This site will be updated regularly to give details of dance classes and events in New Plymouth. It also has links to web sites for national events and links to web sites which give "all you want to know" technical and historical information on the dance forms. Please check regularly for any updates . Last update 27th March 2011.
Salsa / Tango Interest Groups: taranaki.salsa@gmail.com If you are an experienced dancer, or just learning and want to get some dance floor time, get on our circulation list for local events, parties etc.
Salsa Events
Salsa Party Night- Decanta Tapas Bar, Devon st New Plymouth. Regular salsa dance evening from 8.30pm, starting again Wed 9th Feb 2011 and then weekly. DJs on rotation, music playing till around 10pm, finish up time depending on numbers. Come along and join the party.
Salsa Classes
Beginners Salsa - Decanta Tapas Bar, Devon Street, New Plymouth. Classes are due to start again on the 9th of April 2011 for a four week basics course. The dance floor will remain open after class for any dancers who wish to join us.
Dress comfortably and wear shoes that will "slip" on a wooden floor, i.e. leather soles or at least hard plastic. Trainers are a definite handicap. Call Davina (021758152) or email taranaki.salsa@gmail.com to reserve a place.
Beginners- New Beginners 4 Week Block Course, Starting Wed 6th April 2011. Decanta Tapas Bar, Devon st New Plymouth. Wed 7.30pm, block class of 4 weeks. The block of 4 lessons is progressive and will give you confidence to dance during the regular dance club nights. Price is $35 for the four lessons paid in advance or $10 per lesson paid weekly.
After the class there will be a regular salsa dance night, featuring a variety of DJs. Come along and enjoy the party...
If at all possible, come with a partner. If you cant, we will try to match you with a partner. Partners will be rotated, so if there are uneven numbers, you will get to dance. Leather soled shoes are VERY important, since tango involves a lot of pivoting on the the ball of your feet. Ladies will find heels a benefit. Call Jeff 06 7588328 or email taranaki.salsa@gmail.com to reserve a place.
Argentine Tango - Beginners - .
. Improvers - Ongoing classes Tues 7.30pm
Location:Bonithon Avenue - West End Scout Hall opposite the mineral pools
Wellington Tango (& some Salsa) Listing - (SALSADROME is a salsa & Tango party night) Milongas (i.,e. dance nights), Practicas (guided practice sessions) and events.
Click on the CD cover below to buy from Fishpond. Sound samples can be heard by searching on the same titles on Amazon.com
Salsa
< Note: Mandali also sold with under title of
rating: *** *** ***** Betece, if you own only one saslsa
this should be it.
<
rating **** ****
Other recommended albums: LA 33 by LA 33
Tango
Type Electronic Electronic Traditional Traditional
rating ***** ***** *** ***
Dance Shoes:
New Plymouth source for dance shoes: Dance Cabin, 58 Parrs Road, New Plymouth.
Call Tracey Hopkins 06 7532898.
Web purchase of Argentinian Made Dance Shoes: Suitable for Tango, Salsa, Ceroc, Swing..... Selection of heel and soles to suit your style, ladies and mens, plus, dance sneakers. www.DancePassion.co.nz or ph (09) 5800145.
Anoraks Guide to Salsa Dance Styles (lifted from web site in UK, written by Nick Childs)
I sent this via Salsalink when someone asked me to explain LA, from NY, from Cuban. I ended up (below) showing that I am a fully paid up member of the Salsa Anoraks Society. People suggested it should go on Salsaholics too.
It gets more complicated the further down you go here. So give up reading when you've had enough explanation for one sitting! Of course writing it down is not nearly as useful as demonstrating it.
So my question is: Does this explanation all make sense to others of you who know about these things? Does this fit with your understanding of the world of Salsa styles? Let me know where there is a better or more correct explanation please.
SALSA MUSIC All Salsa music has certain things in common. There's its universal 2-bars or 8-beat measures - /123(4)/567(8)/ The famous clave pattern, in particular, picks out beats "23 5 & 8" (or it can be "1 & 4 67"). If you can't hear the clave itself, you will always hear the music picking the same clave rhythms out. Although it is just about possible to dance any style of Salsa dance to any kind of Salsa music, in practice, each style of dance goes with its own style of music that emphasises the beats that style of dance wants to use most.
SALSA DANCE STYLES The main styles we're faced with in our Salsa world are: LA, NY, Cuban. (There are other variations from other Latin American countries - Puerto Rico's contribution probably got into NY.) All three of these Salsa styles can be and are usually danced on the 123 567 beats of the music. But see further on for complications on this!
CROSS BODY LEAD Cross Body Lead (CBL) refers to a standard way for the woman to "cross" the man's "body" as he "leads" her to end up on the other side of him with both facing each other still. This CBL is then the basis for most of the fancy moves in CBL styles.
CROSS BODY LEAD STYLES Both LA (Los Angeles) and NY (New York) Salsa are CBL styles. CBL styles look neater and more sophisticated. NY looks especially swish, because of the way NY's On2 timing works to give a more laid back feel, but also more time for stylish multiple spins and fancy footwork.
SLOT DANCES The CBL styles are also two of many (not just Salsa) "slot" dances. You dance within a long oblong or "slot" area on the dance floor. You could dance a slot dance along a narrow corridor without banging into the walls. When they swap places, the man steps sideways on and makes space to let the woman slip neatly past. You can fit more people on the dance floor in "slots" without banging into each other if you dance properly.
Scotland mostly doesn't dance tidily like this yet! Cuban style dancers and "messing about Salsa" style people like me are to blame! Some of us are trying as hard as possible - well, not that hard! - to learn how to dance CBL and behave better on the dance floor. Meanwhile, sincere apologies are due to those others who are not able to dance more safely in "slots" because of our messing about and having other kinds of fun. Unfortunately there are no laws against this "jay-walking" lawlessness on the Salsa dance floor. But when and where that becomes the culture, you sure know it - from the looks you get - when you step into someone else's slot!
MESSING ABOUT SALSA Mostly what we do in Scotland is what I call "Messing about Salsa". That's our present dominant culture. I love it because (in Scotland) that's how I/you get more dances with more partners of all levels in one evening. That is, it's the local recipe for the best and most wall to wall fun you can get. "Messing about Salsa" is where you mix in whatever you've learnt from whatever kind of Salsa you've done, and do whatever you find works best with each partner, adding in whatever else takes your fancy. You learn how to dodge yourself and your partner around other people on the crowded dance floor, flying by the seat of your pants! Depending how expansive you are in your dancing, and how skilful you are in the dodging, you might or might not stop people being annoyed or bruised by you. Good "messing about Salsa" with a variety of moves requires the leader to be a pretty good lead. Sometimes the moves are "new" - that is, mistakes that it's fun to try and find a graceful unbruising way out of!
CUBAN or CASINO STYLE Cuban (Casino style) Salsa is the one that is NOT a Cross Body Lead style. It's "circles" not "slots". Partners dance around more in a circle - plus (in Rueda) in a grouped circle of partners too. "Rueda" means wheel - but "Casino" was the name of a Hotel, not the circular gambling wheel thing as you might think. Cuban or Casino style can include highly complicated moves - uniquely for Latino native dancing which is generally simply to enjoy the music and your partner; other native Latinos do not do lots of fancy moves. But these complicated moves in Cuban Casino don't depend on spinning yourself or the women on the spot as much as fancy CBL styles do. The women strut and swirl beautifully instead! So (I think) Cuban style is nicer for dancing more naturally "with" your partner, and with less of LA or NY's often separated, artificial and postured, sexiness and fun.
DILE QUE NON The Cuban "Cross Body Lead" is called Dile Que Non (DQN) (Spanish for "say no"). DQN is really just a much more freely splayed out version of the LA/NY Cross Body Lead move. You would need a wider corridor to do DQN in! DQN is as basic to Cuban Casino Salsa as CBL is to CBL Salsa styles. Complex Cuban moves are often built around DQNs too.
ON1 and ON2 "On1" is usually interchangeably used with "LA" style Salsa. In On1/LA style, the main emphasis in the triplet of steps is on the 1st beat (and the 5th) - ie "On1". This 1st beat is also when you change direction to step back in the other direction - the "break" step.
"On2" refers similarly to "NY" style Salsa, where you still step on beats 123 567 but the emphasis is on the 2 (ie "On2") and the 6th beats. These 2nd and 6th beats (like the 1 and 5 of LA) are where you change or "break" your direction.
But actually Cuban music too is usually taught and danced with the 1st and 5th beats emphasised in the 1st and 5th steps. So it is technically also danced "on 1", though the pattern of where you put your feet is different than LA. Cuban, though, is not called "On1" (plus see more complications below).
CONTRA TIEMPO "ON4" Cuban music is often more difficult to get the complicated and varying rhythms of, than other Salsa music is. As I said, it is usually taught counting 123 567 with an emphasis on the 1st and 5th beats. But it's not called "On1". Usually this count is completed into a metronomically regular Casino style feel with a foot tap on 4 and 8.
But if you go to Cuba, or watch Cubans, and (variably) some of the time if you watch Scots doing Cuban style dancing in Glasgow especially, you will see that they are dancing the same Casino shaped moves, but doing them while stepping on 234 678. This is natural for Cubans because the 234 678 pattern comes from the original Cuban grandparent of all salsa music and dance. This is the lovely Cuban "Son" music and dance - as in the Buena Vista Social Club music. Son can be slow or fast.
Son music is designed for a dance that is "contra tiempo" ("across the beat"). The steps are on 234 678 and the emphasis is on the 4th and 8th beats. The "slow" 2-beats-long steps of the "quick quick slow" triplet of steps hits the 4th (and 8th) beats of the music, also then lasting over the following 5th (and 1st) beats too. Now, this is characteristically done in a basic Son side-step that is different to the other side step patterns you'll have learnt. Plus there's all that super extra body movement added on top.
What's more the Cubans themselves don't bother to count! They learnt the music from before they were born, and the dance shortly after. So they just get on with having fun. "It's normal; it's simple" they'll say astonished that anyone can find it hard to do! And they don't bother if they're doing it "right" anyway - there is no "right" for them. No wonder they smile at us!
Plus, in the music of Son and other Cuban music, these 4th and 8th beats can be hard to find. Can anything help? The 4th and 8th beats of music are marked by some of the clave rhythm (Son is where the Salsa clave came from) - and often by the bass line too. The 1st and 5th beats are also there in the music, of course. But in the dance 1 and 5 beats are not stepped on. They're more felt in the body movement or weight transfer - or that foot tap.
So if you put together all these major differences from other Salsa, it can make Son (and contra tiempo Cuban Salsa) quite a big challenge to anyone. What can help? Watching good Cuban dancers is essential. Don't do just what they teach - watch the things they don't teach and work out how to do them too.
Anyway, all of that here is to say that, danced "contra tiempo" like this, the dance is technically being danced "on 2" in some ways. But it's never called "On2" either. In fact, in many ways, I think it's best to think of Son and contra tiempo Cuban Salsa as being "On4", because of that emphasis in the dance and the music!
HOW ON4 BECAME ON2 And for further confusion: Historically, that Son contra tiempo On4 (with its accompanying less emphasised "on 2" bit) was taken to New York by Cubans before their revolution stopped them. There it lost the On4 emphasis to leave the emphasis On2 which became the key to the NY style.
But here's a thing. If you look closely, NY dancers are often doing an early "1", a kind of "4 and a half". So this could be "in memory of" that earlier Cuban contra tiempo "On4" that it all came from. And NY teachers often don't call the beats strictly and regularly. They often, in teaching practice, call out something like "One 23 Five 67" which would be (if it was called in stricter rhythmic timing) nearly like "Eight 23 Four 67 Eight 23 Four 67 Eight 23 etc"! In other words that's an echo of a Son contra tiempo. So the ghost of Son lives on in New York style, folks!
OTHER ON4 DANCES If you want to see a more obvious and common version of Son and it's On4 characteristic - Ballroom Rumba IS Ballroom Son. It's gone rather "slotty" though. Also gone slotty - is Ballroom Cha Cha. The less slotty original Cuban Cha Cha dance was derived from Son. The "cha cha cha" steps are added in where there was, in Son, the one long step on 4+1. These dances start with a first long step on 8, just like you do with Son, to get into the contra tiempo groove. Both of them are On2 dances; so they are close cousins of NY Salsa too.
Nick Child
This Friday -th --: Salsa Party Night at the Phoenix Bar- 8.30pm till 11. In conjunction with the Interplay Dance night organised by Grant Pease, there will be a two rooms of dance music this week. Grant will be running one room for modern jive and the other room will be latin sounds, mainly salsa but other styles as well. Come hang-out in the Phoenix Bar support the growing dance scene in New Plymouth. Open to all dancers and their friends. No admission charge. The Phoenix Bar is in Metro Plaza, down the long hallway beyond Subway. Metro Plaza is next to the National Bank. Click on the "View Map" link for directions. Come along, bring your friends and have a dance in a great venue. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=33+Devon+St+West%2C+New+Plymouth%2C+New+Zealand
