Farewell Abid

May 25, 2007

I was surprised to see Rajiv arrive shortly after I got to Club Salsa, and I expressed my astonishment at him being here instead of the dinner & dance event with Sally. I guess he was disinclined to take a longer drive. He asked me if Cyrille came with me, and I answered in negative adding that Cyrille never got in touch with me today. I also thought that given who was there at the time, Cyrille wasn't missing much - it seemed even more dire than last Friday.

My first few dances all felt like borderline disasters; they felt like battles rather than dances - a stark contrast to last night. It's amazing how fast things can change. Time for San Miguel. At least I could think of this as getting a bad night of dancing out of the way before Scala this Sunday. Arguably the biggest source of amusement I got was telling Vishal, "You like this song too much," when he put on Tres Dias De Carnaval (Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco) for the second time within 30 minutes.

Rajiv gave up around 11:30 or shortly before. I was thinking about following his example, but then I spotted Cyrille and Mimi coming downstairs - it was around 11:45. Brand new ballgame. I cannot recall if I had more or less okay dances just before they arrived, but the dances after their arrival were markedly better than during the first hour although the followers I danced with around this time were less practiced in cross body (or to paraphrase a girl from Madrid, Salsa Linea).

By the time I finally got around to dancing with Mimi - despite not dancing with her for almost the first half hour or so, I think I got to dance with her before Cyrille somehow. After a slightly rocky start for the first 20 seconds or so, enough adjustments were made (more by Mimi than me - I think it was more the case of me being consistent and insistent on level of tension and letting her adjust - this did not happen last time I saw her and the result was poor from my perspective) and all was beautiful again. Around this time, Vishal played two songs by Chivirico Davila (I'm fairly sure that one was Cuando Tu Quieras) - second time because he thought I was making a request when I was merely trying to confirm that the first one was by Chivirico. Time for second San Miguel.

The crowd picked up as the evening progressed too. Perhaps it had to do with the beer festival. Many Cuban dancers including Peter and Cinzia arrived well after midnight. Other notable late arrival included Lorraine, Mauricio, Luis. The appearance of Cuban dancers prompted Vishal to play some Cuban songs like Ping Pong and a Los Van Van - to chagrin of Cyrille who was forced to dance Cuban style with Mimi. Considering that Peter and Cinzia were there, I thought it made perfect sense that Cuban songs were being played. I had my back towards the DJ booth at this time - waiting for the Cuban phase to end (because it never is sustained). Somehow, Vishal must have thought I was unhappy because he took a sharp turn with his music choice.

First Vishal played La Palomilla (Joe Cuba Sextet). Because Cinzia looked free (somewhat of a surprise), I tried to ask her for a dance. Alas she was committed to starting a big Rueda group. Ouch - I didn't think the Rueda people will not find La Palomilla to be a great track for them. I did not find a dance partner though. Next song was Nina Y Senora (Tito Puente) - another poor choice for Rueda, but I did find someone to dance with - Lorraine maybe? Next song was Merecumbe (Johnny Colon). I got Johnny's new trainee for this one. The Rueda was broken by now and Cinzia was free, but I already started dancing with my new partner. Next song was Un Verano En Nueva York (El Gran Combo), and I finally danced with Cinzia.

I also danced with some other people with whom I had unsatisfactory dances earlier in the evening and did much better. Hmm. There goes the idea about getting a bad night of dancing out of the way before Scala. I believe one of the key was to simplify things first, but there must have been other factors - probably influx of new people to dance with helped more than change in tone of the music because music without suitable people to dance with probably would have been more frustrating than anything else. I can't say that any of the dances were transcendental or revelatory or historic (in personal sense of course), but simply feeling back in control felt great. Few more dances with Mimi including a not fully satisfactory attempt at dancing On2 and more pleasant On1 dancing followed.

A going-away Merengue dance was done for Abid. After 7 years or so in Cambridge, he's moving to Lisbon, Portugal for a new job. Abid had been helping with teaching Salsa with Johnny and Serap for the past year or so.

Mimi was going to Sweden directly after Club Salsa and had brought her suitcase with her to the club. Her coach to the airport was to leave at 2:40, and her flight to Copenhagen at 6:45. Remembering that we had difficulty dragging Cyrille out of dancing last week, we decided to give ourselves some extra time by picking an early departure time - 2:15. It turned out that the precaution was useful but not because of Cyrille but because of mystery of disappearance of Mimi's boots (and socks).

Fragiledad (version unknown) played for second time tonight was the last song of the evening.