I danced with a porn star

May 6, 2007

A downside to having danced with many people - I'm guessing well over 1000 people by now - is that you develop ability to nitpick how well your partner dances with you. This could be about your partner's abilities - timing, musicality, following, spinning, styling, maintaining good position and posture - or about the way your partner connects with you - tension and chemistry in general. After dancing with the best in the local scene, national scene and also with some international stars, you start finding blemishes in everyone including international superstars.

A downside to having a seemingly excellent dance with superstars - local, national or international - is that you develop an overinflated ego. Chances are those seemingly superb dances were merely decent dances for the superstars, who themselves might have danced with 1000 or 10,000 or more people. You don't even have to dance with the superstars. You could just watch those superstars dance and see and admire how they move. Afterwards, people approximately at about your level or below start to look trite. Heck, even people who might be better than you might look unimpressive too.

After seeing great many superb dancers, your threshold for becoming impressed by something gets higher and higher. Something that seemed amazing yesterday becomes commonplace and dull. After hearing hundreds of classic songs, new discoveries become increasingly rare. You start to think that the DJ is playing mostly crap songs while yesterday's great songs become tired and overplayed.

The evening started off nicely - I didn't drive to Scala for the first time. This was because I was in Vishal's car. I picked up Stephanie first and met Vishal. We departed around 8:40 PM and arrived at Scala before the classes ended. I learned Vishal's age as well as amount of money he pays to rent Club Salsa (surprisingly high!). It gave us opportunity to hang around in the DJ booth, messing about with Joe's camera, chatting with Russell, reassuring Scala virgins like Pauline and Andrea.

Vishal was the DJ in the main room for first 6-10 songs. He played some familiar songs like Es La Musica (Massimo Scalici), Pancho Cristal (Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz), La Palomilla (Joe Cuba Sextet - I was surprised that it was played so early), as well as some not-so-great Vishal classics and some surprising new and decent songs I don't recall hearing before. It wasn't bad. I started off with a couple of dances with Stephanie and moved from there. I liked the slick floor.

The next DJ started off pretty good too. For about an hour or so, I enjoyed many of the songs and dances generally and was looking forward to arrival of more and better dancers - many of the better dancers don't show up until later in the evening.

More and better dancers did show up later, but nowhere near in quantities or in qualities I expected. Meanwhile the music started going downhill. Space started becoming premium too. Last couple of nice and/or fun dances were with Cambridge-associated people like Vera and Natalia with some decent dances with strangers sprinkled in.

I can't pinpoint where things started going wrong.

Maybe it started with the start of the performances. Laith Sami's student performance group performed like bunch of students. Joe said some of the people had been dancing for as little as 3 months - it showed (I might add that I know many of the people have been dancing for much longer). Other performers included Lee and Shelly, Laith Sami Diablo Dance Company in Mortal Combat outfits, and Duende Dance Company (farewell for Andrea Stewart).

There was also a heat for the Latinfest amateur dance competition. Three couples entered - I recognized Roger in one and Martina in another. The third couple won. They were alright, but my feeling was that there are "amateur" people associated with Cambridge who would have looked respectable in tonight's heat.

In any case, my dance right after the announcement of the heat winners marked a definite point of having entered a bad zone. Sergio might have called it an onion of a dance. I had by mistake danced with someone I had danced with earlier in the evening because I thought she was someone else. I think the first dance must have been alright, but the second one was pretty bad. I was pretty bummed out and lost will to dance for a while afterwards.

From about 12:30 to 2, music was mostly awful - the only song I knew well was Ahora Quien. For maybe about 3 songs starting around 2 AM (starting with Para Ochun), things started looking up again before petering out again. There was a not-so-great version of Descarga Cachao, which made me do nothing but shines throughout the song. Awkward.

The low point came with the only Cha Cha of the evening. Tracy was going to ask me for a dance initially before realizing that it was Cha Cha. I asked a girl I recognized from SOS - except we stopped in the middle because we couldn't agree on the timing. I decided to ask another person I remember seeing at SOS the other week. This was bad too. She was dancing On1 while I was dancing On2. Awful. Tracy found me for the next song except she couldn't hear the beats for the next song - this seemed like a common problem for a large part of the night.

For next hour and half or so, I had total of three dances - all in last 30-40 minutes. I only danced to songs I recognized.

The first one was Soledad (La 33). I'm not sure if this was the best dance of the evening - it felt especially good because previous 3 hours had been like a nightmare. She wasn't the most accomplished dancer but we seemed to have great chemistry (or at least she seemed quite enthusiastic and happy and afterwards said something like "That was so fun!") Incidentally, these great chemistry dances with complete strangers happen only once in a blue moon, and I really should try to make more out of such lucky happenstances right away. Make more conversation at least - I don't know - I think part of the problem might be that I have danced with too many people, but it's mostly my personality/style perhaps beyond repair. I wouldn't go far as to use the word used to describe someone we know in the conversation on the way to London - player - but at least avoid being antithesis of it outside dancesphere.

The second one was La Lucha (La Excelencia). Another good one - with Lindsey - a known quantity.

The third one was La-La-La (Direct Latin Influence). This was danced with someone Stephanie referred to as a porn-star lookalike (I better not get into gory details). It was obvious that she was quite experienced dancer, and the dance was okay even though the connection between two of us left much to be desired; I think she also was only mildly engaged in the dance. Apparently my partner for this song is very used to dancing with someone with a very strong lead.

I was hoping for one more, but it never happened. I had my eyes on Shelly, whom I never danced with before. Vishal and Stephanie were both pressing to go. In any case by the time we left (4:20 AM), pretty much everyone I might have considered asking had packed their bags.

I was unimpressed with Scala tonight. I had described to my Madrid Salsa Simposium parties as being similar to being at Scala four nights in a row to some people. I think Scala tonight was definitely inferior to each of the Madrid nights in the music and space department (notwithstanding all the trash on the floor first night).

Quentin was there - a very long one week vacation for him after moving to New York for less than a month! I also saw Andrew, Sean, Simon, Imi, Chris, Nicola, Ed and Steve. Stephanie spent much of her time in the Glass Bar and danced less than 10 times all night - apparently still scared of dancing in London.

A brief stop was made at a Petrol station for the other three to get some snacks. It started raining when we got on M11. Stephanie and I talked more about the Hamburg (famous for its red light district) Congress. Half asleep Stephanie also babbled something about crystal structure too. Very random. Other topics included driving to Blackpool, Varsity match, and learning Salsa moves from videotape (I get pretty none from it - these days I tend to "discover" moves during social dancing to add to my repertoire rather than learning them directly from classes - with Sergio's On2 classes being a exception). Exams start soon and will last for the rest of the month for the undergraduates.

I hate not having my laptop for writing.