Salsa Music on Crack: a Salsero’s Frustration
If there were moments of frustration in my 10 years of dancing salsa, last night would be the ultimate!
Ever!
The band played every damn song in the fastest manner! WTF!
The most annoying part of each song they played was the fact that they started slow, meaning, regular tempo. But as the music played on reaching towards the middle of the song, the band started playing faster.
Picture, if you will, a track & field athlete, running the 800-meter dash. The runner runs the first lap, which is 400, in an easy manner. The last lap come and you’d see the runner dash like crazy trying to get to the finish line before everyone else’s’.
It’s the same thing that band was doing playing salsa music at the Glas Kat! Grrrr. It was as if every musician there was trying to chase each other and couldn’t wait to finish playing the damn song! Was there a race during the songs? Maybe they get a price to whoever finishes first?
For example, they played Nadie Como Ella by Marc Anthony. Now we all know as dancers that this song has a medium tempo from beginning to end. Last night they played and bastardized the song and beat it to pieces! Yes, it was Nadie Como Ella on crack!
Here’s a lesson 101 from a dancer to salsa bands. I know I know, you’d hate me for saying this, but you leave me no choice!
When you get hired to play in a dance club like Glas Kat (San Francisco), keep a very important thing in mind – you are playing for dancers. You play so they can dance! There is a big difference between playing your songs and demonstrating your craft with a seated audience watching you. You can do whatever you want! You can break your sticks, slam your guitar, use your feet to tap the congas and whatnot; it’s your opportunity to show off because the audience is there to watch you. But when you are playing for people to dance, please consider the dancers. They’re human. They get tired. Like playing music, they are paying attention to timing. Think about it, do you really think dancers being the human being that we are, could withstand dancing to 5 to 10 minutes of fast songs for 6 hours?
Maybe, we could, just give us crack and we’d be dancing in a fast-forward manner.
About the Author
Rodney “Rodchata” Aquino is a popular and entertaining dance instructor in the United States. Solely responsible for popularizing bachata dance in San Francisco, Rodchata, as bachateros intimately calls him, has been in the dance scene for over 13 years. His dance background includes Latin International Ballroom, salsa (on1, on2 and Cuban Timba), chachacha, merengue and bachata. He had his first bachata encounter in the East Coast 6 years ago. He had been dancing bachata and studying the culture ever since. He was the first instructor to ever teach a bachata class in San Francisco. He is the founder of the popular salsa website, Salsagang.com, Lalunaclubs.com and CEO of Rodchata Enterprises. Since creating Salsagang, he had the opportunity to teach the bachata dance at big salsa events such as San Francisco International Salsa Congress, Reno Dance Sensation, Sonoma County Salsa Fest, Salsa Extravaganza (Palm Springs), Summer Splash (Palm Springs), North West Salsa Congress (Seattle), Chico Dance Sensation, Sacramento Salsa Fest, Hawaii Dance Sensation and Dallas Salsa Congress. He also teaches regular bachata and salsa classes all over the Bay Area. You can obtain more information regarding his dance classes, workshops and events at Rodchata.com
Ooh La La Dance Company Cosabellas San Francisco Salsa Congres 2008
