LDA anniversary party and Floridita’s

July 28, 2007

The seeds for this evening were sown yesterday when I sent an e-mail to the dinner group about the LDA 1st anniversary party. At the dinner, Mimi asked me if I wanted to go to the LDA party and then go to Floridita’s afterwards. I believe a big impetus for her interest was her friend Marina visiting for several days (one reason why there won’t be an On2 class this coming Monday). Because I was already leaning towards going to the LDA party instead of SOS, I agreed. Cyrille and Zern were flying out of town today, so I asked Sergio and Euvian next whether they would be interested in coming along – no was their answer. I was able to talk Sebastian into taking the shotgun seat, however.

The nominal departure time was 8, but many small things led to tardiness including me leaving the house slightly late, Mimi and Marina taking a while to get out of Mimi’s house, my difficulty in finding the shortest route from Mill Road to Rustat Road to pick up Sebastian (the shortest route on the map was blocked to auto traffic) as well as a road block at the Long Road. So we did not get to leave Cambridge until around 8:30 and did not get to Cecil Sharp House until ~9:50. The drive was fairly uneventful and relatively traffic-free and filled with Swedish being spoken in the back seat.

The party at the LDA seemed very nice – similar to SOS except with better lighting, superior sound sytem (compared to Mary Ward Hall), more space and friendlier atmosphere. The gender ratio seemed to favor men by a great deal – at least among those interested in dancing. The level of dancers was a good mix from beginners to highly experienced social dancers sprinkled with a few professionals – mostly the LDA staff (old and new) but also some out of town guests including Emma Moore who arrived with Chris while I was chatting with Susana. Mario was absent because of a missed or cancelled flight.

Also present was Vera who once again looked for a chewing gum and found a Listerine strip from me instead. Rajiv was there too sans his dancing shoes. Rajiv was in London for the weekend but did not think he was going dancing presumably until he received my e-mail. The sound of a promising Salsa social free of charge was too good to resist although Ivan yesterday was able to resist saying that two consecutive evening of dancing was too much for him despite Helen’s absence and despite him being in London already. I actually suspect a different unspoken excuse, which I won’t reveal.

It had been such a long time since I last came down to London for dancing so I tried to spend as much time dancing as reasonable. I was expecting Floridita’s to be mostly Cuban Salsa type, so I also tried to stay at the LDA as long as possible. LDA in a surprise twist played one Reggaeton – right before the show starring four people including Susana, Inaki, Lee and Nikki. There was a birthday dance too for some girl named Suzanne, and I was dragged into the circle by Shaan but avoided going into the center. I think I did dance with the birthday girl later though.

My other dance partners at the LDA social included Mimi, Marina (much happier result than last couple of times), Tracy (surprisingly detached), Imi (better connection than in the past), a winner of the Scala heat (I did not realize this until the middle of the dance – I think she would have preferred On2 and I think I might have been able to do something On2 if I had set my mind to it before asking her), some other people from the SOS scene (some regular partners and some non-regulars), some other potential familiar faces and maybe 4-6 complete new faces (at least one of whom was a really nice follow – I did not try to spin her much or be really challenging in part because I did not want to mar what seemed to be a perfect introductory social dance).

I think the girls were okay with LDA but were more than ready to head for Floridita’s by 11:30 (I had suspected that this would happen and tried to forestall and resist this). We left during the last song after I tried to fit in as much dancing during next 20-25 minutes. We also talked Rajiv into coming with us, and he took over the shotgun seat. The drive to Floridita’s should have taken 10-15 minutes if I knew where I was going, but it ended up taking about 30 minutes – most of the time was wasted trying to get out of the neighborhood of Cecil Sharp House and head towards to correct direction. One of the biggest difficulties for me was trying to read the map while wearing contact lens in the dark with lights inside the car as sole illumination. After a while I enlisted Rajiv for help with the map. Luckily, I was able to find parking very close to Floridita’s.

After all the trouble, Rajiv opted out when he found the cover was a whopping £15. I knew it was going to be expensive but I had expected £10. At least LDA was free - not counting the cheap drinks. I did not find out the cost of drinks at Floridita’s but I suspect it would have been pretty steep. There was a live band, but they had finished by the time we got there. DJ was playing Salsa for about half of the time or perhaps a little less than half. Non-Salsa interludes typically lasted 2-3 Merengue followed by 2-3 Reggaeton (or sometimes a different type of music such as Bachata or Samba). The people were about Club Salsa level except with some more accomplished Cuban stylists and with younger, better built and better dressed people. There also were some flashy followers, who seemed to think themselves too good to dance with any commoners.

Here too there were some meeting with people, some expected and some not. Expected was a friend of Mimi’s from Singapore, who supposedly preferred Cuban style like Marina having learned Salsa first in London as opposed to Singapore. Actually the word a lot of people use is hate rather than prefer although all it really means most of the time is that they are not as good at certain things so they don’t like it. Right now I am most comfortable with On1 cross body style and am getting better with On2 Eddie Torres style. If I thought there was a good Cuban style teacher nearby, I would take the opportunity. Anyhow getting back to the topic, the unexpected surprise was Anastasia with her sister Davina. Apparently there was some Flamenco dance activity this weekend in London. I did not have an opportunity to dance with her – too much non Salsa for a long time followed by Sebastian dancing with her for the entire Salsa block next.

So aside from dancing with Mimi, Marina and Mimi’s friend from Singapore (she asked me if I dance Ballroom), I only danced two other times at Floridita’s – one of them “recommended” by the haughty type who after claiming to be too tired to pass me off to her. The funny/ridiculous/annoying thing is that I think she did this because she was asked by a different guy because she proceeded to the dance floor more or less immediately afterwards and started dancing. That was a new one for arrogance and a strange mixing of rudeness and consideration.

We stayed at Floridita’s until closing time or 3 AM. The girls had more fun at Floridita’s. Marina said she felt like she didn’t know how to dance at LDA while she felt comfortable at Floridita’s. For me, this was a much nicer and honest statement than what I heard at the beginning of the evening thus what seemed like a prickly interaction at the start of the evening ended with a détente and much warmer vibes. For me Floridita’s tonight was okay but no better than Club Salsa Fridays in overall dance quality – just more and nicer looking people, much higher cover charge, much longer commute, some different new music and presumably expensive drinks. I did not get an assessment from Sebastian – I suspect he would have enjoyed both places because both provided novelty.

The drive back was very tiring. More roadblocks. Too many people walking in the streets of Soho. Bad weather. Surprisingly high volume of traffic – apparently going to Stansted airport. I did not get home until 4:50 AM.