Posts Tagged ‘Latin Dance’

Another round of live streaming Salsa with I Live Salsa in State College, PA. Tonight was crazy! sorry for not getting this up sooner. Next week we’ll get the lesson – Rueda!! Enjoy!

Welcome back from the break to our Spring Semester Salsa Quick Fix. We hope you got a couple opportunities to go out salsa dancing over the holiday season. So let’s jump right back into action and work on a nice combination. We had a lot of fun with the class working on this move and we hope you enjoy it! 2010 looks like a great year already

Check out more of our quick fix lessons here : ILS Quick Fix Salsa Lessons

From our post Introduction to Other Latin Dances we now delve further into the sensual dance from D.R. known as Bachata.

Bachata is another dance from the Dominican Republic, with subjects of forlorn emotion, romance, and heartbreak. Bachata is the equivalent of Blues in America, many of the same themes are discussed a similar resolutions such as looking for yourself at the bottom of the bottle. You can easily recognize bachata for its predominant use of the electric guitar which usually plucks out the main rhythm, usually an eight note run. An evolution from the Bolero, bachata has had much success in clubs in recent years.

This music form had a rough beginning from censorship, to denigration, to almost extinction. After the Trujillo dictatorship ended, censorship feel away and bachata poked its head onto the scene. Yet the high society of the time resisted its immersion, feeling bachata was a backwards, country-people, lower art form and branded as unfit and immoral for society. From here bachateros were made to play in the rougher parts of town like brothels and bars, further tarnishing its name. Irregardless it was still popular amongst the countryside even as Merengue became highlighted as the Official Music of the country.

The popularity eventually lead to a collapse of the unofficial censoring. An amalgamation of merengue and bachata  furthered the nationalization of the style and brought it more into the limelight. Pioneers like Luis Vargas and Antony Santos were the first generation for pop stars for Bachata. Eventually making its way to New York, bachata has a strong following rivaling that of salsa. Aventura is probably the best known bachata group worldwide, with its single “Obsesion”.

For the full song visit Aventura – Obsesion – Aventura

Dance evolves from Music

The dance itself, also originated in the Dominican Republic, is a 4 step beat with a tap or pop on the 4th beat. The motion is from side to side with both a closed and open frame. The premise is to be brushing belt buckles, i.e. the closed position. This can be a slightly more intimate dance, and unfortunately has sometimes received a reputation of being “just grinding”. There are gyrating motions occurring yet the natural movements of your hips should not be confused with or compared to “grind booty dancing™” (yea i trademarked it!). In fact if you are dancing together appropriately your hips should move in unison, i.e. no grinding, which comes from opposing motion. I must admit that at first I thought it was kind of scandalous and would only dance with girls I knew really well or wanted to, if you know what I mean…sweet! But its more than that; it’s a sharing of closeness without having to be sexual. The Puritanical heritage of America has blinded and shunned many of us from the innate passions of humanity. Well, now that I’ve attacked our society, lets examine the footwork.

(more…)

We all want to get better and the good thing is we can! But if you’re like me, you may have lost sight as to how to do this. Well we sat down and came up with a quick guide to help coax you from being a wallflower and give you a nudge in the right direction. Enjoy!

• #7 Practice Polygamy:

  “But that’s illegal” yes i know, i’m kidding. Just dance with a bunch of people. Being a wallflower will only weaken your own abilities. Go and ask a lady to dance if they refuse then move onto the next lady. There is no shame in a pity dance, especially if you dance the socks off her.

• #6 Practice a new style:

  Yes get a new teacher. That doesn’t mean you have to drop your old teacher just go out and learn from someone else. Some may say a Jack of all trades is Master of none, but if you want to be universally appealing get out and learn all you can. No sense in sticking yourself in a box with no ventilation. So if you do LA Style, try N.Y. style. If you do N.Y. Style try Cuban Style. Or do cumbia or puerto rican style, texas style, london style, etc.

• #5 Learn about salsa:

  Check out the history books. Get Rosetta Stone and learn some Spanish. Eat Cuban food…okay well that probably won’t really help but it is delicious! Put salsa music on your iPod and acclimate yourself. You’ll find yourself singing along (if incomprehensibly) with the popular ones.

• #4 Do you lead? Do you follow? Can you do both?!?!

  Yes and yes….and yes. Learn what your counterpart is doing. Your training will skyrocket if you push away your “pride” and reverse roles. The more you know about how your partner dances then the better able you will be to lead them. I know our Puritanistic gender roles may get trampled on but to heck with them. They wore buckles on their hats, for pete’s sake. What do they know?! When you get into it, you will revel in the fact that a dance with the same basic can be so different on one side versus the other. Many people misinterpret equality as being the same. But here in salsa you will find that equality is not sameness but harmony. You find equality by making two halves a whole. A yin yang has two interlapping parts: one black, one white, one representing male and one female. The beauty is how they fit together not how they are the same in every possible way. BORING!!!

  (more…)

If you want to become a well rounded Salsero or Salsera, it is important to have an understanding of all Latin dance and music. We will be exploring a few of the prominent dances today and examine why they are beneficial for your salsa skills, moves, and techniques.

Merengue

Merengue is a dance from the Dominican Republic, often cited as the National Dance of D.R. Like many music styles in D.R., merengue was “country music”. The music is credited to a Nico Lora, whom created it in the 1920s and named it after meringue, a dessert from egg whites and sugar. So why is this important for a salsa dancer? It’s a free practice. Many people just sit out during merengue. The same can be said for bachata, or even cha-cha. Dancing merengue helps you perfect the leads and hand positions. In all areas of training, if you can do something slowly and perfectly, it will take little time before you can do it fast. Jumping right into full speed will embed poor techniques and habits into your dance. The video below is a fun and high energy merengue. The leader’s style is quite jovial and somebody (Katie) said I dance merengue a little like him.

An example of Merengue

Bachata

Bachata is another dance from the Dominican Republic, with subjects of forlorn emotion, romance, and heartbreak. Bachata is the equivalent of the Blues in America, many of the same themes are discussed and have similar resolutions such as looking for yourself at the bottom of the bottle. You can easily recognize bachata for its predominant use of the electric guitar which plucks out the main rhythm, usually an eight note run. An evolution from the Bolero, bachata has had much success in clubs in recent years. Bachata is a more intimate dance but it will help you learn the body language of latin dance. You will feel the natural motion of each other and how to properly lead and follow. To become a better dancer you must become multifaceted. It’s not enough to know how to do a bunch of moves, or how to show off. You need to establish a connection with your partner so it feels like a dance and not a test of ability. So take the essence of bachata, the sensuality and connection, and implement them in your salsa. Check out the motion in their hips in the video below; it’s quite good.

An example of Bachata

(more…)