Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Bar Q

I finally got around to visiting Bar Q again on Sunday. They'd moved the class to the top floor, which I think (and hope) is temporary: it was ridiculously warm. At least there was a chillout room at the back with air conditioning going full blast, so you could cool down for five minutes before getting back to the dancefloor. I did the intermediate class, which was the first one I've done for a while. It was good: I think 45 minutes is just the right length to learn a sequence you can actually remember. For some reason (maybe because I've actually started getting a bit of exercise over the last few days) I was in a much better frame of mind for dancing than I have been for weeks. I had a great time in the free dancing and lay awake buzzing for ages when I got home.

Off to Brittany from Friday: if I manage to score some salsa when I'm over there I'll post a report when I get back.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Coming up

Well, I wasn't dancing very well on Monday night - I'm not fitting in enough practice. Best dance of the night was Cristina who it's impossible to have a bad dance with. The previous time I'd seen her was at WOMAD, having just seen a terrific set from the wonderful Lila Downs. Great Mexican cantina music for crying into your cerveza, and an extraordinarily lively and fun performance - when you see pictures of Lila she always looks moody and intense, but she hardly stopped smiling and never stopped moving. After watching her set I found myself speaking Spanish to Cristina when I came across her wading through the mud, which I never usually do because her English is so much better than my Spanish.

There's loads of exciting stuff coming up in the Autumn. Tammi kicks off with a night featuring Angus Peters, one of my favourite salsa teachers, on 15 September, at the Three Saints in Llantrisant. The following week it's Irene's turn at the Electricity Club in Pontcanna, with Rohan Brown (who I haven't seen for years). This looks like a really entertaining night, including both improvers rueda and intermediate salsa trio (one man, two women - or vice versa as I once saw Anna the scientist dancing it). The real biggie is Tammi's boot camp on 8-10 February with Edie the Salsa Freak, who's a world-famous teacher, and with evening party nights - Robert Charlemagne on the Saturday and Moe Flex on the Sunday.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Sierra Maestra...

...are playing the Big Weekend this Saturday in Cardiff civic centre - 7.30, free, which is a bargain. I've seen them twice before and they are really good.