Friday was the big monthly salsa and samba night in Glasgow School of Art. It was supposed to start at ten but didn't get going until closer to eleven. I was dancing a lot better than the previous night: after the first dance I got a kiss on both cheeks and “Eres un lider fantastico” - a bit of an exaggeration but a pretty good start to any evening.
The music was very good and the venue wasn’t bad. There seemed to be plenty of space, but being in the students’ union during Freshers week brought predictable hazards; at one point a pair of beer monsters turned half the place into a no-go zone before knocking a pint over in the middle of the dancefloor.
Once you’re warmed up it’s always good dancing in a new city because you’re bound to have a few moves that will be new to the locals. I certainly managed to surprise a few women (mainly in a good way, I think – at least, one asked me for a second dance and nobody turned me down). At one point I surprised myself by sticking together a couple of moves into a flash combination that I hadn’t done before but worked well: unfortunately when I woke up the following morning I couldn’t for the life of me remember it.
In Cardiff, apart from the Latin crowd, you can pretty much assume that people will dance CBL style. Here it was predominantly Cuban, so I had to wait and watch to find out who were either CBL dancers or Cuban dancers who looked as if they were compatible with CBL style – and the good CBL dancers were in demand.
Duncan’s excellent music got a large number of muggles up dancing later, which meant that a fair bit of my attention had to be on keeping my partner out of danger rather than thinking which flashy move to do next.
Tumbao, the Scottish rueda champions, did a spectacular display. After that quite a few of the dancers started leaving, and I could feel myself beginning to lose the plot, so I left and got to bed at a relatively sensible 2am.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Cuba Norte
A good week’s dancing last week: on Monday John played good music all night, I finally got my lead working again three weeks after getting back from holiday (it’s frightening how quickly it deteriorates without practice) and Number One Dance Partner was on form.
Most of the week I was up in Glasgow for a conference and on Clare’s recommendation I went to Cuba Norte on Thursday to try and learn some Cuban-style salsa from Farah and Duncan.
It was obvious that Farah is a remarkable dancer right from her graceful and sophisticated footwark warmup. But unlike some ‘natural’ dancers she can really teach. This was the first really good Cuban salsa lesson I’ve had, and I learnt some stuff that I could actually reproduce on the dancefloor. Only thing that was a bit odd was that we didn’t change partners at all in the first lesson.
In the second class, though Duncan was only teaching a single named turn pattern – setenta something or other – I struggled a bit, and had to admit to a series of tolerant and helpful partners in turn that I wasn’t actually a Cuban dancer. Rueda was good fun, though I didn’t know a lot of the moves.
I hadn’t slept very well for the previous couple of nights, and by the time I got round to a (CBL) dance I was losing my sense of rhythm and my lead: to be honest I was rubbish. So I cut my losses and had an early night.
Most of the week I was up in Glasgow for a conference and on Clare’s recommendation I went to Cuba Norte on Thursday to try and learn some Cuban-style salsa from Farah and Duncan.
It was obvious that Farah is a remarkable dancer right from her graceful and sophisticated footwark warmup. But unlike some ‘natural’ dancers she can really teach. This was the first really good Cuban salsa lesson I’ve had, and I learnt some stuff that I could actually reproduce on the dancefloor. Only thing that was a bit odd was that we didn’t change partners at all in the first lesson.
In the second class, though Duncan was only teaching a single named turn pattern – setenta something or other – I struggled a bit, and had to admit to a series of tolerant and helpful partners in turn that I wasn’t actually a Cuban dancer. Rueda was good fun, though I didn’t know a lot of the moves.
I hadn’t slept very well for the previous couple of nights, and by the time I got round to a (CBL) dance I was losing my sense of rhythm and my lead: to be honest I was rubbish. So I cut my losses and had an early night.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Bristol Dance Festival
My train got me in too late for the first session, so I watched the tail end of the beginner's tango class. Shame I missed it as it looked good: at least, people seemed to be gliding across the floor reasonably elegantly. The only tango class I've ever done was undermined by an Argentinian teacher's dodgy English, though it did include the memorable line - trying to explain leading - "First I will move her backwards, then I will make her come"!
Melitza's samba class was very clear, and very energetic: well, it was energetic for me, though at the end she put on a normal-speed samba track which was about twice as fast as the ones we'd been practising to. I'd like to do a bit more of it - I'd certainly get fit if I did.
I was originally planning to do the Latin Jazz class, but my brain was already overloaded trying to get my head (or rather my feet) round samba, so I thought I'd do salsa instead. Saher's intermediate salsa class was OK but the sequence was a couple of measures too long for me. Ian's la rueda was enjoyable, with added style provided by Anna and Lee. Hope Kate gets round to reviving la rueda in Cardiff soon.
I didn't do Andy's salsa on 2 class but it went down a storm with the punters who wanted to get him to do regular classes in Bristol.
The dance displays outside were on a very iffy green carpet which really limited the dancers, though the crowd enjoyed it. A bit more advance planning would have been good - I know that at least one of the dancers in the salsa trio display had no advance warning that she was going to do it!
There weren't many of the really good Bristol/Bath dancers around but there was a good contingent from Cardiff. All the classes were either Latin or street dance: it would be nice to have a crack at swing, jive or lindy hop next year. Overall I thought it was pretty good. Not many people hung around for the end of afternoon party so I left early to catch my train as I was already committed to going to a party in Penarth - shame really as I was just warming up and could really have done with a night in La Tasca rather than too much red wine...
Melitza's samba class was very clear, and very energetic: well, it was energetic for me, though at the end she put on a normal-speed samba track which was about twice as fast as the ones we'd been practising to. I'd like to do a bit more of it - I'd certainly get fit if I did.
I was originally planning to do the Latin Jazz class, but my brain was already overloaded trying to get my head (or rather my feet) round samba, so I thought I'd do salsa instead. Saher's intermediate salsa class was OK but the sequence was a couple of measures too long for me. Ian's la rueda was enjoyable, with added style provided by Anna and Lee. Hope Kate gets round to reviving la rueda in Cardiff soon.
I didn't do Andy's salsa on 2 class but it went down a storm with the punters who wanted to get him to do regular classes in Bristol.
The dance displays outside were on a very iffy green carpet which really limited the dancers, though the crowd enjoyed it. A bit more advance planning would have been good - I know that at least one of the dancers in the salsa trio display had no advance warning that she was going to do it!
There weren't many of the really good Bristol/Bath dancers around but there was a good contingent from Cardiff. All the classes were either Latin or street dance: it would be nice to have a crack at swing, jive or lindy hop next year. Overall I thought it was pretty good. Not many people hung around for the end of afternoon party so I left early to catch my train as I was already committed to going to a party in Penarth - shame really as I was just warming up and could really have done with a night in La Tasca rather than too much red wine...
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Bristol Dance Festival
Bristol Dance Festival - now called Bristol DanceBiz Festival - is on this Saturday (click on the link above). Classes are in Fiesta Havana and Walkabout and there's a street party outside in Corn Street. Should be fun unless it rains!
Friday, September 03, 2004
Getting back into it
Only takes a couple of weeks to get rusty and to lose precise connection on the lead, though my rhythm seemed to be coming back last night. I'll be too busy over the next couple of weeks to really get back into practice, but I might go over to the Bristol Dance Festival on September 18th.
Plenty of dancing in circles in the Toad last night, which was nice to watch, apart from one character who seemed to be vying to rival Tarzan for 'most dancefloor covered in an evening'. (Actually, Tarzan himself seems to have improved greatly.)
I'm going to have to get a private lesson to learn some lifts when I have time, particularly after seeing Tammi doing a spectacular one with another girl last night. I just need to find a suitably sylph-like partner in crime in order to avoid doing myself a mischief...
Plenty of dancing in circles in the Toad last night, which was nice to watch, apart from one character who seemed to be vying to rival Tarzan for 'most dancefloor covered in an evening'. (Actually, Tarzan himself seems to have improved greatly.)
I'm going to have to get a private lesson to learn some lifts when I have time, particularly after seeing Tammi doing a spectacular one with another girl last night. I just need to find a suitably sylph-like partner in crime in order to avoid doing myself a mischief...
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