed shut). Thus whatever amount of charging I did at work, which probably would have been sufficient for the drive there and back, was ruined. However, it did mean there was even more lively conversation than usual on the drive back.
Because the social hour at SOS only lasts 2 1/2 hours at most, losing almost an hour is pretty significant. Losing another 10 minutes because of a birthday dance for Miriam and a freestyle Salsa demonstration by the reigning winners of a World Salsa Championship held at Las Vegas felt even more precious than it might have been otherwise.
To make matters worse, the DJ predictably played the best songs for these two private dances. The two songs were La Palomilla by Joe Cuba Sextet and Abaniquito originally written by Tito Puente … but I am unsure whose version was played. Incidentally another version of Abaniquito was played earlier in the evening, but the version played for the Salsa champions was a nicer version. Incidentally the DJ started playing Indestructible by Ray Barretto before switching to Abaniquito when the pair requested that a more danceable track be played instead.
I have no idea what was played during the first hour, but from 9 to 9:45 (or the first half of our stay) was dominated by sappy songs whereas the second half lasting from approximately 9:45 to 10:10 and 10:20 to 10:30 was a bit better. The DJ was Robert of Mambo City.
A comment made by Sergio on the drive back was along the lines of “I used to think the commute to SOS was worthwhile. But compared to what’s at Cambridge nowadays, it is not so obvious anymore.” I suggested that this had to do with Cambridge now having better people to dance with as well as improvement in the quality of music.
As for me, I had a quite good time despite the brevity of the time available for dancing. With couple of exceptions, none of the people I danced with were people I have danced with more than 2-3 times in the past. A few partners were completely new. Overall the quality of my dances and my followers was noticeably higher than it had been in my last several trips. It goes without saying that it’s nice to have good dances with people you haven’t danced with before. It’s better when it happens several times in a course of a day – this is something that never happens in Cambridge (in fact, finding one new highly enjoyable dance partner in a week is worth a minor celebration in Cambridge… I think the frequency has been well under one per month this year).
Despite having many really nice dances, the biggest highlight by far had to be the last dance of the evening - with Martina. Towards the end of this dance I couldn’t help but laugh continuously because I couldn’t believe my luck. Typically I would be scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last dance at SOS because there typically would be no one obvious (and sometimes no one period) to dance with. In last half year or so, the only time I had a nice dance partner for the final song at SOS was the time when I took Agnes with me – I didn’t dance with Agnes for the last dance but lucked into finding someone who was pretty good. Martina on the other hand… I am just glad that I finished the dance without embarrassing myself in anyway by having any awkward collisions or piss-poor leads and by keeping her at least mildly entertained throughout. Despite having danced with quite a number of good dancers tonight, she had noticeably better control and more elegance in her movements (as well as being a superb follower in general). Perhaps her aura of haughtiness and inapproachability (at least as felt by me in the past – not that I have gotten over it even now) helped me this time around. It was just bonus/gravy that the last song was also nice although not particularly memorable.
Another highlight would be getting a handshake from Mauro during middle of his dance shortly after arrival. He might have been showing off by demonstrating how cool and relaxed he is to take a full bar of music for a handshake. That’s second time in a row he seemed to go out of his way to be friendly to me. No complaints from here – it’s always nice when people are being nice with me. Other friendly greetings were made with Sean (who let me know about an upcoming plans at the LDA including a social on Dec 23rd and that LDA will be running drop-in classes as opposed to 6-week courses from Nov 21st to Dec 20th - presumably because they figured that holiday season will make 6-week session difficult for most people), Tamambo and several women from the LDA classes.
While the drive to London was dominated by music and conversations about music, the drive back was more freewheeling and with a lot of banters, gossips and nutty ideas. One story Sergio told me about was about a connection he made between a party at St Ives recently and Eva (of Mauro and Eva fame). Apparently after being tossed around by whole lot of men at the St. Ives party, Eva apparently approached Sergio (presumably because she recognized him from SOS) and started a conversation with him. Sergio apparently didn’t know who she was and apparently made generic replies and/or nodded blankly to whatever she was saying. Tonight on his way out, he received a flier advertising one of her (and Mauro’s) class. Then and only then, Sergio realized that Eva who was talking to him at St. Ives was the Eva at SOS. I told Sergio that there probably are not too many UK Salsa dancers, whom Eva would have recognized but would have failed to recognize her in return. I don’t think heavier makeup and costume is enough of an excuse. I suppose I had that one night where I didn’t know that I was chatting with Janet Fuentes of Lady Salsa fame, but this is not a fair comparison.
I also tried to twist Sergio’s arm once again regarding the Tuesday’s Bachata event – being quite heavy handed at times. Sergio said he will mention Bachata night to Natalie and see if she’d be interested. By the way, one of the fliers I was handed on the way out of SOS advertised an all-dayer event with Tony Lara & Daniela De Francesco and Palanke prominently featured on it; Tony obviously will be here on Tuesday while Palenke (dubbed the #1 Latin band in the UK) will be playing Sunday at the CDC event.
Commuting can be stressful and exhausting, and having a car can save a lot of hassle. When one becomes used to having a car, it is very easy to become dependent on the car to the point of it becoming a near necessity rather than luxury – even if it really is luxury. Long and tiring commute certainly claimed Cyrille as its victim this weekend and prevented him from joining Sergio and me for a trip to SOS.
Driving to SOS is not really faster in winter compared to taking a train thanks to Londoners driving back after their weekend holidays (but not staying later because of earlier sunset) and causing heavy traffic around the time when it is convenient to travel to SOS. As we were making plans to leave for SOS, I thus told Sergio that it would be faster by train on the way to SOS, but that it would be faster by car on the way back - we took my car anyway and risk a long trip a.k.a. a test drive. The traffic tonight was a little worse than usual. It did not help that I missed an exit on A12 and that I failed to find a parking spot quickly when we finally arrived. Thus we arrived only shortly before 9 PM – Liam who had a later start from Cambridge arrived at SOS before we did so he obtained ammunition to tease me more about my driving, etc.
One other mishap had to do with my iPod battery. Shortly before I left work to have dinner before picking up Sergio, I noticed that my batteries were running low. I charged the batteries during what little time I had while at work. When I arrived home, I plugged my iPod to my laptop thinking that this would help to recharge the battery as well. Unfortunately, I learned that my laptop drains power from iPod if the computer is not turned on (or if the laptop is in sleep mode and is closed shut). Thus whatever amount of charging I did at work, which probably would have been sufficient for the drive there and back, was ruined. However, it did mean there was even more lively conversation than usual on the drive back.
Because the social hour at SOS only lasts 2 1/2 hours at most, losing almost an hour is pretty significant. Losing another 10 minutes because of a birthday dance for Miriam and a freestyle Salsa demonstration by the reigning winners of a World Salsa Championship held at Las Vegas felt even more precious than it might have been otherwise.
To make matters worse, the DJ predictably played the best songs for these two private dances. The two songs were La Palomilla by Joe Cuba Sextet and Abaniquito originally written by Tito Puente … but I am unsure whose version was played. Incidentally another version of Abaniquito was played earlier in the evening, but the version played for the Salsa champions was a nicer version. Incidentally the DJ started playing Indestructible by Ray Barretto before switching to Abaniquito when the pair requested that a more danceable track be played instead.
I have no idea what was played during the first hour, but from 9 to 9:45 (or the first half of our stay) was dominated by sappy songs whereas the second half lasting from approximately 9:45 to 10:10 and 10:20 to 10:30 was a bit better. The DJ was Robert of Mambo City.
A comment made by Sergio on the drive back was along the lines of “I used to think the commute to SOS was worthwhile. But compared to what’s at Cambridge nowadays, it is not so obvious anymore.” I suggested that this had to do with Cambridge now having better people to dance with as well as improvement in the quality of music.
As for me, I had a quite good time despite the brevity of the time available for dancing. With couple of exceptions, none of the people I danced with were people I have danced with more than 2-3 times in the past. A few partners were completely new. Overall the quality of my dances and my followers was noticeably higher than it had been in my last several trips. It goes without saying that it’s nice to have good dances with people you haven’t danced with before. It’s better when it happens several times in a course of a day – this is something that never happens in Cambridge (in fact, finding one new highly enjoyable dance partner in a week is worth a minor celebration in Cambridge… I think the frequency has been well under one per month this year).
Despite having many really nice dances, the biggest highlight by far had to be the last dance of the evening - with Martina. Towards the end of this dance I couldn’t help but laugh continuously because I couldn’t believe my luck. Typically I would be scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last dance at SOS because there typically would be no one obvious (and sometimes no one period) to dance with. In last half year or so, the only time I had a nice dance partner for the final song at SOS was the time when I took Agnes with me – I didn’t dance with Agnes for the last dance but lucked into finding someone who was pretty good. Martina on the other hand… I am just glad that I finished the dance without embarrassing myself in anyway by having any awkward collisions or piss-poor leads and by keeping her at least mildly entertained throughout. Despite having danced with quite a number of good dancers tonight, she had noticeably better control and more elegance in her movements (as well as being a superb follower in general). Perhaps her aura of haughtiness and inapproachability (at least as felt by me in the past – not that I have gotten over it even now) helped me this time around. It was just bonus/gravy that the last song was also nice although not particularly memorable.
Another highlight would be getting a handshake from Mauro during middle of his dance shortly after arrival. He might have been showing off by demonstrating how cool and relaxed he is to take a full bar of music for a handshake. That’s second time in a row he seemed to go out of his way to be friendly to me. No complaints from here – it’s always nice when people are being nice with me. Other friendly greetings were made with Sean (who let me know about an upcoming plans at the LDA including a social on Dec 23rd and that LDA will be running drop-in classes as opposed to 6-week courses from Nov 21st to Dec 20th - presumably because they figured that holiday season will make 6-week session difficult for most people), Tamambo and several women from the LDA classes.
While the drive to London was dominated by music and conversations about music, the drive back was more freewheeling and with a lot of banters, gossips and nutty ideas. One story Sergio told me about was about a connection he made between a party at St Ives recently and Eva (of Mauro and Eva fame). Apparently after being tossed around by whole lot of men at the St. Ives party, Eva apparently approached Sergio (presumably because she recognized him from SOS) and started a conversation with him. Sergio apparently didn’t know who she was and apparently made generic replies and/or nodded blankly to whatever she was saying. Tonight on his way out, he received a flier advertising one of her (and Mauro’s) class. Then and only then, Sergio realized that Eva who was talking to him at St. Ives was the Eva at SOS. I told Sergio that there probably are not too many UK Salsa dancers, whom Eva would have recognized but would have failed to recognize her in return. I don’t think heavier makeup and costume is enough of an excuse. I suppose I had that one night where I didn’t know that I was chatting with Janet Fuentes of Lady Salsa fame, but this is not a fair comparison.
I also tried to twist Sergio’s arm once again regarding the Tuesday’s Bachata event – being quite heavy handed at times. Sergio said he will mention Bachata night to Natalie and see if she’d be interested. By the way, one of the fliers I was handed on the way out of SOS advertised an all-dayer event with Tony Lara & Daniela De Francesco and Palanke prominently featured on it; Tony obviously will be here on Tuesday while Palenke (dubbed the #1 Latin band in the UK) will be playing Sunday at the CDC event.
Too much Latin Jazz rather than too much Mambo
November 17, 2006
Playlist
La Llave - Grupo Latin Vibe (1)
Sientate Ahi - Oscar D'Leon
Mandali - Africando (2)
Malanga Amarilla - Cachao (3)
Descarga Cubana - Cal Tjader
Asia Mood - Tito Puente
El Menu - El Gran Combo
Adelante Siempre Voy - Ray Barretto
Llore - Hector Lavoe
Acabo De Llegar - Alex Leon
Cuando Te Vea - Tito Puente (4)*
Descarga Del Barrio - Ray Barretto (-4%)*
Te Quiero - Oliver
Senora - Dominic Marte (5)
Hong Kong Mambo - Tito Puente
Mambo Diablo - Tito Puente (70's Fania recording) (6)*
Caravan - Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers (90's recording) (7)
Descarga Lebron - Lebron Brothers (-3%) (8)
break
La Quiero - Dominic Marte (9)
No Me Resigno - Toque D' Keda
Micaela - Sonora Carruseles (10)
El Pito - Isidro Infante (11)
I Love Salsa - N'Klabe (-5%) (12)
You Rock My World - Michael Jackson (Berna Jam Remix) (13)
Cachondea - Fruko Y Sus Tesos (-4%) (14)
Merengue track #5 from Vishal's CD (15)
Merengue track #7 from Vishal's CD (16)
Brujeria - Mark Dimond (canta: Angel Canales) (17)*
Mi Desengano - Roberto Roena (18)
Hacha Y Machete - Hector Lavoe (19)
(1) I felt that this was a perfectly reasonable choice as the first song of the evening. Neutral in tone, easy on the ears and slow-medium in speed with clear beats. It is no surprise why this song was used frequently as a practice song by Mario and Susana at the LDA. For the past two weeks, Sally has been using this song as one of the practice songs.
(2) Vishal's comment was that this was "perfect." My understanding is that this song has been a mainstay for at least 5 years. It could be considered tired and boring or tried and true. For tonight, it seemed to me that the number of people dancing decreased steadily from the first to the second to the third song.
(3) The trend of decreasing number of people seemed to reverse starting with this song. The dance floor looked excellent hereto forth for the Salsa songs until my first break. The crowd was a little older, but I noticed some pretty good dancers among some of these older folks.
(4) The previous song had change of tempo in the middle of the song. This one had couple of transitions.
(5) The number of people dancing to Bachata was smaller for both songs compared to all previous songs (including during the lowest point during Mandali). I think Cyrille, Euvan and Zhenzhi arrived shortly before the first Bachata song.
(6) I think the first request for Merengue came around at this time. There was a second request shortly thereafter with a claim that everyone wanted it, but to my eyes well over half to three fourth of the people were dancing.
(7) I went to look for Vishal so that he could play some Merengue. Meanwhile I decided to stay with hardcore Salsa dance numbers. As I see it, people who like Merengue don't dance Salsa most of the time anyway. So why should they complain about what's being played for people who are actually dancing? Still even Luis seemed taken aback and disappointed. It's not hard to imagine what could have happened - You go to a place and hear the DJ playing music you like. You talk your friends into going to the same place by saying great things about the music. When you arrive with your friends, you are surprised to find that not every song being played are the ones you remember as being great. You feel as if you need to apologize for every song that might not be universally liked by your friends. Unfortunately, that is how it will be unless the DJ choooses to play same great songs every time ... until they get so overplayed that they are not great anymore.
(8) Apparently the complaint (from as many as 6 people according to Vishal) was that too much Mambo or even Latin Jazz was being played tonight. Darn. And I have been holding back from playing more Latin Jazz all this time. Vishal started his session with four (!) Merengue numbers in a row. Briefly it sounded as if the fifth one was going to be Merengue as well. I suppose all this was done to try to erase "bad taste" left by Latin Jazz. Oh well. As it was, the third and the fourth Merengue were overkill, and even the first two were not big draws for the dance floor. For the rest of the evening, Salsa was the best dance crowd pleaser while Bachata and Merengue were consistently less popular.
(9) After a long Merengue-thon, Vishal played bunch of Salsa (starting with Playa No More) with a lot of fusing of songs.
(10) I told Vishal that I was planning on going easy on Latin Jazz/Mambo for the rest of the evening. In fact this was the idea regardless of what he said. Perhaps I did play even more conventional "safe" songs more than I did because of all the purported complaints. In any case, next series of songs were "duds" as far as the dance floor was concerned. Micaela was okay but even its reception seemed muted. Perhaps it would have been better if many Salsa songs Vishal played during his stint did not make this sound like more of the same. Cyrille seemed to make fun of this song on the dance floor. Of course, he did miss the first hour when I was playing different sounding songs.
(11) Another bomb. Even I am surprised by this one - I didn't expect this to bomb ever.
(12) Maybe -4% would have been better. Another bomb. Luis calls for Merengue.
(13) Another bomb with what Vishal might call "commercial Salsa". This is getting ridiculous.
(14) Another bomb. I sampled through Vishal's Merengue CD to pick less obvious songs just so that I wouldn't have to answer to more Merengue complaints.
(15) Luis motions that he didn't think Merengue was a good idea. Whatever. I think everyone was taken by surprise too. Bomb.
(16) I wanted track #6 not #7. Track #7 was a variation of Suavemente. Bomb. Vishal had used tracks #1, #3, #4 and #5 earlier in the evening. Blah blah. #1 is Suavemente. Blah blah.
(17) Now that I seemingly succeeded in alienating everyone (at least no one seems happy - neither the Salsa dancers nor the Merengue dancers judging by the dance floor), I decided to go with a risky choice. Nothing to lose. Interesting song. Not a crowd drawer though.
(18) Good song. Still no crowd. Oh well. I didn't see anyone doing anything interesting with the song - not even by Cyrille.
(19) Finally this final song brings people onto the dance floor. Vishal followed this with Ran Kan Kan by Tito Puente from Mambo Birdland recording (seemingly breaking his rule about Mambo for the rest of the evening), and the dance floor was full again for these two songs. It would not stay that way though. My assessment is that the dance floor was crowded during La Llave (first song) and again from the tail end of Malanga Amarilla to Descarga Del Barrio, again starting from Hong Kong Mambo to first or second Merengue, again during Vishal's turn at playing Salsa his first time around (this might have been when the floor was at its most crowded - but my point of view at this point was from the dance floor as opposed to from the DJ booth so I could be wrong), and finally between Hacha Y Machete and Ran Kan Kan. An interesting aside: Vishal played couple of Cha Cha later in the evening (I am not sure why it happened, but it must have been worth enough to play two in a row - I wasn't really paying attention to the dance floor at that time).
Total - 30 songs. 24 Salsa. 4 Bachata. 2 Merengue. 4 new Salsa songs. Despite there being only 4 new songs, it might have seemed like the place sounded very different compared to many other Fridays at least until the first Merengue came on.
Jay and Jane substituted for Johnny and Serap again. I had thought that they were gone for one week, not two. The lessons started a little late according to Abit because of rain causing people to arrive late. Thus even though I was a little late in arriving too, I was in time to start the social part of the evening at the DJ booth with some minutes to spare.
Even before Cyrille, Zhenzhi, Euvian and Stephanie showed up, I was thinking that this was an interesting Friday evening as far as the kind of people who showed up for Salsa dancing. Of special note was an elder couple, who I thought were quite good. Even though they did not stay very long, they and others who I considered as people who are very interested in learning to dance well inspired me to stay away from fluff songs early on. This is not to say that I deliberately played bad songs at any time (although it would be easy to argue that some of the later choices were uninspired and perhaps deliberately so).
Having Cyrille, Zhenzhi, Euvian and Stephanie certainly changed tone of the evening for me in terms of dancing and socializing. As things stood before their arrival, it looked like I was going to be dancing more than usual by Friday standards because a fair number of prospective dance partners, including those whom I haven't seen in a while (e.g. Anastasia, Alison and Clare), were present. In the end, I missed out on dancing with some people I normally would have asked for a dance. I also danced with only one new person (a friend of Anastasia's? - the pair of dances was good fun) whole night.
Other notable dancing moments included a dance with Stephanie consisting mostly of shines (during Ran Kan Kan in part because it's a long and fast song and in another part because she had just danced with Cyrille and presumably thus was recovering from a good workout) and amusing heck out of Zhenzhi couple of times again using the extremely arm-twisty move I got from Joe a little over a month ago. Unlike many others who have seen and suffered through the times when I started using it, Zhenzhi is getting to see only a more smoothly led version of the move because of her long break away from Salsa dancing.
Aside from feeling tired (more due to not having enough sleep more than too much exercise) and from a feeling of stagnation in terms of turn patterns, it was a fun night. The evening ended with a late night trip to shop for groceries (I was running dangerously low) after 2 AM and with a plan to sleep as much as possible. Hopefully I will feel rested enough by Sunday.
Playlist
La Llave - Grupo Latin Vibe (1)
Sientate Ahi - Oscar D'Leon
Mandali - Africando (2)
Malanga Amarilla - Cachao (3)
Descarga Cubana - Cal Tjader
Asia Mood - Tito Puente
El Menu - El Gran Combo
Adelante Siempre Voy - Ray Barretto
Llore - Hector Lavoe
Acabo De Llegar - Alex Leon
Cuando Te Vea - Tito Puente (4)*
Descarga Del Barrio - Ray Barretto (-4%)*
Te Quiero - Oliver
Senora - Dominic Marte (5)
Hong Kong Mambo - Tito Puente
Mambo Diablo - Tito Puente (70's Fania recording) (6)*
Caravan - Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers (90's recording) (7)
Descarga Lebron - Lebron Brothers (-3%) (8)
break
La Quiero - Dominic Marte (9)
No Me Resigno - Toque D' Keda
Micaela - Sonora Carruseles (10)
El Pito - Isidro Infante (11)
I Love Salsa - N'Klabe (-5%) (12)
You Rock My World - Michael Jackson (Berna Jam Remix) (13)
Cachondea - Fruko Y Sus Tesos (-4%) (14)
Merengue track #5 from Vishal's CD (15)
Merengue track #7 from Vishal's CD (16)
Brujeria - Mark Dimond (canta: Angel Canales) (17)*
Mi Desengano - Roberto Roena (18)
Hacha Y Machete - Hector Lavoe (19)
(1) I felt that this was a perfectly reasonable choice as the first song of the evening. Neutral in tone, easy on the ears and slow-medium in speed with clear beats. It is no surprise why this song was used frequently as a practice song by Mario and Susana at the LDA. For the past two weeks, Sally has been using this song as one of the practice songs.
(2) Vishal's comment was that this was "perfect." My understanding is that this song has been a mainstay for at least 5 years. It could be considered tired and boring or tried and true. For tonight, it seemed to me that the number of people dancing decreased steadily from the first to the second to the third song.
(3) The trend of decreasing number of people seemed to reverse starting with this song. The dance floor looked excellent hereto forth for the Salsa songs until my first break. The crowd was a little older, but I noticed some pretty good dancers among some of these older folks.
(4) The previous song had change of tempo in the middle of the song. This one had couple of transitions.
(5) The number of people dancing to Bachata was smaller for both songs compared to all previous songs (including during the lowest point during Mandali). I think Cyrille, Euvan and Zhenzhi arrived shortly before the first Bachata song.
(6) I think the first request for Merengue came around at this time. There was a second request shortly thereafter with a claim that everyone wanted it, but to my eyes well over half to three fourth of the people were dancing.
(7) I went to look for Vishal so that he could play some Merengue. Meanwhile I decided to stay with hardcore Salsa dance numbers. As I see it, people who like Merengue don't dance Salsa most of the time anyway. So why should they complain about what's being played for people who are actually dancing? Still even Luis seemed taken aback and disappointed. It's not hard to imagine what could have happened - You go to a place and hear the DJ playing music you like. You talk your friends into going to the same place by saying great things about the music. When you arrive with your friends, you are surprised to find that not every song being played are the ones you remember as being great. You feel as if you need to apologize for every song that might not be universally liked by your friends. Unfortunately, that is how it will be unless the DJ choooses to play same great songs every time ... until they get so overplayed that they are not great anymore.
(8) Apparently the complaint (from as many as 6 people according to Vishal) was that too much Mambo or even Latin Jazz was being played tonight. Darn. And I have been holding back from playing more Latin Jazz all this time. Vishal started his session with four (!) Merengue numbers in a row. Briefly it sounded as if the fifth one was going to be Merengue as well. I suppose all this was done to try to erase "bad taste" left by Latin Jazz. Oh well. As it was, the third and the fourth Merengue were overkill, and even the first two were not big draws for the dance floor. For the rest of the evening, Salsa was the best dance crowd pleaser while Bachata and Merengue were consistently less popular.
(9) After a long Merengue-thon, Vishal played bunch of Salsa (starting with Playa No More) with a lot of fusing of songs.
(10) I told Vishal that I was planning on going easy on Latin Jazz/Mambo for the rest of the evening. In fact this was the idea regardless of what he said. Perhaps I did play even more conventional "safe" songs more than I did because of all the purported complaints. In any case, next series of songs were "duds" as far as the dance floor was concerned. Micaela was okay but even its reception seemed muted. Perhaps it would have been better if many Salsa songs Vishal played during his stint did not make this sound like more of the same. Cyrille seemed to make fun of this song on the dance floor. Of course, he did miss the first hour when I was playing different sounding songs.
(11) Another bomb. Even I am surprised by this one - I didn't expect this to bomb ever.
(12) Maybe -4% would have been better. Another bomb. Luis calls for Merengue.
(13) Another bomb with what Vishal might call "commercial Salsa". This is getting ridiculous.
(14) Another bomb. I sampled through Vishal's Merengue CD to pick less obvious songs just so that I wouldn't have to answer to more Merengue complaints.
(15) Luis motions that he didn't think Merengue was a good idea. Whatever. I think everyone was taken by surprise too. Bomb.
(16) I wanted track #6 not #7. Track #7 was a variation of Suavemente. Bomb. Vishal had used tracks #1, #3, #4 and #5 earlier in the evening. Blah blah. #1 is Suavemente. Blah blah.
(17) Now that I seemingly succeeded in alienating everyone (at least no one seems happy - neither the Salsa dancers nor the Merengue dancers judging by the dance floor), I decided to go with a risky choice. Nothing to lose. Interesting song. Not a crowd drawer though.
(18) Good song. Still no crowd. Oh well. I didn't see anyone doing anything interesting with the song - not even by Cyrille.
(19) Finally this final song brings people onto the dance floor. Vishal followed this with Ran Kan Kan by Tito Puente from Mambo Birdland recording (seemingly breaking his rule about Mambo for the rest of the evening), and the dance floor was full again for these two songs. It would not stay that way though. My assessment is that the dance floor was crowded during La Llave (first song) and again from the tail end of Malanga Amarilla to Descarga Del Barrio, again starting from Hong Kong Mambo to first or second Merengue, again during Vishal's turn at playing Salsa his first time around (this might have been when the floor was at its most crowded - but my point of view at this point was from the dance floor as opposed to from the DJ booth so I could be wrong), and finally between Hacha Y Machete and Ran Kan Kan. An interesting aside: Vishal played couple of Cha Cha later in the evening (I am not sure why it happened, but it must have been worth enough to play two in a row - I wasn't really paying attention to the dance floor at that time).
Total - 30 songs. 24 Salsa. 4 Bachata. 2 Merengue. 4 new Salsa songs. Despite there being only 4 new songs, it might have seemed like the place sounded very different compared to many other Fridays at least until the first Merengue came on.
Jay and Jane substituted for Johnny and Serap again. I had thought that they were gone for one week, not two. The lessons started a little late according to Abit because of rain causing people to arrive late. Thus even though I was a little late in arriving too, I was in time to start the social part of the evening at the DJ booth with some minutes to spare.
Even before Cyrille, Zhenzhi, Euvian and Stephanie showed up, I was thinking that this was an interesting Friday evening as far as the kind of people who showed up for Salsa dancing. Of special note was an elder couple, who I thought were quite good. Even though they did not stay very long, they and others who I considered as people who are very interested in learning to dance well inspired me to stay away from fluff songs early on. This is not to say that I deliberately played bad songs at any time (although it would be easy to argue that some of the later choices were uninspired and perhaps deliberately so).
Having Cyrille, Zhenzhi, Euvian and Stephanie certainly changed tone of the evening for me in terms of dancing and socializing. As things stood before their arrival, it looked like I was going to be dancing more than usual by Friday standards because a fair number of prospective dance partners, including those whom I haven't seen in a while (e.g. Anastasia, Alison and Clare), were present. In the end, I missed out on dancing with some people I normally would have asked for a dance. I also danced with only one new person (a friend of Anastasia's? - the pair of dances was good fun) whole night.
Other notable dancing moments included a dance with Stephanie consisting mostly of shines (during Ran Kan Kan in part because it's a long and fast song and in another part because she had just danced with Cyrille and presumably thus was recovering from a good workout) and amusing heck out of Zhenzhi couple of times again using the extremely arm-twisty move I got from Joe a little over a month ago. Unlike many others who have seen and suffered through the times when I started using it, Zhenzhi is getting to see only a more smoothly led version of the move because of her long break away from Salsa dancing.
Aside from feeling tired (more due to not having enough sleep more than too much exercise) and from a feeling of stagnation in terms of turn patterns, it was a fun night. The evening ended with a late night trip to shop for groceries (I was running dangerously low) after 2 AM and with a plan to sleep as much as possible. Hopefully I will feel rested enough by Sunday.
Farewell to bicycles, trains, shuttles, long walks... maybe
November 16, 2006
Advanced with Sally assisted by Lindsey
1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL and 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn for follower (inside turn) – leader takes a big step towards follower on 7 (not sure if it’s really needed though) – R hand on follower’s R shoulder ideally and possibly L hand on follower’s L shoulder
1,2,3,5,6,7 the idea here is to let follower step back on 1 with hands on follower’s shoulders (although there is no need for any type of lead until 6) – lead follower into free traveling 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn [note: the tendency here was for the follower to travel quite a bit, which doesn’t make the next move any easier – possibly the lead could be modulated to minimize traveling by the follower]
1,2,3,5,6,7 rotating cross body lead end with open hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 prepare and lead follower to a single stationary clockwise turn and leader turns full counterclockwise [note: perhaps this would work better if leader and follower turns simultaneously?] with R-L resting on leader’s R shoulder briefly and L-R tossed up in air [note: apparently this works better if the toss happens when leader is more than 3/4 done with the turn] and end with crossed hold R-R on top
1,2,3,5,6,7 prepare and lead follower into triple stationary touch-and-go turn (clockwise)
1,2,3,5,6,7 R-R hat for follower and L-L on leader’s R shoulder with Mambo basic start – leader does double stationary clockwise turn (first turn demonstrated looked like a hook turn)
1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL start with R hand on follower’s back and lead follower to 1 1/2 counterclockwise traveling turn with L hand on follower’s R shoulder (ending on her L shoulder) [note: follower’s turn starts on 6, not 5]
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer R hand in front for R-R connection and lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with leader turning full counterclockwise and bringing R-R down to under L arm (eventually)
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower’s R arm under leader’s L arm and start leading follower to walk around leader in clockwise direction
1,2,3,5,6,7 continue leading follower to walk around leader in clockwise direction and end with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise to get back to open position
I thought my performance in the class was quite ragged. Doing a double turn after leading a triple turn was a big trouble spot although not the only one.
Mark substituted for Chris for the Intermediate class. During the second hour, I mostly paid attention to the beginner class taught by Jane with help from Stephanie (and briefly taking a part in the class when Jane decided to take a part of the follower with her male students).
It feels as if I have done little in last few weeks to expand my repertoire of turn patterns. I have been too harried, tired, sleepy, etc. to concentrate on practicing and absorbing learned patterns. I guess I could always go back to my notes and practice them later, but that would be possible only if I have time. Meanwhile it sometimes seems as if I am forgetting more things than learning them. Now and then, I would remember a pattern in between dances, but then I sometimes would forget about them again during next set of dances. Maybe this feeling of stagnation or even regression is common; several people including Sergio complained of them in past few weeks.
I think I danced with more beginners than I typically do. I don't really know if it benefits either me or them - in a sense that I am unsure of practically everything in general but especially lately. Perhaps I was trying to escape doldrums of dancing with same people all the time - even though the dances with those same people generally ends up being the best dances anyhow. In many ways, I rather enjoyed my dances tonight more than I did for last several Thursdays. This may have been due to being a bit carefree and not worrying too much about being in control - let some rough edges show and avoid being clinical and so on.
After a dance, I found myself in front of Sergio (looking a bit scruffy and in between leading Lindsey in many dizzying ways) and Cyrille (seemingly recovered from a recent bug and also in between giving his dance partners fabulous cardiovascular exercises) each holding a bottle of San Miguel. Cyrille motioned to ask if I was going to get one. I said yeah and blocked Sergio's movement towards the bar so that I could get one for myself. I returned with a bottle in hand. Clink. Clink. Clink. Glug. Instant party! Then Lindsey and Nicola came over, and Nicola asked us why we weren't dancing to break up the powwow.
Silliness galore - The winner has to be either Zhenzhi's secret handshake or my lame effort to imitate one of Sergio's shine involving a kick, which drew laughter from Lindsey because it apparently made me look like a little dog. I tried to see if I could see it but the reflective surface on the wall was not good enough to give me a full view of the farce. Something Ivan did might qualify as well although I am unsure if it qualifies more as intentional or unintentional comedy. Perhaps not having written (or started on?) two assays at midnight (15 hours before they are due) with only one hour of sleep previous night… Or some people talking about this blog in eBay (don't ask because I don't know what that is about either).
After today, I am going to try to reduce (and probably will succeed in) amount of bicycle riding I do. Maybe I should start talking to people about Bachata next Tuesday too. The number of people I have spoken to in person can be counted with one hand. I've been letting Vishal do all the talking. I suppose I might be more inspired if there was any evidence that people are more likely to come if I talked to them in person - although I suppose it sometimes works if I put a heavy personal pressure on them (which I hate doing). There are a couple of people I could work on. Sean would be one logical target. Also I think I could try to make it a personal challenge to induce Sergio to take part in a class. That would be a coup - an amusing one.
Advanced with Sally assisted by Lindsey
1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL and 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn for follower (inside turn) – leader takes a big step towards follower on 7 (not sure if it’s really needed though) – R hand on follower’s R shoulder ideally and possibly L hand on follower’s L shoulder
1,2,3,5,6,7 the idea here is to let follower step back on 1 with hands on follower’s shoulders (although there is no need for any type of lead until 6) – lead follower into free traveling 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn [note: the tendency here was for the follower to travel quite a bit, which doesn’t make the next move any easier – possibly the lead could be modulated to minimize traveling by the follower]
1,2,3,5,6,7 rotating cross body lead end with open hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 prepare and lead follower to a single stationary clockwise turn and leader turns full counterclockwise [note: perhaps this would work better if leader and follower turns simultaneously?] with R-L resting on leader’s R shoulder briefly and L-R tossed up in air [note: apparently this works better if the toss happens when leader is more than 3/4 done with the turn] and end with crossed hold R-R on top
1,2,3,5,6,7 prepare and lead follower into triple stationary touch-and-go turn (clockwise)
1,2,3,5,6,7 R-R hat for follower and L-L on leader’s R shoulder with Mambo basic start – leader does double stationary clockwise turn (first turn demonstrated looked like a hook turn)
1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL start with R hand on follower’s back and lead follower to 1 1/2 counterclockwise traveling turn with L hand on follower’s R shoulder (ending on her L shoulder) [note: follower’s turn starts on 6, not 5]
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer R hand in front for R-R connection and lead follower into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with leader turning full counterclockwise and bringing R-R down to under L arm (eventually)
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower’s R arm under leader’s L arm and start leading follower to walk around leader in clockwise direction
1,2,3,5,6,7 continue leading follower to walk around leader in clockwise direction and end with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise to get back to open position
I thought my performance in the class was quite ragged. Doing a double turn after leading a triple turn was a big trouble spot although not the only one.
Mark substituted for Chris for the Intermediate class. During the second hour, I mostly paid attention to the beginner class taught by Jane with help from Stephanie (and briefly taking a part in the class when Jane decided to take a part of the follower with her male students).
It feels as if I have done little in last few weeks to expand my repertoire of turn patterns. I have been too harried, tired, sleepy, etc. to concentrate on practicing and absorbing learned patterns. I guess I could always go back to my notes and practice them later, but that would be possible only if I have time. Meanwhile it sometimes seems as if I am forgetting more things than learning them. Now and then, I would remember a pattern in between dances, but then I sometimes would forget about them again during next set of dances. Maybe this feeling of stagnation or even regression is common; several people including Sergio complained of them in past few weeks.
I think I danced with more beginners than I typically do. I don't really know if it benefits either me or them - in a sense that I am unsure of practically everything in general but especially lately. Perhaps I was trying to escape doldrums of dancing with same people all the time - even though the dances with those same people generally ends up being the best dances anyhow. In many ways, I rather enjoyed my dances tonight more than I did for last several Thursdays. This may have been due to being a bit carefree and not worrying too much about being in control - let some rough edges show and avoid being clinical and so on.
After a dance, I found myself in front of Sergio (looking a bit scruffy and in between leading Lindsey in many dizzying ways) and Cyrille (seemingly recovered from a recent bug and also in between giving his dance partners fabulous cardiovascular exercises) each holding a bottle of San Miguel. Cyrille motioned to ask if I was going to get one. I said yeah and blocked Sergio's movement towards the bar so that I could get one for myself. I returned with a bottle in hand. Clink. Clink. Clink. Glug. Instant party! Then Lindsey and Nicola came over, and Nicola asked us why we weren't dancing to break up the powwow.
Silliness galore - The winner has to be either Zhenzhi's secret handshake or my lame effort to imitate one of Sergio's shine involving a kick, which drew laughter from Lindsey because it apparently made me look like a little dog. I tried to see if I could see it but the reflective surface on the wall was not good enough to give me a full view of the farce. Something Ivan did might qualify as well although I am unsure if it qualifies more as intentional or unintentional comedy. Perhaps not having written (or started on?) two assays at midnight (15 hours before they are due) with only one hour of sleep previous night… Or some people talking about this blog in eBay (don't ask because I don't know what that is about either).
After today, I am going to try to reduce (and probably will succeed in) amount of bicycle riding I do. Maybe I should start talking to people about Bachata next Tuesday too. The number of people I have spoken to in person can be counted with one hand. I've been letting Vishal do all the talking. I suppose I might be more inspired if there was any evidence that people are more likely to come if I talked to them in person - although I suppose it sometimes works if I put a heavy personal pressure on them (which I hate doing). There are a couple of people I could work on. Sean would be one logical target. Also I think I could try to make it a personal challenge to induce Sergio to take part in a class. That would be a coup - an amusing one.
Tony Lara Charity, Bachata, and the upcoming big CDC event
November 15, 2006
Couple of announcements... These came within last 24 hours...
--
Tony Lara's fundraising for charity - Save the children
Tony will donate £1 from each Bachata DVD sales to charity.
Visit the link below to make independent donations online.
http://www.justgiving.com/bachata
Speaking of it, I just realized that Tony and Daniela's visit will be next Tuesday - less than a week away. Ouch. It goes to show how chaotic life has been lately...
--
Pasión de Invierno
CDC Winter Salsa Ball
Sunday 26th November
Newton Suite, University Arms Hotel
7pm until Midnight
3 Levels of Lessons from 7:15 to 8:15
Live Band - Palenke
Salsa and Acrobatic Rock 'n' Roll shows
Dress To Impress
The first ever Salsa Winter Ball promises to be an exciting event - featuring London's leading salsa band, Palenke, and situated in one of the most prestigious hotels in central Cambridge. Palenke played at this year's Salsa-UK International Salsa Congress and have also toured many countries throughout the world.
There will also be lessons at several levels and dance shows by members of Cambridge University Salsa Team and Cambridge University Rock 'n' Roll Team. So even if you have never tried salsa before - this is a perfect place to start (no partner required) where you can learn the basics and enjoy the fantastic live music.
CDC Members £9
Non Members £11
Book NOW to avoid disappointment - just email
SalsaEventTickets@CambridgeDancers.org
Include your name and the number of member/non-member tickets you want to book
OR buy in person from either Sam or Mark at CDC salsa classes and Club Salsa
Couple of announcements... These came within last 24 hours...
--
Tony Lara's fundraising for charity - Save the children
Tony will donate £1 from each Bachata DVD sales to charity.
Visit the link below to make independent donations online.
http://www.justgiving.com/bachata
Speaking of it, I just realized that Tony and Daniela's visit will be next Tuesday - less than a week away. Ouch. It goes to show how chaotic life has been lately...
--
Pasión de Invierno
CDC Winter Salsa Ball
Sunday 26th November
Newton Suite, University Arms Hotel
7pm until Midnight
3 Levels of Lessons from 7:15 to 8:15
Live Band - Palenke
Salsa and Acrobatic Rock 'n' Roll shows
Dress To Impress
The first ever Salsa Winter Ball promises to be an exciting event - featuring London's leading salsa band, Palenke, and situated in one of the most prestigious hotels in central Cambridge. Palenke played at this year's Salsa-UK International Salsa Congress and have also toured many countries throughout the world.
There will also be lessons at several levels and dance shows by members of Cambridge University Salsa Team and Cambridge University Rock 'n' Roll Team. So even if you have never tried salsa before - this is a perfect place to start (no partner required) where you can learn the basics and enjoy the fantastic live music.
CDC Members £9
Non Members £11
Book NOW to avoid disappointment - just email
SalsaEventTickets@CambridgeDancers.org
Include your name and the number of member/non-member tickets you want to book
OR buy in person from either Sam or Mark at CDC salsa classes and Club Salsa
You’re feeling very sleepy… sleepy… sleepy
November 14, 2006
After the last time, I knew better than to arrive early and to wait for the lessons to end. Thus it was almost 10 PM when I walked up the University Centre for the second free CDC Salsa social. By then the social part of the evening had started. The number of people present seemed smaller than last time – not surprising given the late change of schedule.
I spotted Susie near the DJ station and approached her for a little chitchat and later my first dance of the evening. A topic among a few was about an upcoming flying examination. Cyrille and Euvian arrived shortly thereafter. Neither Cyrille nor I had talked to Sergio about tonight’s CDC party. Cyrille apparently made an effort – maybe. I didn’t think it was worth the effort – I wasn’t in position to chauffer him around anyway. I have been letting other people drive me around lately, and it’s nice and relaxing.
After passing on a few songs, I had my first dance. All the dances were fairly relaxing and low key– or at least they felt that way. I mean this is the best sense – nothing forced, not strained, not trying too hard… effortless or seemingly so. Other possible descriptive words include lighthearted and playful. The overall approach was the same whether I was doing the usual improvisationathon with Stephanie, eliciting oohs out of Sam, replicating and practicing recently learned moves with Euvian or doing more shines than turn patterns with Agnes. The dance with Agnes warrants a special mention because I don’t ever recall doing shines with anyone for more than half the song in Cambridge. Then again, I don’t do shines so much in London either – a small number of dances with Diane being more memorable exceptions. In Cambridge, some dances with Serap and with Stephanie came closest in being so shine happy. Less than six months ago, Agnes was not very keen on shines. How times change – it seemed like Agnes might have been perfectly content to do nothing but shine for the entire song tonight. I feel that there seems to be more of it in Cambridge nowadays – and not just by the cross-body dancers either.
Caroline was trying to get everyone to buy tickets for the Pasion de Invierno CDC special Salsa event. According to her, I should have been the first in line to get a ticket – I am practically required to be there (and write about it of course). I suppose she’s right. It’s pretty much a given that I’ll buy a ticket. It is highly unlikely that I will miss it. I might even talk some co-workers into checking out the band.
Leading (strong, soft, rough, etc) once again was a topic of discussion. Dancing style (good-looking, lousy-looking, gay-looking, etc) and dance timing (on-1, on-2, on-5, on-6, on-4.5, on-1.5, etc) too. I doubt anyone in the UK let alone Cambridge dance on the clave.
It was a very low-key relaxed affair. If it were any more relaxed, words like catatonic or calming could have been used instead of restful, relaxing, soothing or calming. In a good way of course.
Perhaps one of the bigger highlights was the bicycle ride back with Agnes, Stephanie and Mark – relaxing by the way also seems like an appropriate word to describe the ride.
Quote of the day – “Squeals? Memories of them all kind of blend together these days.”
Quote of the day 2 – “I don’t wanna be like Godzilla.”
Trick of the day – Making people invisible (by standing in front of them)
Nickname of the day – Zoom? I could hear the Mazda jingle Zoom Zoom Zoom. There really should not be a zed sound. Better would be to pronounce it like the month June except a little softer and shorter. The young part is fine as is. Say it quickly and without a pause young-june. There ya go. Easy enough, no?
After the last time, I knew better than to arrive early and to wait for the lessons to end. Thus it was almost 10 PM when I walked up the University Centre for the second free CDC Salsa social. By then the social part of the evening had started. The number of people present seemed smaller than last time – not surprising given the late change of schedule.
I spotted Susie near the DJ station and approached her for a little chitchat and later my first dance of the evening. A topic among a few was about an upcoming flying examination. Cyrille and Euvian arrived shortly thereafter. Neither Cyrille nor I had talked to Sergio about tonight’s CDC party. Cyrille apparently made an effort – maybe. I didn’t think it was worth the effort – I wasn’t in position to chauffer him around anyway. I have been letting other people drive me around lately, and it’s nice and relaxing.
After passing on a few songs, I had my first dance. All the dances were fairly relaxing and low key– or at least they felt that way. I mean this is the best sense – nothing forced, not strained, not trying too hard… effortless or seemingly so. Other possible descriptive words include lighthearted and playful. The overall approach was the same whether I was doing the usual improvisationathon with Stephanie, eliciting oohs out of Sam, replicating and practicing recently learned moves with Euvian or doing more shines than turn patterns with Agnes. The dance with Agnes warrants a special mention because I don’t ever recall doing shines with anyone for more than half the song in Cambridge. Then again, I don’t do shines so much in London either – a small number of dances with Diane being more memorable exceptions. In Cambridge, some dances with Serap and with Stephanie came closest in being so shine happy. Less than six months ago, Agnes was not very keen on shines. How times change – it seemed like Agnes might have been perfectly content to do nothing but shine for the entire song tonight. I feel that there seems to be more of it in Cambridge nowadays – and not just by the cross-body dancers either.
Caroline was trying to get everyone to buy tickets for the Pasion de Invierno CDC special Salsa event. According to her, I should have been the first in line to get a ticket – I am practically required to be there (and write about it of course). I suppose she’s right. It’s pretty much a given that I’ll buy a ticket. It is highly unlikely that I will miss it. I might even talk some co-workers into checking out the band.
Leading (strong, soft, rough, etc) once again was a topic of discussion. Dancing style (good-looking, lousy-looking, gay-looking, etc) and dance timing (on-1, on-2, on-5, on-6, on-4.5, on-1.5, etc) too. I doubt anyone in the UK let alone Cambridge dance on the clave.
It was a very low-key relaxed affair. If it were any more relaxed, words like catatonic or calming could have been used instead of restful, relaxing, soothing or calming. In a good way of course.
Perhaps one of the bigger highlights was the bicycle ride back with Agnes, Stephanie and Mark – relaxing by the way also seems like an appropriate word to describe the ride.
Quote of the day – “Squeals? Memories of them all kind of blend together these days.”
Quote of the day 2 – “I don’t wanna be like Godzilla.”
Trick of the day – Making people invisible (by standing in front of them)
Nickname of the day – Zoom? I could hear the Mazda jingle Zoom Zoom Zoom. There really should not be a zed sound. Better would be to pronounce it like the month June except a little softer and shorter. The young part is fine as is. Say it quickly and without a pause young-june. There ya go. Easy enough, no?
Gotta go with what's there
November 13, 2006
Intermediate with Tiz
angled Suzy
1,2,3 Slave to left
5,6,7 Suzy Q to left
1,2,3 Slave to right
5,6,7, Suzy Q to right
(followed by Mambo basic)
from last week – name?
1,2,3 da-da-da-da-da (5 steps in all - Johnny might have referred to this as crazy steps or such)
5 R foot on heel to front R
6 slide to back left with L
7 slide R foot back together
(followed by Mambo basic)
from last week - slave grapevine?
1,2,3 slave (L cross over to R with typical slave leaning motion on 1, R in place on 2, L back to original spot on 3)
4 R cross over in front of L
5 weight on L
6 R cross over to R
7 L cross over in front of R
8 R cross over in front of L
(followed by Mambo basic)
1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL low cross pass – end getting ready to switch to R-R (R hand can be on follower’s R forearm briefly)
1,2,3,5,6,7 R-R hold, Copa with R hand to follower’s leading hip and L hand to trailing hip – lead follower to do standard Copa turn on her own (preferably with both her hands over her head in diving position) – leader could do a clockwise turn and get back to facing follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 open hold, Copa with R-L going over follower’s L shoulder and L-R kept low – lead follower into 1 1/2 Copa traveling counterclockwise turn with R-L high (I was keeping R-L at same height throughout but this was not necessarily the way this was taught – I think the point might have been to try to get follower to turn on her own power) – keep L-R at waist level throughout briefly letting go before reconnecting it behind follower’s L waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower into traveling swapsi turn (1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn for follower) so that R-L ends behind follower’s R waist – leader can turn clockwise briefly letting go R-L before reconnecting it behind follower’s R waist – L-R ends behind leader’s R waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 Copa start (letting go L-R) but lead follower into overall 1 1/2 counterclockwise traveling turn instead – I think the lead was to come immediately after 3 (on 4?) to lead follower to turn this direction instead of doing normal Copa – in one version, the position ended with R-L across follower’s stomach on her R side while in another version
1,2,3,5,6,7 there was a bit starting with follower's R hand across her stomach (possibly the end of previous turn pattern), allow follower forward on 1 and turn her around counterclockwise on 2,3 and continue her into traveling 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn with leader also turning clockwise at the same time. I think the leading was done with R-R
1,2,3,5,6,7 open hold, simplest Copa start and ending with free R hand on follower’s back on 8 (or in a version done tonight, follower ends doing only a full traveling turn as opposed to 1 1/2 traveling turn for the Copa… with the full turn version, follower would end doing a full turnaround on next 1,2,3 as opposed to doing a half turnaround on 1,2,3)
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower to a half or full turnaround on 1,2,3 (follower is walking around leader in counterclockwise fashion), then lead follower into Cuban walk on 5,6,7 (follower continues moving around leader in counterclockwise fashion to start with but ends with a clockwise 1/2 traveling turn)
1,2,3,5,6,7 crossed hold R-R on top, touch-and-go double turn
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower straight forward while leader gets around follower from her R side and get around behind her to her L side
1,2,3,5,6,7 Mambo jazz start and lead follower into full traveling clockwise turn with R-R ending across follower’s stomach on her L side
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower to turn 1/2 counterclockwise on the spot on 1,2,3 while leader turns 1/2 clockwise at the same time – lead follower into Cuban walk (traveling 1/2 clockwise turn) with R-R ending in a elbow-to-elbow position and end with drop catch to end with L-R
After a long stretch of time without extensive dancing (the weekend SOS plan having been aborted because of too many complicating factors (i.e. people getting ill, my trust of the train system reaching a new low, too much bicycling including a ludicrous “shortcut” or a “scenic route” on an increasingly harrowing footpath between Stapleford and Sawston, too much work and not enough time)), I felt ready for a good exercise.
Upon receiving a reminder from Vishal about making fliers for the Bachata event with Tony & Daniela, I whipped up something in a hurry. If life has not been so chaotic lately, I would have done this sooner. As it was more glitches encountered meant that the fliers had to be printed using normal paper rather than thicker photo paper. Also the fliers were cut at the Club Salsa just before the classes started.
Between arriving early and Joe and Tiz arriving late, there was more lull than usual leading to chitchats. Perhaps the most striking conversation involved being a third party to a conversation between two women talking about leads of various men seen about at Club Salsa. I thought such conversations happened in places where men were unlikely to overhear the conversation (unless it is a one-on-one conversation), so it felt a little strange (as well as getting me to strain to listen for any veiled allusions to my lead in general). Perhaps they trusted that the contents of this conversation weren’t going anywhere and that it was harmless. Less surprising were comments, gawking, etc about what people were wearing, etc.
It was a little difficult to remember all the material from the class – not because the material was difficult (of course it would depend on the level of the student) but perhaps because it was not unusual enough (or it’s my memory becoming worse with less use and with increased age). Maybe because I yawned couple of time (or did I? I don’t remember for sure), I noticed some others yawning during the class. Joe modified his usual joke about Club Salsa being the smallest Salsa club in the universe to about Vishal working on getting a larger space – perhaps using dynamite. Joe also talked about starting a level 4 class started but needing more space to do so. I have no idea if level 4 is economically feasible.
Random fluctuations dictated that there be nearly twice as many women as men in the intermediate class today. However, this did not have much effect on how the social part of the evening unfolded. If form holds true, opposite will happen next week.
Generally my dances (or leads) felt more on the restrained side but presumably would have been considered very busy by most of my partners. No doubt some like it while others find it to be too much.
Tomorrow has the postponed CDC Salsa social at the University Centre. I also spotted posters for the big CDC Salsa event (Pasion de Invierno on Nov 26th) for the first time at Club Salsa. It probably helped Vishal’s sensibility because it’s being held on a Sunday and thus not competiting with any of the Salsa evenings at Club Salsa (meaning everyday but Sunday).
Quote of the day - "You're the one who's supposed to remember the routine and write it on your blog. (I'm not supposed to remember) I'm supposed to just follow."
I was saying I had a memory lapse about the material. I think I managed to squeeze it out of my head after returning home.
Intermediate with Tiz
angled Suzy
1,2,3 Slave to left
5,6,7 Suzy Q to left
1,2,3 Slave to right
5,6,7, Suzy Q to right
(followed by Mambo basic)
from last week – name?
1,2,3 da-da-da-da-da (5 steps in all - Johnny might have referred to this as crazy steps or such)
5 R foot on heel to front R
6 slide to back left with L
7 slide R foot back together
(followed by Mambo basic)
from last week - slave grapevine?
1,2,3 slave (L cross over to R with typical slave leaning motion on 1, R in place on 2, L back to original spot on 3)
4 R cross over in front of L
5 weight on L
6 R cross over to R
7 L cross over in front of R
8 R cross over in front of L
(followed by Mambo basic)
1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL low cross pass – end getting ready to switch to R-R (R hand can be on follower’s R forearm briefly)
1,2,3,5,6,7 R-R hold, Copa with R hand to follower’s leading hip and L hand to trailing hip – lead follower to do standard Copa turn on her own (preferably with both her hands over her head in diving position) – leader could do a clockwise turn and get back to facing follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 open hold, Copa with R-L going over follower’s L shoulder and L-R kept low – lead follower into 1 1/2 Copa traveling counterclockwise turn with R-L high (I was keeping R-L at same height throughout but this was not necessarily the way this was taught – I think the point might have been to try to get follower to turn on her own power) – keep L-R at waist level throughout briefly letting go before reconnecting it behind follower’s L waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower into traveling swapsi turn (1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn for follower) so that R-L ends behind follower’s R waist – leader can turn clockwise briefly letting go R-L before reconnecting it behind follower’s R waist – L-R ends behind leader’s R waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 Copa start (letting go L-R) but lead follower into overall 1 1/2 counterclockwise traveling turn instead – I think the lead was to come immediately after 3 (on 4?) to lead follower to turn this direction instead of doing normal Copa – in one version, the position ended with R-L across follower’s stomach on her R side while in another version
1,2,3,5,6,7 there was a bit starting with follower's R hand across her stomach (possibly the end of previous turn pattern), allow follower forward on 1 and turn her around counterclockwise on 2,3 and continue her into traveling 1 1/2 counterclockwise turn with leader also turning clockwise at the same time. I think the leading was done with R-R
1,2,3,5,6,7 open hold, simplest Copa start and ending with free R hand on follower’s back on 8 (or in a version done tonight, follower ends doing only a full traveling turn as opposed to 1 1/2 traveling turn for the Copa… with the full turn version, follower would end doing a full turnaround on next 1,2,3 as opposed to doing a half turnaround on 1,2,3)
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower to a half or full turnaround on 1,2,3 (follower is walking around leader in counterclockwise fashion), then lead follower into Cuban walk on 5,6,7 (follower continues moving around leader in counterclockwise fashion to start with but ends with a clockwise 1/2 traveling turn)
1,2,3,5,6,7 crossed hold R-R on top, touch-and-go double turn
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower straight forward while leader gets around follower from her R side and get around behind her to her L side
1,2,3,5,6,7 Mambo jazz start and lead follower into full traveling clockwise turn with R-R ending across follower’s stomach on her L side
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower to turn 1/2 counterclockwise on the spot on 1,2,3 while leader turns 1/2 clockwise at the same time – lead follower into Cuban walk (traveling 1/2 clockwise turn) with R-R ending in a elbow-to-elbow position and end with drop catch to end with L-R
After a long stretch of time without extensive dancing (the weekend SOS plan having been aborted because of too many complicating factors (i.e. people getting ill, my trust of the train system reaching a new low, too much bicycling including a ludicrous “shortcut” or a “scenic route” on an increasingly harrowing footpath between Stapleford and Sawston, too much work and not enough time)), I felt ready for a good exercise.
Upon receiving a reminder from Vishal about making fliers for the Bachata event with Tony & Daniela, I whipped up something in a hurry. If life has not been so chaotic lately, I would have done this sooner. As it was more glitches encountered meant that the fliers had to be printed using normal paper rather than thicker photo paper. Also the fliers were cut at the Club Salsa just before the classes started.
Between arriving early and Joe and Tiz arriving late, there was more lull than usual leading to chitchats. Perhaps the most striking conversation involved being a third party to a conversation between two women talking about leads of various men seen about at Club Salsa. I thought such conversations happened in places where men were unlikely to overhear the conversation (unless it is a one-on-one conversation), so it felt a little strange (as well as getting me to strain to listen for any veiled allusions to my lead in general). Perhaps they trusted that the contents of this conversation weren’t going anywhere and that it was harmless. Less surprising were comments, gawking, etc about what people were wearing, etc.
It was a little difficult to remember all the material from the class – not because the material was difficult (of course it would depend on the level of the student) but perhaps because it was not unusual enough (or it’s my memory becoming worse with less use and with increased age). Maybe because I yawned couple of time (or did I? I don’t remember for sure), I noticed some others yawning during the class. Joe modified his usual joke about Club Salsa being the smallest Salsa club in the universe to about Vishal working on getting a larger space – perhaps using dynamite. Joe also talked about starting a level 4 class started but needing more space to do so. I have no idea if level 4 is economically feasible.
Random fluctuations dictated that there be nearly twice as many women as men in the intermediate class today. However, this did not have much effect on how the social part of the evening unfolded. If form holds true, opposite will happen next week.
Generally my dances (or leads) felt more on the restrained side but presumably would have been considered very busy by most of my partners. No doubt some like it while others find it to be too much.
Tomorrow has the postponed CDC Salsa social at the University Centre. I also spotted posters for the big CDC Salsa event (Pasion de Invierno on Nov 26th) for the first time at Club Salsa. It probably helped Vishal’s sensibility because it’s being held on a Sunday and thus not competiting with any of the Salsa evenings at Club Salsa (meaning everyday but Sunday).
Quote of the day - "You're the one who's supposed to remember the routine and write it on your blog. (I'm not supposed to remember) I'm supposed to just follow."
I was saying I had a memory lapse about the material. I think I managed to squeeze it out of my head after returning home.
It was a dark and stormy night
Pet peeve of the week: Automobiles on the opposing side of the road using high-beam headlight when I am bicycling on a dark road - It is equ
At
Playlist
Brujeria – El Gran Combo
Duele Mas – Grupo Niche
Mi Gente – Oscar D’Leon
Celia Y Tito – Isidro Infante
Tumbando Cabeza – Tabaco Y Ron (1)
Temba, Tumba, Timba – Los Van Van (2)
La Quiero – Dominic Marte
No Me Resigno – Toque D’ K
No Critiques – Manny Oquendo (Libre) (3)*
Mi Desengano – Roberto Roena (4)*
Periodico De Ayer – Hector Lavoe (5)
break
Me Libere – El Gran Combo
Mi Bajo Y Yo – Oscar D’Leon (-4%)
Betece – Africando (6)
Y Eso Duele – Gilberto Santa Rosa (-4%) (7)
Ven Tu – Dominic Marte (8)
Lamento B
(1) I don’t care about this song or this band, but I have their CDs so I might as well get some use out of them now and then. Plus it is that kind of
(2) See above. If nothing else it is energetic.
(3) Luis lik
(4) Luis rav
(5) Thus I manag
(6) Luis’s comment – “This is very old (meaning too familiar or too overplay
(7) Hmmm. That was a crowd killer. Too fast maybe? Or just a reaction against S
(8) I think Luis might be thinking that this song is getting overplay
(9) My plan was to play some songs Vish
Tot
One of the highlights came about during the break I had between my two stints at the DJ booth. Or perhaps a better characterization is that it was a highlight for some people who were watching. Periodico De Ayer was follow
Cyrille made an appearance with a friend of his (from work?). He thought the atmosphere and the crowd to
Quote of the day – “When I first met you, you didn’t drink San Miguel.”
Blame it on Sergio. It was my second beer of the evening.
Next up. SOS with the San Miguel Gang probably.
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