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.