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Our Live Streaming Salsa was great last night but as we neared towards the end of the night, a question arose. What is the best last dance song?

You may have noticed we ended the night with Suavemente and then played some N.E.R.D. “Sooner or Later” – awesome song. But what’s the crowd favorite for a closing song? It can be anything really just has to make the night right!

What’s your favorite song to hear at the end of the night?

Ian and I decided to take a little break from all the family fun this holiday and go to a Salsa club. We were visiting my family in New York and lucky for us that is the mothership of salsa dancing. Although we knew of a few places that we have heard of through the grapevine and from our many trips to New York, I decided to try something a little different. I typed Salsa in New York into Google and picked any random club I found.

Gonzalez y Gonzalez was the lucky winner we decided on. I was pretty confident that I would find a good salsa club no matter where in Manhattan we ended up so leaving it up to the fates ( and the probability of a Google search) seemed like the best idea. Luckily we had a second party who had been there once before and vouched for it.

In this case, it worked! Gonzalez y Gonzalez 625 Broadway, New York, NY 10012-2611 (Map below) between Houston and Bleecker St., was a great place for some social salsa. The DJ played a great mix of bachata, reggaeton, and merengue. But the main event of course was the Salsa band Cholo Rivera & His Charanga Blues. (more…)

In this lesson we taught an On1 combination with a little faux performance piece at the end. PLUS a sneaky way to ask the lady to dance. Enjoy!

Hey all you salseros on the web…. its time for another lesson from ILS -- this week focused on On1. kinda tricky move. Enjoy!

Click here for more I Live Salsa Weekly Quick Fix Lessons

Ian and I had the chance to attend the 9th Annual New York International Salsa Congress and we’re still buzzing from it. This was one of the biggest congresses in the world accommodating 4000+ salseros y salseras. The congress started on Wednesday the 2nd till Sunday the 6th PLUS there was a Salsa Cruise on Monday. We made it out for the All Day Saturday and Sunday workshops, performances, and social dances.

The workshops were plentiful! The few that were sure-fire picks included Eddie Torres (of course!), Leon Rose, and Melissa Rosado. There were so many workshops at times it was hard to choose. However we did get a chance to go to a bunch of let’s say “Extracurricular Workshops”. Perhaps Cha-Cha-Cha can be in this category. But specifically we are talking about the Bachata and Samba workshops.

Saturday

We started with Leon Rose’s On2 Partnerwork class. Having taken his class last year at the DC Salsa Congress in 2008 it was a no-brainer that we had to take his class again. His moves are always a little *different* or perhaps intricate, or crazy-ish. The class was a good start to the morning, enthusiastic and high energy. The move includes intricate handholds and requires sharp execution. You can view it below in our NYISC Workshop Gallery. A common problem with moves that are a little tricky is that if you don’t rotate fast enough the students sometimes get stuck with a partner who just doesn’t get it. Our conclusion is that for a group this big it is important to rotate quickly. Spending 10 minutes with one partner who hasn’t grasped it yet doesn’t help either of you.

The next class we tried to go to was Eddie Torres‘ On 2 Partnerwork (more…)