Salsa in Chicago

Recently I traveled to Chicago, on October 20th (2007), to watch a performance by Luna Negra Dance Theatre - a modern dance company. Their show incorporated Salsa, Mambo, and Tango with modern dance, or at least that is how they were advertising it. I was very glad to see a modern company bring awareness of other dance styles to their audience, especially styles I love so much! I am assuming it is due to the fact that it is a company that mostly consisted of Latinos/Latinas…

For an honest review, I felt that the dancers didn’t truly understand the dances they were trying to represent. Too often people see a few movies and think they understand a dance, without having taken lessons or been in the actual atmosphere (for example, actually going to a salsa club)… this is the feeling that I got from this company. Yes, most of the company is consisted of Latino/Latina dancers, but they are still primarily Modern/Ballet trained. I think they just used the music (not the actual dances) as their inspiration, which is fine… the performance was good, and the dancers were pleasing to watch, but I think my expectations were just a little too high going into the theatre.

Anyway, after the show I picked up a friend who lives in the area, and we went to Rumba for their Salsa night (this was a Saturday). There were plenty of good male leads, and the floor was more packed than the Jazz Kitchen (if that seems possible). Surprisingly, most of the great male leads that I danced with that night did not do LA Style or New York style salsa, they were more Cumbia type dancers. They were great at interpreting the music, and had a lot of feeling in their dancing… The music selection was excellent, not a bad song was played all night. Basically we danced until they closed the club.

I definitely plan on returning to Chicago to salsa in the near future…