Salsa in Washington DC - Clavekazi Social / Stuck on Salsa / DC Salsa Meetup

January 5, 2008

No Salsa for 2 weeks! Blame it on illness. I was hospitalized for more than three days and was bedridden for considerably longer. The hospital was never able to tell me why I was sick. Among other things, I had to cancel a planned trip to New York.

It could have been more interesting. Had I stayed at the hospital for another three days, I would have been in a middle of a shooting – some convict overpowered five police officers, took two guns, fired several shots before escaping from my floor. He died seven hours later in a shootout in a cemetery.

In some ways it has been the dullest vacation ever. During the first 16 days, I have been outside only three times – unless I count 4 days at the hospital. Because I was so unused to the outside world, it felt very strange going out the door and driving to the Clavekazi dance studio.

I arrived shortly after 10 and walked in with several other people who arrived at around the same time and parked their car next to mine - everyone had somewhat unusual names (Margarita, Vishal, etc). The cover was $8 with discount for making RSVP via DC Salsa Meetup group – well over 200 people made reservation through the Meetup group, and total number of people must have been 300-500.

There were two rooms, both larger than wood floor space at LeL. One room played a mix of music – I glanced at the room a few times but never stayed. The other room was pretty much all Salsa except two Bachata over the course of nearly 5 hours.

One of the biggest surprises was running into Kristina – Mimi’s friend. She came to visit Shaka with another Swedish friend. They were planning on catching Jimmy’s social tomorrow. It was a nice photo opportunity – for evidence’s sake.

On the whole the calibre of dancers were considerably higher than at the Cecilia’s two weeks ago. However, I failed to spot very many really good dancers – I don’t think I saw Shaka dance, and I had difficult time spotting anyone as being an obvious local star. I’d rate the event as being similar to SOS with possibly slightly higher proportion of mid-upper level people but without very many who would be considered a cut above. I think it must have been better than SOS because I was still dancing with mostly new people after 4 hours.

My dancing form was okay but not great. For the first hour, I really didn’t feel like myself – I felt like I was having an out-of-body dancing kind of experience. I’m guessing I hadn’t completely recovered. The feeling of disorientation remained for quite a long time.

It was difficult to figure out how I was rated by people there. Some people must have thought was I was alright and acted impressed. There were some who seemed a little bored although everyone was at the very least polite. I was asked for dance by about half dozen people who seemed to have looked before.

I didn’t feel I had a great pure lead-follow connection with anyone – in any case no one knocked me out in that regards. There were some I really enjoyed dancing with and had a great all-around connection, but those involved very little turn patterns. Generally the dances I enjoyed had more focus on flirting rather than flashiness. The best were with two dances with a stunner named Kim from Virginia Beach.

This could be just my imagination, but I got a feeling that not a few people were considering the event as fairly minor event – big for DC but considering everything outside of New York as second rate. It really would have been nice to check out the New York scene. Oh well. Another time.

The end of the party was a little odd – more of a fizzle than a bang. A clearer indication of when the party will end would have been nice. I finally spotted Michelle Reyes (a friend of Sergio's) near the end - well after 2 AM. However, I did not get around to talking or dancing with her.

It was raining when the party was over. One of the girls I danced with earlier were limping and was being helped by one of her friends to the car. I recognized the limping girl as someone I recall meeting at the SOS party couple of years ago (I think her name is Christina), and her friend apparently was Karen Aguilar - an instructor type although I don't think I danced with her and she made little impression on me during the party.