DoingIndy at Riolo Dance Studio

DoingIndy recently posted a Podcast of Riolo Dance Studio (thanks to Tracy for contacting them). I was very impressed on the quality that was put into their podcast, it was very professional. The typical video Podcasts that I run into on the web are done with a hand held video camera and is edited on Windows Movie Maker.

Riolo Dance Studio is a unique studio, part ballroom dance and part social dance. We teach our salsa lessons at Riolo along with a handful of other independent groups that teach and train there. If you decide to take lessons at Riolo you have your choice of Salsa, Casino Rueda, Tango, Ballroom, Swing, Hula and more! Riolo also has a 2000 sq ft dance floor which is one of the best dance floors I have come across in Indy. While I can continue hyping up the studio where I teach, I will stop now and post their Podcast and let you be the judge!

For you salsa addicts there will be a Sunday Salsa Social at Riolo on Sunday, March 30th, 2008. See you there!

Work/Life Balance

As winter draws to a close and we are welcome by the warm spring air, I decided to start my spring cleaning early. This task is not the one where you clean out your closet and give your old clothes to Goodwill, but something deeper.

I have always lived a busy life; I cannot sit around and watch TV, life is too short to have that attitude. In the last 8 months I committed myself to a variety of projects. One is the startup of SalsaIndy, my decision to leave my old dance studio to start a new one. Another project I helped start was Salseros Unidos, a non-profit organization with the mission to build a strong Indianapolis salsa community. If you think that was enough to keep me busy, I work a day job (40+ hours a week), I develop and maintain a video bookmarking service and I am in working partnership with urban entertainment website.

Everything that I was working on has been moving in a positive direction, the websites are getting traffic, class attendances is increasing and I got a raise from my day job, but I was not happy. I never had the time to enjoy what I had, all I did was work. So I gave myself the difficult task of dropping on of my projects. After a couple of weeks of thinking I decided to drop my work with the urban entertainment website. This was a difficult decision because this was a paid project while my other free time projects are either not making money or a small profit.

The decision was based on what was going to make me happy and not what was going to make me the most money. Here is an inspirational video from Steve Jobs. It is a great video for those who want to pursued self employment while maintaining a happy life.

Do what you love and never work a day in your life.

Salsa Dancers vs. Ballroom Salsa/Mambo

From time to time, ballroom dancers show up at salsa clubs ready to dance - we know, because they always stick out in the crowd (and not in a good way). There are many differences between salsa dancers and ballroom dancers who learn salsa, including (but certainly not limited to) styling, footwork, movement patterns, and musicality. Please watch the video below for an idea of technical perfection of Mambo/Salsa from one of the leading authorities of Latin ballroom dance. Corky Ballas may be a god of the ballroom dance world, but he goes completely unknown in the world of salsa... for good reason!!

Salsa dancers tend to love the music they dance to, and are familiar with artists, bands, and song titles and lyrics. Experienced salsa dancers are so familiar with the songs that they are able to use what they know to interpret the music or emphasize a certain point in the song. Ballroom dancers, even highly trained ones, are much less concerned with the music, and emphasis is placed more heavily on technical perfection. They practice syllabus steps and competition routines to songs that many of which are knockoffs of real songs by cheap bands for purposes of "strict tempo". Click here to go to danceshopper.com and listen to some examples.

This type of Mambo or Salsa can be nice for performances, such as the Mambo part of the American Rhythm Ballroom Competitions or shows, but is not practical for everyday dancing. Unfortunately, ballroom instructors market this style of Mambo (and usually they teach Salsa similarly, just on 1) as the real deal - but you won’t learn how to dance at a Salsa club from a Ballroom studio. It is certainly not respected as an authentic form of salsa by any type of salsa dancer (whether it be LA style, New York Style, Cuban Style, Street Style, etc.). I feel like I can fairly evaluate this not only from video clips online such as this one, but from my collected experience watching ballroom dancers in Salsa clubs, teaching ballroom and ballroom “salsa” / Mambo, as well as my teaching with SalsaIndy…

If you dance like this in a club not only will you get a lot of strange looks from salsa dancers in the crowd, but you will probably make a lot of people angry because you will be taking too much space and stepping on everyone. Salsa dancers know that space in the club is very limited, and we all do our best to be respectful of those around us (even though we do inevitably run in to each other from time to time)…

Am I coming down too hard on ballroom dancing? I would say no, because I still love ballroom dancing. I can appreciate the differences in style between ballroom and salsa. I just think ballroom studios need to at least advertise that what they teach is not social dancing for the clubs so that students are aware that there is a difference.

Salsa and Super Bowl XLI?

First I would like to congratulate the Colts for bringing us a Super Bowl victory! Their victory shows that Indianapolis has great potential of becoming a city that people admire. When I moved to Indianapolis, I viewed it as a startup city looking for its identity. Will this Super Bowl victory help give Indy an identity? Only time will tell. Ok, enough with the introductions, back to the good stuff salsa!

The Nations in Rhythm concert was the kick-off event for Super Bowl XLI. This was a fundraising event for the Young at Art Children's Museum. The concert showcased a variety of world beats. There were also Latin acts that included salsa dancers and musicians! While it was only a small section of showcase, I think it is a major step in the right direction in introducing salsa to the masses. Just having salsa associated with the Super Bowl is priceless!

I found this video clip that highlighted the salsa performances. I did not see the kick-off show and only have this video clip as a reference. I see that there were both salsa and rueda dancers performing. This should put smiles on the faces of OpenSourceSalsa (Indy’s own rueda dance team).

A victory for the Colts, Indianapolis and Salsa!

2006 World Salsa Championship Winners!

Here are the video clips of the 1st place winners for the 2006 ESPN World Salsa Championships. If you are ever interested in performing or competing, why not steal some moves from the best (if you can handle their level).

Chad and Karina (Indianapolis' own cabaret dancers) flew out to San Francisco to compete in the prelims. While they did not qualify for the finals I would like to give them credit for all the time and hard work they put in. In my opinion they were not ready for such a competition, but hopefully they take what they have learned and continue building experience and confidence competing here in the midwest.

People have asked if I was ever going to compete at such a level. This idea has bounced around in my mind for sometime and it would be a fun and exciting to pursue such a level of dancing. Then reality hits and I realize that I currently have a lot going on in my life (my day job, SalsaIndy, freelance IT, teaching/dancing salsa, social life, etc). I would have to put my other activities on hold to focus on performing which I am currently not interested in doing.

Maybe one day, I would change my mind and reprioritize, only time will tell.

Sorry for the rant (I have not blog in a while and had some stuff on my mind) here are the video clips.

1rst place on1 division


1rst place on2 division


1rst place cabaret division


1rst place team division

Video Examples of On1 and On2 Dancing

As most of you already know there are different styles of salsa dancing. In the States the two most popular are On1 and On2 (also referred to as mambo). On1 is danced mainly on the west coast (Los Angeles Style) and On2 is dance mainly on the east coast (New York Style) and everyone in between can go either way. Most of us here in Indianapolis dance On1 if you did not know. To give you a quick and dirty description of the two dances, On1 dance is more flashy and showy while On2 is smoother and focuses more on the social aspect of the dance. While there are many exceptions to the rule, I just wanted to give a brief description of the two.

Here are two video clips comparing both On1 and On2 dancing (from a performance perceptive) to give you a feel of the two dances. Notice that on2 does not rely on tricks and lifts like On1, but more on styling. As I stated before these statements are not hard facts, but generalizations that have many expectations to the rule.

On1 example, Orville & Ana


On2 example, Eddie Torres & Nancy Ortiz

If you are interested in learning more about On1 and On2 dancing check out the Widkipedia definition of salsa dancing.

Music Video: Cachondea - Fruko y sus Tesos

While quality of this 'salsa music video' fell short in many areas such as actually salsa dancing, taste and artistic merit, somehow I was compelled to watch the entire video. Also this was the song that Chimere and myself used during our competition. If this does not get more men to checkout salsa dancing, then I do not know what will!

Cachondea - Fruko y sus Tesos

Update: I had the wrong salsa band listed. Thanks for the comments and phone calls correcting me. For some reason the video is listed as Sonora Carruseles. Honestly I should have caught this because I own music from both groups. This is what I get for blogging late at night after a glass of wine.

L.A. Style Salsa Workshop Video Clip

A couple of weeks ago there was a L.A. Style Salsa Workshop at Latin Street Dance Studio in Chicago. I did not post any clips from the workshop because we were not allowed to video tape the instructors (Rodrigo Guzman & Vai Au-Hare) and the videp clips I took of myself 'attempting' the moves were not complimentary. My friend Dewayne came across a video clip on YouTube of another couple practicing one of the patterns that was taught. If you look in the background you will see myself walking by and Chad and Karina in the wall mirror. Stacie from Orquesta Bravo and India was also there taking the workshop. Over 1/4 of the class was from Indianapolis!

My First Salsa Competition!!!

A couple of weeks ago, IntoSalsa hosted their first annual salsa competition! Chimere and myself decided to complete. We were only given 3 weeks to put a routine together, but I felt that we did a good job during the finals. Below is the clip of our performance. You can also find our performance on YouTube. If you want to see all the performances (Chad and Karina a must see!!!) they are posted on IntoSalsa's video clips page. We placed third in the competition (hey it was some tough competition), but I am planning on creating a more refined routine for next time. I would like to encourage everyone to give dance competitions a try. It is not about winning, but about becoming a more confident and experience dancer. In my book everyone who completed in the prelims and the finals are all WINNERS!!! Next time there is a dance off in Indy I hope to see the original completing couples and a few new faces.

Salsa on So You Think You Can Dance

While I enjoy watching Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance. I have only seen a handful of shows. The main reason is because the show is aired on Wednesday night, the same night I go dancing at the Red Room. So I have the choice of either watching people dance or I can do it myself, which for me is a no brainier. Yesterday night I was cruising on YouTube for salsa clips and I came across a salsa performance from the show. Surprisingly I did catch this episode on TV, and was happy to see that someone posted it on YouTube. The routine was not mind blowing, but was very fun to watch (nice lift). As a bonus, the clip includes the judge’s take on the performance which was all thumbs up!

It is great to see mainstream media taking an interested in social and ballroom dancing (especially salsa). Hopefully this encourages more people to give social dancing a try.

The Salsa Experiment

Here is another high energy salsa video clip with sound effects for added effect! The clip is called the 'Salsa Experiment' and is performed by Ed and Stephanie, two exceptional dancers. I have never heard of the couple, but after watching the video, they certainly look like professional salsa dancers. There is also a downloadable video clip available for those who would like to steal a move or two from them.

Category: [IndySalsero-videos]

Salsa Dancing and Street Fighter

What happens when you mix Street Fighter (a video game), Salsa dancing and some humor? You get a salsa dance clip worthy of watching over and over again.

Category: [IndySalsero-videos]