Ritmo de Havana

The Myth about Salsa Styles ~ By Del Piero

I had a nice chat recently with a good friend and Salsa instructor as well who i conceder as one of the best modern style salsa teachers, and I like the way he is passionate about the modern styles. We have been sharing ideas and talking about the salsa scene in general.

Part of our conversation was about some of the common mistakes that go and spread between salsa dancers… the major one was how dancers look at the different Salsa styles, the authentic Cuban styles and modern salsa styles (L.A., N.Y., etc).

Here are some verbatim that most dancers use when they discuss this topic:

- Cuban Salsa is a slow dance, Modern salsa is fast!

- Cuban dance goes in circles, modern Salsa goes in lines.

- Cuban Salsa is hard to learn because you have to learn how to dance with the music rhythm, modern salsa doest need that! (I find this verbatim very interesting)

And many interesting thoughts and comments of this nature go around…

All those ideas and many other false ideas happens because unfortunately many people have the tendency to repeat what they hear without studying or questioning, and from a good heart they take what they hear from others for granted.

I would like to take the above three comments and explore them briefly and hopefully by doing this we can stop those ideas from going to more people:

Comment 1 & 2: “Cuban Salsa is slow dance, Modern salsa is fast!” and “Cuban dance goes in circles, modern Salsa goes in lines.”

There are two ways to answer this question:

The first one is to study the dance from proper sources (institutes, academies, well known instructors, books, etc).

The Second one is much shorter:
If you think Cuban salsa is slow, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9yugsVjfnc

and if you think modern salsa is fast, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRj0wXA_dI8

Now, some of us might start saying “Ohh..! so Cuban salsa is fast and Modern salsa is slow, is that what you mean? “

NO!, this is not what I mean ? What I want to say is we should be aware of some simple facts in dancing, first:
salsa styles have nothing to do with speed or directions. (we can talk about this in details when we meet),
Second and this is very important:

WE DONT CHOSE THE SPEED OF THE DANCE, THE MUSIC DOES!

Now, let’s address the 3rd false verbatim: “Cuban Salsa is hard to learn because you have to learn how to dance with the music rhythm, modern salsa doest need that”

For those who carry and promote this idea about Salsa, let me tell you this: When you decide to dance, what do you do first? Start moving in a certain speed then play the music, OR.. play the music first then start dancing?
Interesting ha? :) the rhythm is there and dancing is moving with the rhythm, how do you move? This is a style.

Finally, dance styles are like anything in life, come in variety and you get to choose what matches your personality.

There is nothing right or wrong, there is what you choose to do and what you choose not to do.

Hope that was useful and again, different teachers might have different thoughts…choose what works best for you!

Happy dancing! Don't forget to smile when you dance ;)


- The article in facebook as well: http://www.new.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=32014170657