Salsa in Washington DC

Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Washington DC twice, one week this month and one week last month. Washington DC is a beautiful and diverse city, but one aspect of the city stuck out in my mind: DC has a GREAT Salsa Scene!

Last month, I attended the Sunday monthly social. The venue is a restaurant that is nicknamed the Salsa Room, and it has a nice size hardwood floor, good seating areas, and a bar. There were many amazing dancers in attendance, and the energy was high the entire night. ClaveKazi was there and the ladies group did a nice performance; Shaka Brown was there also(didn't get to dance with him though...). Earl, from Stuck on Salsa, was nice enough to bring my friend and I to the event and introduce us to everyone there. Thanks Earl!

This month, I attended a regular club night. It was on a Monday night to Clarendon Grill, and was apparently by far the best night to go out (or so I was told by many people). The venue had a large wood dance floor, and a smaller dance floor (not wood). There were a lot of amazing dancers there, as well. I danced with a semi-famous dancer, Psyon, met some really nice people, and I was lucky enough to have one dance with a guy, who although I forgot his name, was by far the best lead I have ever felt!

Anyone who has yet to experiance Salsa in another city should go to DC for a great experiance! The quality and level of dancing is equal to what you will find at a congress, and the dancers have minute differences between them so no matter what you prefer to focus on, you will probably find dancers to fit your style. The Salsa experiances that I had in DC will definitely be a motivational factor to return to DC's dancefloors as soon as my life permits!

Chicago workshops, dancing, and slight amounts of chaos.

The last salsa road trip of 2007 commenced Sunday, December 9th 2007. We (Marques and I, Ketura and Job) left early Sunday morning. It happened to be pretty bad weather and the road conditions were not in our favor. It was raining ice the entire way, and it was to our benefit that Marques had just gotten new tires.

Despite the bad weather, we reached Chicago early, and after locating Latin Street Dance (the studio that was hosting the workshops), we found some close parking and hung out in what has to be the most interesting Mc Donalds that I have ever been to. It was two stories, and mostly windows, with escalator and upstairs "café" (or Mc Donalds version of a cafe, none of us had the desire to test their products at that time).



The workshops started around 1:30 and lasted until about 8pm. They were taught by By Marina & Ibi, from Sweden,
who placed 2nd at The World Salsa Championships 2006 in Las Vegas. There were four workshops: ChaChaCha (All levels), Intermediate Salsa, Advanced Salsa, and Competition Salsa. Ketura, Job, and I took all four workshops, and Marques took all but the Intermediate Salsa. They were really great instructors, and were able to teach a workshop that actively engaged the entire class. They added styling and "sabor" to all of the patterns they taught, and I really felt that the workshops were of great quality. The Competition Salsa was a tricks class... they showed us 3 similar tricks, all of which looked simple and ended up being much more difficult.

By the end, we were all completely exhausted (but in a good way)! We walked to a nearby restaurant, which didn't seem so nearby after the long cold walk. The restaurant is Roy's, which had expensive but very good food. It doesn't seem or feel like a chain restaurant, but there are Roy's in other major cities as well. We would like to thank Marques' friend DeAnna for giving us a gift certificate.

Anyway, our last stop of the day was the Buzz. The boys decided to be nice and try to find closer parking, even though we could have walked, because it was very cold. They let Ketura and I off at the door. I had a great time, and danced with a few really great dancers. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the advanced dancers were at another party, but we still had an amazing time.

There was an unexpected competition, which Marques and I decided to enter on some kind of spur of the moment whim. Turned out there was only one other couple, and it was one of many qualifying rounds for a huge upcoming final. Even though the other couple had matching nice clothes on, and had a routine, and we were just in street clothes and improving, the audience still decided they liked us better, and we received a bottle of champaign for the night. That was nice :-) Both of us qualified for the finals, though.

The slight bit of chaos started after our great night at the Buzz... Marques' car got towed, and we were very tired. We also hit a deer on the way home, luckily it was pretty minor. We ended up reaching home probably about 7 in the morning, and we learned our lesson!!! From now on, we will always book a hotel room and stay over night!

Columbus SalsaFest

On November 10th Marques, Chimere, Josiah, and I traveled to Columbus Ohio, for Columbus SalsaFest. Okay really we just went for the social dance that evening. Due to everyone’s busy schedules, and timing, we were not able to participate in the full event, but we still had fun! Marques and I performed, along with another salsa couple, an argentine tango couple, and a small salsa team. There were more performances on other days of the event as well.

The dance was held at The Vault, which was a converted bank vault (and surrounding area). There was a bar inside the Vault, and a large open space for dancing. The floor wasn’t great, it was concrete I think, and a little uneven, but it wasn’t too bad. There was an upstairs overlook as well, probably would have been nice as a lounge, but there weren’t any places to sit. I guess they wanted all the dancers to stay downstairs were the action was. :-D

There were enough interesting and new male leads to keep me entertained, and everyone I met seemed really nice. One thing I noticed was that they played a lot more ChaChaCha than we do (which is fine with me since I love ChaCha), and the majority of the dancers present were On2 dancers. That made the night interesting as well since most dancers in Indianapolis do not dance On2 yet.

All in all, Columbus seems like a relatively dead city when it comes to nightlife downtown… while driving to and from the social dance, I don’t think we saw any clubs open… there were no cabs, few cars, and only a handful of people scattered around the city. This was around 10pm and 1am, so it was still relatively early for a Saturday night… It made all of us appreciate Indianapolis, that is for sure!

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…