I’m going to be visiting Vancouver, any recommendations for salsa dancing hot spots for a hardcore salsero? On1 or on2 doesn’t matter.
Updates from June, 2010
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Cold Salsero
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zacaal
Hi! I’ll be coming to San Diego in August for two weeks to learn LA style… could someone advice where I could take lessons?
I’ll be there just for salsa, so I wouldn’t mind to dance 24/7. -
no-rythem-rican
Im in need of salsa lessons!!!
cold.salsero
Oh no!!! Quick, what kind of lessons are you looking for!? Studio lessons? Online lessons? Anthony has a bunch of those
no-rythem-rican
Studio…but im living in Killeen, TX, not much of an option here
cold.salsero
Unless you can drive out to one of these cities and back, consider moving
http://www.texassalseros.com/
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Aatash
Could somebody please help me find out the name of this song as I don’t speak Spanish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLEZjVJEq6M&playnext_from=TL&videos=1O0o4cH6MQg
I tried Shazam and shuffled many Salsa songs on iTunes but couldn’t find it.
Thanks,
Aatash
This is Calla Buey by Hector Alomar. Amazing song for practicing styles..
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Cold Salsero
Edited out, because plugging my site here wasn’t cool.
Marco
What a luxury to have salsa 6-7 times a week.
I don’t know how I’m gonna pull it off but I’m going to find a way to start a scene in my small town.
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luv_to_salsa
I’ve been salsa dancing for about a year in Ontario, Canada and recently had the opportunity to visit Santa Fe, New Mexico. Each Thurs, the bar ‘Corazon’ hosts the latin band NosOtros (http://www.nosotrosmusic.net/root/index.html). I made it there during my visit and had a fantastic time (I was on the dance floor all night). If you ever get the opportunity, it’s a great time – quaint venue, decent dance floor, friendly locals and excellent music.
I’m heading to Vienna, Austria next week and will hopefully get a chance to salsa there as well. Does anyone have any suggestions for places to visit?
Thanks, Sonja
Don Vaillancourt
Eh Sonja, how does their salsa compare to ours, I’m from Montreal. I’m going to Mexico city and Acapulco in December, been reading that Acapulco is all cumbia salsa.
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v22TTC
I’m a total beginner who’s been devouring this goldmine of a site for all it’s worth, cheers! You guys are an amazing credit to an art-form… hope you don’t mind my endless questions, once I’ve got a better idea what to ask, in time (of course, I’ll finish reading all of the articles and posts first).
Might be new to all this (and all of the reasons I decided to learn Salsa a few weeks ago have been taken from me, in the most upsetting way possible – and yet I’ll continue), but I was cooking yesterday and had to clean my wooden spoon with another one… caught myself tapping out the clave!.. and so it begins….
Looking forward to the adventure (gonna get me some other Latin dances and Hip Hop too), and having you good people as companions and fellow travellers.
Cheers!
Rob.
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salsa4life
I am a beginner and finding it difficult to follow certain dance routines when the salsa music is high tempo. I am always alright with low tempo salsa music. Is it because I am a beginner or certain routines are not suited to high tempo salsa music?
cold.salsero
I’m not quite sure what you mean by following a dance routine.
Are you trying to actually perform a choreography? Or are you social dancing, and trying to do a turn pattern or footwork combination?
salsa4life
The latter – social dancing, footwork & & dance patterns; as stated in my question, I am a beginner just practising (at home) what I have learnt in dance classes & from Anthony’s videos. & thanks for the quick response
cold.salsero
The problem might be that the turn pattern or shine is too complicated to do to fast music, and better suited to slower music, although practice can certainly help improve this (at least for your shines).
For turn patterns, it can depend on some part to how good your timing and leading skills are, as well as the skills of your follower. I can certainly get away with doing more complicated patterns to fast music if I have an advanced follower vs a less experienced one.
Marco
The frosty salsero is pretty spot on with their comments. I would also point out that when I get a really fast song I will tend to cheat a bit and fudge the step right after the break step (on1 the “2 & 6″ -on2 the “3 & 7″) you can’t totally ignore the step but if you melt it a bit it allows you to catch up.
Also when I do a complicated pattern and I’m off beat, I will usually hip roll/shoulder shimmy in place till the next cross body lead comes around. I thinks this is better then trying to rush things to catch up then have to slow it back down when you get back on track.
-Marco
salsa4life
Great guys, great comments – grateful to you two
Marco, what do you mean by ’till the next cross body lead comes around’?
Is it not up to the lead when he does cross body lead or is this dictated by the music. I mean, is there something in the music that indicates when a cross body lead has to be performed?
Marco
I’ll give an example;
Say you’re finishing a complicated pattern and you can hear that you are late for breaking forward on1.
You have two options 1) You can try your best to rush through to “catch up” to the music. OR 2) You can do any type of body styling (as mentioned above but you could pretty much do anything) this will wait out the 1-2-3 count and then you are ready to go straight into a Cross Body Lead (CBL.) It’s just a camouflage for getting back on time for a fast song.Hope that helps!
-Marco
salsa4life
Great stuff; very clear – thanks
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chaith1
Hello guys, I was told that you do not just shine or perform routines whenever you want, the music dictates this. Can anyone explain what to listen for that tells me when to perform a shine or routine? I am on2 and if this has been asked could someone reply with a link to the answer of my question. Thanks in advance.
cold.salsero
There isn’t really a set rule that you can only do shines when some instrument X starts playing in Y section of the song, it’s really more a matter of style and how you interpret the music.
If you watch videos of really good dancers dancing, or watch the dancers at your local club, you’ll start to get an idea of what goes well with the music. But again, there’s not really any sort of rule for this, you pretty much can do whatever you want, so don’t be afraid to get creative.
Also, I have a tendency to start doing shines whenever I run out of leads, which happens often =) I make my patterns last a little longer if I space them out with some shines here and there (it’s really a sign that I need to go learn more patterns). If I feel like my partner is getting of tired of following or really wants to go shine to a couple of groovy bars of the song, I’ll also let her go to do her thing then.
adejes01
I would say that “cold.salsero” is spot on with the advice of letting the partner do some shines when you have run out of leads. I do the same
I also throw in shines when there are vocal breaks in the music or solo spots in the music, I think it looks good to break with your partner during those times and get back when the vocals return. This doesnt require that you know the song, you just have to pay some attention to the music.
Don Vaillancourt 9:36 pm on July 6, 2010Permalink |
You can try Liz Lira: http://www.lizlira.com/. She’s a bit out of the way in L.A. but is very good. Her background is ballet, so posture and style is a big thing for her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLVDnbRYZ-o
Don Vaillancourt 9:38 pm on July 6, 2010Permalink |
You can try Liz Lira. She’s a bit out of the way in LA, but I bet worth the trip.
http://www.lizlira.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLVDnbRYZ-o
Don Vaillancourt 9:39 pm on July 6, 2010Permalink |
You can try Liz Lira. She’s a bit out of the way in LA, but I bet worth the trip. Her background is ballet so very strick. I’ve also taken a workshop with her in Montreal.
http://www.lizlira.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLVDnbRYZ-o
method_men25 3:06 am on July 29, 2010Permalink |
Christian Olvedo is her partner, he’s really good. I learned from him in his group classes at Zanzibar in Santa Monica (google Zanzibar) on monday nights. Its a HUGE group class, very popular, but he sticks around and you can prob chat with him, plus its a good time. Check out http://www.vidasalsera.com/salsaclubs.htm for all the (relatively) local spots to go dance by night of the week.