Will salsa dancing finally rise from the underground to hit mainstream television? Shows like Dancing with the stars and So You Think You Can Dance have been on the rise, but even in these popular dance shows, salsa gets a brief cameo at best. So what, or who, would it take for salsa dancing to arrive to our TV screens in mainstream media?
Junior and Emily Alibi, ESPN Salsa champions, might just make this possible. They have made it through preliminary rounds and wowed millions on NBC’s reality show America’s Got Talent. They are not the first dance act in the show’s history, but they certainly are the first salsa dancers, and they have gotten to the wild card position. What does this mean? It means that they are now in competition with 8 other acts for a spot on the final round of the show. Tune in Friday, September 3rd to see if they got the spot!
This is very exciting for all the salseros and salseras out there, to see one of our favorite dance couples on a popular TV show, and Junior and Emily are certainly a deserving couple. Having trained with them personally, I am absolutely amazed at the amount of talent they have. They have a bright future, and thanks to them the community at large will be more aware of the hobby that has become a passion and even lifestyle for many of us. Go Junior and Emily!
It’s back!!!! The 2nd Annual San Diego Salsa Festival, brought to you by Angel and Tulane Rivera in association with Albert Torres Productions, will be held September 19-21, 2008 at the Four Points Sheraton! We had so much fun at this event last year– the shows were amazing, there were workshops from the best dancers out there, and of course social dancing until the wee hours of dawn. There was a warm, unifying atmosphere all around, showing that this event will keep growing and be even more amazing this year! They will have LIVE MUSIC by the band Lucky 7, music by Super DJ Robby and DJ Frank until 4am, not to mention over 40 WORKSHOPS, professional dance shows, and a COMPETITION which is a qualifier to the World Salsa Championships on ESPN.
Confirmed instructors:
Victor and Burju (Boston) David and Jennifer (San Diego)
Silfredo La O Vigo (Cuba)
Laura Mendoza (San Diego)
Angel and Tulane (San Diego)
Magna Gopal (New Jersey)
Joel and Ana (Boston)
Ricardo and Viviana (Colombia)
…with many more to be confirmed!
Last, but not least - the third version of the ’salsa track’ that I made with Garageband is with a Flute Solo. Using a flute as the main part of the melody is common, but it is usually not heard of enough.
If you missed the first two salsa track solos, you can find the trumpet one here and the violin one here.
I’m sure there are many of you musicians out there that can do a much better job than I can - and we’d like to hear from you. If you can create an instrumental latin tracks, whether it be salsa, cha-cha or bachata, and would like to share that with the community - send it our way and we’ll post it up with a link to your site/profile. Who knows, it could start your record career.
After you get a Mac, a lot of fun things happen. I decided to put my compusic (computer+music) skills to some more good use an make a few interesting Salsa tracks with a program called GarageBand. While I was at it, I made three different versions of this salsa dance soundtrack. Here is the first one: an interesting salsa trumpet solo with some mixed in jazzy piano, cowbell and congas. Let me know what you think and of course - enjoy!
I welcome your comments and feel free to download, distribute and use the file freely - I provide it as part of a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
One of my favorite things about salsa dancing is the diversity of all the various kinds of dance that can be incorporated into the basic framework provided by salsa. In this series, I am going to share several videos that showcase the fusion of salsa with other styles of dance.
The first video in this series comes from Masacote Dance Company from Boston, MA. For those of you who have not heard of Masacote, their leader, Joel Massicot, is both a musician and a dancer. He has a latin/salsa band called Ritmo Masacote. The goal of Masacote Dance Company is to bridge the gap between music and dance; Joel teaches his famous musicality workshop throughout the world.
This performance is entitled “Afterlife”, and was performed at Flava Invasion 3 on Feb 23rd, 2008. The routine is a mix of salsa with modern and contemporary dance elements. Enjoy!
It’s back!!!! The 2nd Annual San Diego Salsa Festival, brought to you by Angel and Tulane Rivera in association with Albert Torres Productions, will be held September 19-21, 2008 at the Four Points Sheraton! We had so much fun at this event last year– the shows were amazing, there were workshops from the best dancers out there, and of course social dancing until the wee hours of dawn. There was a warm, unifying atmosphere all around, showing that this event will keep growing and be even more amazing this year! 
