New York City is the mecca for Salsa dancers because of the quality and quantity of venues. Everyone knows that, but New Jersey now has a new Salsa venue that measures up to any dance social in the city. 46 Lounge, located in Totowa, New Jersey, hosts Mambo Tuesdays. It is hard to beat the services of this salsa spot. A mere $5 cover buys a dinner buffet, a Salsa class, and 5 hours of Salsa music for dancers by DJ Ray Colon.

And this is only the beginning. Let’s face it. It is not always about the money. The dance floor, in dancer’s dream condition, is surrounded by a trendy lounge setting. The perfect balance of dim and accent lights sets the mood for an afterwork drink, or to unwind in a relaxed, upscale, underground Salsa party.

Seasoned professional dancers are easily drawn to this venue. On the random Tuesday night that I attended in early June there was no shortage of Salsa pros. Real quick, let’s see: Magna Gopal, Griselle Ponce, Pzzass Dancers, Marcus Nieves and Kimberly, Bernie and gang from Plan B, etc etc.

Enough said? Good. Mark it on your calendar and support this Salsa event!

Hopefully this short article (and video) will persuade you to spend some time on your shines.

Beginner dancers usually shy away from learning Salsa shines (footwork) because they do not understand their practicality or value. The following video is an example of improvisational fluidity.

Why Salsa shines are good for you:

1. Improve your timing - If you get lost in the middle of a turn pattern, you will be able to get back into the beat more easily.
2. Improve your body movement - If you want to dance salsa like a fish swims in water, shines are a perfect way to loosen your body and look more “latin”.
3. Expand your spinning abilities. - It is more difficult to spin by yourself that to have a partner spin you. If you can spin in shines, then you can spin twice as much in partner work.

If you missed the 2007 ESPN World Salsa Chapionships last December, now there are plenty of opportunities to watch the show on ESPN. Anthony (from Addicted2Salsa) wrote a post (World Salsa Championship 2007 Results - All Divisions) in which he listed the finalists (and videos) of each category. Now this your chance to watch the whole ESPN special covering the Salsa competition. See schedule below.

I find it remarkable that Salsa has reached this level of popularity. It has been about ten years since the first Salsa Congress in Puerto Rico but so much has happened since. There are now Salsa Congresses in many major cities all over the world, let alone the cities in the U.S. There has been an incredible increase in the number of instructors and performers. Here in New Jersey, I still remember when Eddie Torres was the epicenter of Salsa moves. Now there are so many reputable instructors to choose from.

What is more surprising to me is that Salsa has acquired a professional status. I always cringe when ballroom dancers refer to our regular style of Salsa dancing as “Street Salsa” or “Club Salsa” because that implies that their Ballroom Style is more professional. And so I am very pleased that our Salsa style is the focus of an international broadcast by ESPN.

Source: ESPN World Salsa Championships Website

I was in the process of writing a brief history of Salsa. But NJN’s Imagenes has beat me to it with this 27-minute documentary that focuses on the Mambo Golden Era of the Palladium in New York City. The documentary is called “Golden Age of Dance” and it aired on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 6:30 pm on NJN.

Our friends, the Swing Sabroso Orchestra, are featured at the end of the video along with members of New Jersey’s Cultural Explosion group and many other popular Salsa dancers.

Make sure you watch the full episode (27 minutes) because it is full of juicy videos and trivia. I broke down the video into three parts because of YouTube’s 10-minute limit.

The review in quotes below is from an email from our friend Tricia Dougherty.

“Golden Age of Dance” - PART 1

This episode is a 27 minute documentary showing Mambo dancing in New York City at the Palladium in the 1950s. Back then the night began with a free mambo lesson On 2 (hey, just like they do today at some places !) and continued until 4AM. Old footage was displayed of the famous dancers of that era. Their dance style was not quite as precise and polished as today’s dancers but it was fun to watch everyone doing their thing on the dance floor.

“Golden Age of Dance” - PART 2

The Ballet Hispanico dance company performed at the Joyce Theater in New York reliving the days at the Palladium. Each dancer was selected to play a certain “character” from the 1950s palladium days: the socialite, the married couple dance instructors, the underage girl, the hot Casanova, plus the neighborhood people and weekly regulars. And “playing the role of the big band at the Palladium is Ray Rodriguez and orchestra Swing Sabroso !”

“Golden Age of Dance” - PART 3

It was great ! Dancing to “Baila con Swing Sabroso”, side by side footage was shown on the screen of the black and white 1950s Palladium dance floor mixed in with the current Crystals dance floor showing identical dance moves and dress. Footage of the band at Crystals was mixed in with their music video. If you want to fast forward to the Crystals portion of the show, it is at the 3:40 minute mark of Part 3.

To view similar videos, please visit the Scarlet Mambo YouTube Channel

A few weeks ago, the Scarlet Mambo Team and friends attended a music festival to support a performance by Swing Sabroso in Princeton. We all were lucky to be featured in a series of three stories printed on The Princeton Summer Journal.

It seems that everyone got a mention, a quote, or a picture. Let’s see… Carenina, Lyne, Felisa, Mary, Tee, Camila, Ray (Swing Sabroso), Mike (Swing Sabroso), and yours truly.

Below are both, the text and scan, versions of the articles. So pick one to read. I will stop now because I don’t want to spoil the three articles.

Community enjoys ‘Power of Percussion’
By Krystal Valentin
Jersey City, N.J.

The muggy air and the scorching sun didn’t deter attendees young and old from learning about the magic of music at the third annual West Windsor Music Festival on July 28 at the Nassau Park Pavilion.

This year’s festival, titled “The Power of Percussion,” was sponsored by the West Windsor Arts Council to provide a showcase for local music groups. For West Windsor resident Lyne Simpson, 31, the day presented an opportunity to share her love for salsa and merengue music with her twin daughters, Felisa and Mary, 9. Simpson, who learned to dance while attending Rutgers University, has both daughters enrolled in salsa and merengue dance classes. She said she feels it is important to give her kids the same exposure to the arts that she had as a child.

Click here for the rest of the stories. Read the rest of this entry »

The 7th Annual Salsa Congress is coming up at the end of this month (Aug 30th - Sep 2nd, 2007). Participants come from all over the world to experience the raw New-York-Salsa-Style so it is a great place to make new salsa friends. Besides, New York is very close to us, it would be a shame to miss it this year. I will be attending every single night and a few people are going with me each night.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday, July 29th, the New York Times printed a story about Salsa dancing and its development through the last four decades. It is very entertaining to read because it discusses issues that, both, beginner and veteran Salsa dancers can appreciate.

It is apparent that the writer did her homework because this article contains quotes from seasoned Salsa gurus in diverse professions in the Salsa industry. But, as many other aficionados and newcomers to the Salsa dance scene, she makes the mistake of confusing Salsa The Music with Salsa The Dance. In my next post (very soon), I will politely disagree with a few assertions that she makes in her article. My disagreements are mainly rooted on the fact that the author groups Salsa participans (DJ’s, musicians, promoters, instructors, casual listeners, casual dancers, and veteran dancers) as one block entity of people, when in reality there are many players with conflicting business interests. More on this soon.

Ok. I am done debating and getting technical… for now.

So, enjoy the article because it DOES tell a colorful story with good quotes from important Salsa figures.

Salsa Spins beyond its Roots - NY Times

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40A15FE38550C7A8EDDAE0894DF404482

By JULIE BLOOM

(Salsa, which once ruled nightclubs across New York City, has trouble finding havens there today. The Taj Lounge, in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, offers salsa dancing to live music once a week.)

SOON after Héctor Lavoe, the great salsa singer, arrives in New York in the new biopic, “El Cantante,” he finds himself immersed in a vibrant scene in the Bronx: a nightclub crammed with bodies drenched in sweat moving to the pounding beat of congas. As the film, which is to open nationwide Aug. 3 and stars Marc Anthony as Mr. Lavoe, shows, it could have been any night in New York in the late 1960s, when dancing was a genuine physical manifestation of the energy of the streets. Read the rest of the story…

Read the rest of this entry »

El Cantante in Theaters in the New Brunswick, NJ area.

For salsa dancers, salsa music is as familiar and as necessary as the air they breath… for salsa dancers. However, salsa is not Pop Culture, there are still loads of people that have not been introduced to the beautiful world of salsa.

El Cantante, released Friday, Aug 3rd 2007, is a movie featuring the life of Salsa singer Hector Lavoe (played by Marc Anthony). Read the rest of this entry »

This is a response to an email that I received commenting on a previous post (On 2 SalsaBeat - How to dance On2).
I will answer a couple of questions presented on this comment: “Why an 8-beat measure? I hear salsa in 4/4 time.”

Steve, Thanks for your email. I appreciate the invitation to discuss the starting step for men in mambo (Salsa On2). But first I think I need to address the music, then the different styles of dancing.

Musicality

Your assertion that salsa is written in 4/4 timing is correct. For a musician (piano, bass, trumpet player, etc.), the music is best organized with a 4-beat measure. Wearing my guitar player hat, I like to feel salsa music in 4/4 time (count 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4…) because I’m interested in the harmorny (chord) changes and basslines of the songs. I come from a rock/blues background and I like to hear the chord changes on the 1st beat of every measure. So, Yes I agree with you that I can feel 4/4 timing in salsa. In salsa, it is very common to hear chord changes in the 1st beat of the 4/4 measure (or the 1st and 5th beat of the dance measure).

Rhythm and Dance

Things change, however, when I listen to melody and rhythm. Let me differentiate by defining the following:

Musical measure is 4 beats. Following is two (2) musical measures

|1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4|

Rhythmic and Dance Measure is 8 beats

|1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | Read the rest of this entry »

Bailamos, hosted by the RU Salsa Club, was a great hit last night at the Douglass College Center. The event kicked off with music by DJ Dany J at 8:00pm at the classy ballroom of Trayes Hall. Within half-hour the room was full of attendees. Dinner was promptly served at 8:45pm. Scarlet Mambo opened the event at 9:15pm with a Salsa performance. Swing Sabroso took the stage and performed live. Angie Gomez, RU Salsa Club member, sang two original bachata songs. The RU Salsa Team performance headlined the event with a four-couple salsa routine.

RU Salsa Team

Angie Gomez

Scarlet Mambo

Click here for more pics Read the rest of this entry »