We are now back with a new salsa dance video. For this salsa dancing move, we wanted to challenge ourselves in chaining as many terms as we could together. Later we realized that it wouldn’t fit in the video show title. By the way, are you ready for a new season of “So You Think You Can Dance?”
Tag Archive for 'salsa videos'
In this episode of Addicted2Salsa, we go back to the basics to help you learn how to do a 180° Cross-Body Lead with a Turn (*a few others call this the ‘Coca-Cola’ move). This move is a lot simpler than it may appear. We first start off refreshing you what a Cross-Body Lead with a Turn looks like and from there add-on the extra dance steps required to do a half-revolution. Getting the 180 degree cross body lead will help build the salsa framework for you to execute the 360 cross body lead – which will show you in a future episode. If you have any questions, feel free to post them at http://facebook.com/addicted2salsa .
The song used in this video is ‘Manias’ by Tito Nieves.
We have just finished relaunching the Salsa Dance Lessons website to make it easier for everyone to view and download all the current and future episodes of the #1 Free Salsa Video Lesson podcast. With this new website, you should be able to view the videos in higher quality (even the old ones), in fullscreen and you should be able to directly download all the videos to your desktop. This should help make salsa dancing more accessible to everyone around the world.
I will be adding features for people to leave comments on any video and to ask questions about any specific moves. If you see some other feature that would make the website even better or easier to use – please don’t hesitate to send your feedback.
I’m sure you have now figured out why I have been ‘quiet’ for the past few months. I’d like to thank Julie for running addicted2salsa and answering emails while I was locked in the “dungeon” working. We will start working on new episodes for the fall soon.
I have received a lot of email about our free salsa dance video lessons – I’ve heard it has become popular (who would have thought?). Well, to make it easy for many people in the world to be able to view the podcast and most of the latest videos, I have updated the salsa dance videos website with a video player and multiple links to the different formats of the video feeds. You can watch our Youtube Channel, subscribe to our iTunes Salsa feed, or just read most of the video articles straight from our website!
We will be making the website more ‘salsa media centric’ as time goes by – so stay tuned!
What’s the sweeter bonus? A weekend in beautiful Palm Springs, CA? Or a salsa congress and bootcamp in the 2007 Salsa Summer Splash? Maybe it’s a draw. Regardless, I had a great time at the event. Palm Springs gets very crowded with salseros in the months of July and August. Al Espinoza’s event somehow pulls a large following, despite the fact that his party is the third event (in 8 weeks) in the desert oasis. Both the workshop/bootcamp portion and the performances/parties were well attended. Want a reggaeton class? Check. Bachata or salsa shines? Yup. I’m trying to recall if there was a zouk workshop. Wanna talk about some great instructors? John Narvaez and Liz Rojas from Salsamania taught an intermediate/advanced on2 pattern class. The bay area team broke down the pattern thoroughly, and even split the class between guys and girls to get their respective pieces down. John also took some time outside of the class to help me with a difficult section. Anthony and I really enjoyed the session.
In addition to meeting Sir Anthony Persaud of San Diego for the first time, I met Pauline (Miss Flare), Karlos, and a bunch of other salseros from the Bay Area, LA, San Diego, etc. Great company. On the performance tip, they started pretty close to their scheduled time, within a half hour. Some of the standout routines included Majesty in Motion, John Narvaez and Liz Rojas, Pretty Boys and Girls, Salsabor y Cache. Click on some of the images below for a sampling of the videos. Thanks to Anthony for doing the interview with Dave Stein and Majesty in Motion. Keep the podcast going for the community! Continue reading ‘Nuevotec Salsa Summer Splash 2007 Video Dance Review’
I would like to send a thanks to Jan for sending me this link to this article. It talks specifically on the comparison of the salsa scenes portrayed in ‘El Cantante‘ the movie compared to the salsa scenes of today. You can find the article here: Salsa Spins Beyond its Roots.
One of my favorite quotes from the article is when Ms. Torres states: that salsa “...remained a dance of the street, not taught but absorbed“. This reminds me of how must of us learn salsa. While we take lots of salsa lessons here and there, we usually just learn by either asking or watching other dancers at the club. I would have to agree that most of the patterns I end up learning are from observation than anything else. I can look at someone doing a pattern, and decompose it into its ‘fundamental’ elements – and then add my own style to make it my own. It is not a special inherent ability, every dancer develops it in the long run.
Another anecdote that is mentioned in an interview with Mr. Eddie Torres, is why he decided to start teaching dancers to break ‘on 2′.
“There’s something in the rhythm section in a Latin dance called the tumbao,” he said. “It’s a time pattern that the conga player plays, and you’ll hear an accent, and it’s always on the second beat. This is why Tito Puente said breaking on two is natural, there’s a feeling in that beat that you gravitate to.”
and specifically on how today’s dancers are very different than the days before:
“Young salsa dancers are becoming Olympians, athletes in the dance, so they’re not thinking of drinking and doing drugs, like we did years ago.”
..which statement resonates with some of the things we say about how salsa was back in the old days. If you listen to the podcast, you hear us joke around about salsa artists/dancers being alcoholics, doing drugs and going to jail. Well, while it might seem harsh, it was just a known fact – that is the way things were in New York City in that era. Think of it as the current social relation that people have with ‘Hip-Hop’ and ‘Gangsters’, except that back then it was ‘Salsa’.
While I will not continue to paraphrase the article, I do suggest that you read it because it is very well written with some very good points and interviews. I am just happy that salsa is getting more exposure, now with the new Hector Lavoe Movie (and here and here) and this article being in the New York Times – we are starting to take salsa one step further. (pun intended)
I gave you some answers on another forum 
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