Jimmy Bosch

Tip of the year? Jimmy Bosch. Three cd’s out. The three of them very rich. I could listen for a year only to his music or almost. Actually i did that. For about a year i was half obsessed with his music. He’s a trombonist who composes his music, so you’ll find lots of great trombone solos in his music. Very danceable stuff. Veeeeeery danceable stuff. Mind bombs really. Herman Olivera singing (often). Great lyrics that go about something (and not just ‘I’d like so much to go under your blouse’ – i quote Marc Anthony): his brother who died from an overdose, his love for his sons, his car blocking the New York traffic, etc etc. Funny, exciting, … This is salsa dura made now bringing Latin and Western (American, Jimmy Bosch is a New Yorker) together. His website is www.jimmyboschmusic.com. Thanks Jimmy, this is great music.

Style

Certainly one of the biggest reasons why I like dancing salsa so much is the music. It touches me, moves me, excites me, changes my mood … ‘mindbombs’ as they say. Yesterday i had a conversation with a lady who’s dancing salsa since many years now telling me that she still was not really fond of the music, she mostly likes the dancing … Too bad, really, but hey, de gustibus et coloribus … For me it is very important, for others it isn’t. For me it should touch, move, excite, drive, etc you and all of this (well, maybe not all at the same time) should come out in your dancing … I was speaking about that with a group of beginning people encouraging them not to dance too ‘clean’, not to think too much but to listen to the music and have yourself carried by it. Styling is a difficult item in that optic. Styling can be very repetitive, when everyone dances in the same way. Are you then ‘expressing’ yourself or just copying a teacher or another model? I’ve had people in my classes who we’re clearly enjoying the music, their body moving in all directions. It was wonderful to see them enjoy the music and the dancing. I was hesitating ‘Should i tell him or her to be a bit more controlled so that his or her partner will lead or follow more easily?’
I guess you can express yourself in a stylized way, what i mean in general is that you should ‘feel’ something when you’re dancing, that’s the most important part. You should feel something, no matter if you do it stylized or not. It’s great to see someone dance who ‘feels’ something. It’s also great to see a couple dance who have a ‘feeling’ together, who interact, smile at one another, really dance with one another …
Have a good weekend,
Carl

No comment

Very difficult to make a forum work, for a forum that ‘works’ there must be many others that don’t … So I’m not surprised to see no comments (well, sorry Gina, there was actually one) on my postings …
Greetings,
Carl

A book on dancing (in Dutch)

A book that can be inspiring is “Iedereen kan dansen” by Stefaan Van Laere (Davidsfonds, Leuven). It’s built up of small articles and interviews with dance teachers in all possible styles. Nice pictures. The idea here is not to present an essay or a very complex content, it’s more something ‘light’ to read every once in a while. There’s also a part on salsa (with Javier Gomez en Geert Audenaert, from Bailando). Here’s an interesting quote of the Geert Audenaert interview:
“Salsa is letterlijk overal aanwezig. In zowat elk dorp zie je wel affiches hangen van demonstraties en cursussen. Wat uiteraard goed is, want het geeft nieuwe impulsen. Maar het gevaar bestaat dat de salsa, net als vroeger de mambo en de chachacha, steriel en proper gemaakt wordt. Maar ik denk dat de salsa levendig en taai genoeg is om te overleven.
De naam komt uit New York overgewaaid en betekent eigenlijk ’saus’. Wat wij salsa noemen, is eigenlijk sonmuziek. Son is de moeder van zowel salsa, chachacha als mambo.
Er is een frappant verschil tussen de salsa van de Europeanen en de Cubanen. Wij willen het vaak heel ingewikkeld, terwij de Cubanen een hele avond intensief met een eenvoudige pas bezig zijn, maar het komt dan wel uit het hart.
Elk land heeft zijn eigen dansdialect. Een Chileense salsadanser danst helemaal anders dan iemand uit Colombia, Cuba of New York. Om even technisch te worden: je kunt salsa dansen op de eerste of de tweede tel. Er is een duidelijke trend om meer met armbewegingen en choreografie, en minder op het gevoel te werken, zoals in de New Yorkstijl. Ergens jammer, want op die manier wordt het leven uit de salsa geknepen. Bij demonstraties is het natuurlijk leuk om wat extroverter te dansen, maar zo ga je voorbij aan de puurheid van de salsa. Het gevaar dreigt dat salsa te gestileerd wordt en door de dansscholen binnen een vaststaand stramien gestopt wordt.
Salsa moet vrijheid zijn. Ieder vogeltje zingt toch zoals het gebekt is? Salsa heeft niet alleen mijn leven veranderd, het heeft het ook gemaakt.
Salsa kan een tijdloze dans worden, net als de rock’n'roll. Je hebt toch nog altijd rockclubs waar op die muziek gedanst wordt, en ze is intussen vijftig jaar oud. En je hebt natuurlijk de groeiende scène van de latinmuziek. Ze hebben hun eigen awards, het publiek groeit en er is een duidelijke cross over met andere genres. Hollywood heeft nu ook de latinmuziek ontdekt, het is dus zeker geen hype die snel zal uitdoven, maar veeleer een vulkaan die pas nu begint te exploderen. Ik denk dat het qua dans zeker niet tot salsa beperkt zal blijven en dat er nog andere genres uit zullen voortkomen.”
Again I’m not saying all he’s saying is right, it’s just an interesting starting point for a discussion (food for good discussions in Tuscany this summer?).

dvds

A good and effective way to work on your dancing is dance instructional dvds. Of course there’s the internet on which you can find a lot and for free. The problem what you’ll find on internet will of course not be structured and you’ll find lots of crap before finding a pearl. I’m sure there are some bad dvds too (for instance don’t buy the dvd that Fnac Leuven has in stock since years called ‘Salsa with Olga’, it is so bad that it’s ridiculous; i know cause i bought the dvd … and i’ve told Fnac people afterwards, but it’s still in stock …) but at least they offer more structure and continuity. For my own Christmas and New Year I’ve offered myself lots of those instructional dvds, so i’ll be telling you in a couple of weeks or months what pearls i’ve discovered.

my ambition

I’ve got a lot of ambitions. But here’s one:
When you’ll be dancing since a year or more, you’ll notice that many of the people that danced with you aren’t taking classes or even dancing anymore. There’s a lot of ‘passage’ on the Leuven salsa scene, people coming and going. Which is of course proof that the appeal of salsa is still strong and that interested people keep on coming. It is also natural that people take some classes and then go and possibly switch to something else. For a part though this happens because the Leuven scene isn’t big or strong or interesting enough … After a while you’ve seen it all … Well, with LeuvenSalsa! I would like to help together with other people, making this scene stronger, bigger, richer. I’d like to keep people motivated even after a year, two, three, …, to keep proposing challenges, new things to discover, … The world of Latin dance and music is very rich and I’m certain that i haven’t discovered much of it myself … Of course it’s not an isolated world, if we only stick to dance, there are so many other great dance forms, some of them born only recently (my little nephew is ‘jumping’ for instance). It’s good to have ambitions, isn’t it?

Learning

What do I think leaders and followers have to learn? First of all, consider that you’ll be making huge progresses right at the start, the first weeks and months that you’ll be taking salsa classes. After that the progress will be less spectacular, will be irregular (some weeks or months nothing, then again a clear progress, …) and will ask more effort than at the beginning. That’s true for dance and for many other things. The thing is to become a better leader or a better follower your ‘basic qualities’ have to become better. And that’s not something that is done in a couple of weeks or even months. Partly due also to the fact that most people don’t have the possibility to dedicate many hours a day to dancing. Partly due also to the fact that it just takes time to improve those basic qualities … What are those qualities according to me? For a follower there are the ‘mental’ qualities: letting go/’listening’ to your partner/being concentrated and at the same time dancing on your own and responding to the music. Then there are the ‘dancing qualities’: dancing earthed/execute turns and pivots easily/keep balance/spotting. For the leader: leading clearly without being rough/being creative, a good improviser in the combos/listening to the music, being able to play with that/being ‘clean’ in the leading. At the same time when we’re dancing we are not only ‘leaders’ or ‘followers’. You are actually also … dancing! Which means enjoying it, which means responding to the music, to your partner, to the surrounding space maybe. That’s why -to my opinion- we should work a lot on solo dancing, to actually get that body moving and dancing! (and not just leading or following). Of course this all sounds nice in theory, the practical side can be harder …
Anyway, about the ‘learning’: don’t forget it’ll take time. It’ll take time before your basic qualities will get better. Turning well or pivoting well for instance is amongst other things a matter of balance. Well, you can’t improve your balance overnight, it takes time! But: it’ll come, if you just keep practising, keep dancing. Which brings us to the idea that, as it’ll take time anyway, you might as well enjoy the ride. Dancing should be fun, fun should be a real part of the classes. Sure, sometimes efforts have to be made, sometimes it’s a bit dry, but it shouldn’t become just applied mathematics or something …

Culture of the appearance

Salsa attracts people that are interested in the appearance, in the outside part … That’s quite a negative comment i have on the salsa scene and on dancing in general. Why would you have to wear so called sexy stuff, shiny shoes and all the rest of the catalogue? Of course dancing is something you do with the body. And of course when you’re dancing it might look even better if you’re dressed ‘better’. But sometimes it looks as if that has become the most important thing. It’s great that people dress up a bit every now and then, it’s touching to see when people come to a party and ‘did their best’ to look good. But that shouldn’t be the whole point, should it? I know you can’t change things (or not much) and I know this ’superficial’ aspect will always be present in dancing. Before i danced i was into contemporary dance for ten years or so and it was clear that ‘appearing’ was very important there as well … I’m glad the Leuven salsa scene is still quite ok regarding that and anyway ‘more ok’ than in some other cities. I definitely think dancing should be for everyone, not just for the good looking, young, slim and sun tanned amongst us …
Quite a ‘radical’ posting this one, i know …

Food for thought …

Nice expression isn’t it? Dancing is often silent (apart from the music of course), dancing is also regularly regarded as ‘just entertainment’, maybe even a bit superficial … But that doesn’t mean that we can’t think about it every now and then and reflect a minimum or discuss a minimum … I remember some time ago there was an article about salsa in a magazine … well, it didn’t go much further than ‘people dance (salsa) to find a girlfriend/boyfriend’ … Well, fortunately, there’s a bit more to it than that, isn’t there?
Carl

Open blog (food for thought)

Hi, a new topic on the LeuvenSalsa! site: a blog. Not because i think i have so many truths to share, i usually try not to pretend to be who i’m not. So I don’t start this topic to show my wisdom but to give some food for thought, to maybe start some discussion, in general regarding salsa or dancing of course. That’s also why it is an ‘open blog’: feel free to add your comments or to start your own topic. Greetings,
Carl