Scarlet Mambo and Fire N Ice are proud to present the hottest Salsa Party in 2009! Start off the year with the coolest Salsa party every Friday at a plush and trendy lounge. The Grand Opening is on Friday, January 2nd 2009. We have all kinds of good stuff going on. Reduced-cover guest list, low cover, drink specials, free dance classes, etc etc. And this is just the beginning. Live dance performances!!! (details coming soon).

DJ Dany Joshua and DJ Leonard will be spinning the hottest Salsa music for dancing.

Take a look at the photos of this lounge. Enough said about that.

.

Fire N Ice is located at the crossroads of New Jersey on Rt-1, 2 minutes away from the NJ Turnpike, Parkway, Rt-287, Rt-440, Rt-9, Rt-27. Also within a half-hour drive from Jersey City on the north, and the Princeton Area and Red Bank on the South.

Ladies Reduced on the guest list before 10pm.
(email LadiesFree@scarletmambo.com with 1 name and phone)

Fire N Ice Salsa Fridays.

Resident DJ’s:
DJ Dany Joshua
& DJ Leonard
+ Guest DJ’s

Classic Salsa, Merengue, Bachata

Budweiser Sponsored Event
$4 16-oz Budweiser
$5 Mojitos and Apple Martinis

9-10pm Free Salsa On2 Class
(2) Instructors (Intro and Improvers)

Fire N Ice
85 Lafayette Road, Fords, NJ 08863
Table Reservations (732) 417-1999
www.fireNiceNJ.com

Fire N Ice is located on Route 1 North at Ford Avenue Intersection (behind Raceway Gas Station). Between Menlo Park Mall & Woodbridge Mall.

Within minutes of Turnpike, Parkway, Rt-287, Rt-9, Rt-18, Rt-27.

Ladies Reduced on the guest list before 10pm.
(email LadiesFree@scarletmambo.com with 1 name and phone)

During the last decade, the internet has been a crucial tool in the movement of Salsa dancing. Social networking and video sharing websites have given dancers the ability to make artistic connections and share their footage of Salsa dancing. Mainly, sites like Myspace, Facebook and Youtube make communication very easy at the user level. However, at the professional level there are a few companies that feature our Salsa passion as a legitimate artistic endeavor.

Nuevotec Productions, a “videography” company based in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, has made an outstanding contribution to promote Salsa dancing and help inspire enthusiasts around the world. Simply, the Nuevotec team - Allan, Harry and Dimas - cover Salsa events, socials and congresses. Their footage of performances, social dancing and interviews is featured in Nuevotec.com. The following are some of my favorite videos.

This Wednesday (before Thanksgiving Thursday) is probably the baddest night to go out! (Baddest as in best). Scarlet Mambo is hosting a Pre-Thanksgiving Salsa Bash at 360 Lounge on Wednesday, November 26th 2008.

Scarlet Salsa Thursdays have quickly become the best weekly Salsa party in Central Jersey! The music is great, the place is super cool, the hardwood floor is excellent, and the people are awesome! Enough said.

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008.
Free Cover before 9pm.
Reduced before 10pm.

Drink Specials
$4 Margaritas, $3 Buds, $2 House Shots

DJ Dany J & DJ Leonard
Classic Salsa, Cha Cha, Merengue, Bachata
For serious dancing!

Free Salsa Lessons - (2) Levels
by Scarlet Mambo at 9:30pm

360 Lounge, 120 Albany St, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Actually, a picture is worth a thousand words. And a video is worth a million.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Griselle Ponce and Andy

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Yesenia Peralta and Greg Taylor

Let’s talk about what makes the 2008 NY Salsa Congress different from previous years. The director of the congress, John “Choco” Knight, has truly developed the 2008 NY Salsa Congress into a well-marketed all-week event. The schedule is so full of back-to-back attractions - workshops, afternoon socials, afternoon shows, and night shows, night socials – that it is difficult to find free time to rest, eat or sleep during the congress. Before the congress even started, there was plenty of dancing at pre-parties during the week all over New York City.

It has hard to estimate the number of people that participated in each evening social. I do not think that anyone kept track. Suffice it to say that it was crowded! I could have danced every song if I wanted to. Let’s assume that I danced about 100 songs during the whole congress (6 songs per hour x 4 hours x 4 nights = 96 songs). Out of those dance partners, I can only remember one girl saying that she didn’t want to dance. Those are good odds! The point is that everyone wanted to dance, and there was a lot of everyone.

Our favorite professional dancers/instructors were easy to spot also. They were usually found in the middle of a circle of observers.

Performances
Saturday and Sunday night performances were amazingly spectacular, so many to list. Two acts that stood out from the rest were Jayson Molina’s kids group and Maykel Fonts solo performance.

Every year, Jayson Molina showcases a mega routine composed of very young Salsa dancers. The most charismatic kid (the one with spiky hair) in that performance looked no older than 6 years old!

The Cha Cha performance of Cuban-born dancer Maykel Read the rest of this entry »

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.

A complete and succinct explanation of the basic On2 Salsa step by Jai Catalano, host of the ESPN 2007 World Salsa Championships.

This video really makes me want to dance. Yesenia is one of the most energetic salsa dancers that I’ve seen.

She is the instructor that taught me the basic steps of Salsa On2. Her brother,Ismael, kicked me out from the intermediate class and sent me to the beginners class. Yesenia grabbed my hand and said, “C’mon sweety, it goes like this: 1 2 3… 5 6 7.” I admit it. I don’t who I loved more, Salsa or her. That was in the summer of 2000 at Paradise Club (Sayreville, New Jersey).

“Bailamos” was so much fun this year. The RU Salsa Club did a splendid job organizing this event. Angie, you gets lots of kuddos! Let’s review a bit. Swing Sabroso performed live Salsa music. Dinner was excellent. There were lots of Salsa dancers. We had five great performances: Angie (singing), Scarlet Mambo Girls, Scarlet Mambo, RU Salsa Club and Fuzion Creativa. For you that missed it… oh well! Just kidding. Here are two videos of the performances of the night.

For more videos, visit the Scarlet Mambo YouTube Channel

Scarlet Mambo Performs “Salsa Dura” - Dany J. and Camila D.

Scarlet Mambo Performs “Pesadilla” - Camila, Lisa, Lyne and Nadya.

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

Scarlet Mambo has been busy practicing and performing. Here are the latest photos and videos. For more photos, visit the Photo Page.

http://scarletmambo.com/photos

Also, here is the latest video of the Scarlet Mambo Girls performing “Pesadilla”. Visit the Videos Gallery for more videos.