The
drizzly weather put a damper on some Cinco de Mayo activities, but the best
offering of my weekend was inside. ClubViva and My Latin Rhythms brought in Juan Calderon and Christina Piedra of
Cultural Explosion for a weekend of workshops and performances. The word “incredible” comes to mind.
Saturday
afternoon was filled with back to back workshops led by these two talented
instructors. The workshops touched on
musicality, styling, leads/follows, Salsa On 1, Salsa On 2, and Bachata, with a
bit of Meringue thrown in. For me, the
workshop seemed to be tailor fit to my current level of dancing. Juan focused more on leads/follows than
footwork, and had a lot of great comments and insights about how lead/follow relationships
work.
Christina did a full workshop on
what they were calling improv, and I think of as shines. Instead of teaching set patterns, she broke
it down into pattern components and explained her thoughts on how arms are used
in styling. That one workshop alone made
the entire afternoon worth it, and made me sad that I wasn’t able to do her second
styling workshop on Sunday.
One thing that I noticed was that
they didn’t spend a lot of time focusing on footwork during the partner work segments. In some ways I found this challenging because
it was a completely different approach than what I normally take. However, I think that it was a fantastic way
to go for the workshop. With so many
different levels of experience, I think that this resulted in a better
experience for some of the newer guys- they spent more time focused on how to
lead the techniques rather than where their feet should be. I would guess that this approach is a result of Juan's philosophy of being able to dance with everyone, no matter what flavor of Salsa
they prefer.
After the workshops, we got back
together for an evening of dancing at Club Viva. The dance floor was packed to celebrate Cinco
de Mayo. I don’t think I left the floor for the first hour of dancing- which is
an absolutely awesome feeling. When I
finally left the floor, I had to find a corner to hide in so I wouldn’t be
pulled back out again.
 |
| Juan dancing with a local dancer. |
And then Juan asked me to
dance. He had said during the workshops
earlier that his goal with each girl he danced with was to give her the best
dance of her night. In my case, he
succeeded; I seriously considered taking off my dance shoes and going home
after that. Sometimes you hear the
analogy that the man creates the frame with the lady as a picture-- his job is
to show her to her best advantage. If
that is the case- I may not be a Monet as a dancer, but last night I sure felt
like it.
To end the night, we were treated
to performances by Juan and Christina- one improvised Salsa and one choreographed
Bachata. Both were incredible shows of
talent and grace. I have to say that I preferred
the Salsa over the Bachata – but since I started dancing, I have discovered
that I am partial to lead-follow dances.
The weekend with Juan and Christina
was incredible, and I hope that they make it back to St. Louis again soon for another
round of workshops, performances, and most of all – dancing.
Resources:
Cultural Explosion -http://www.culturalexplosion.com/
Club Viva -http://clubvivastl.com/web/
My Latin Rhythms - http://www.mylatinrhythms.com/
