Geo-'s blog

Mother Nature. With us or against us? Just when it seemed like our biggest worry would be the heat, the Michigan weather changed it up and sent the high winds, torrential rain, fallen trees and power outages. On the upside, the storm cooled things down like nothing else and didn't deter more than a handful of the dancers who have been anticipating this Super salsa weekend.

We call them super salsa weekends because they are truly big weekends for YA. Months of planning and effort from many volunteers goes into delivering top notch instructors and performers with unique and interesting styles and talents to our collective doorstep here in Detroit. Offsetting the cost of these super socials is where the majority of proceeds from the regular socials end up. The more support and enthusiasm at the other events, the more encouraged and capable we are of delivering the super events.

The super social weekend started off with a fun impromptu performance with Johnny, Andres and Laura Geldys at The Harem. Johnny and Andres demonstrated their 2:1 partnering style where they simultaneously dance with the same partner -- pretty slick and of course kudos to Laura for being so exceptionally adaptable. After a fun night there, things started early Saturday with a full day of workshops at the new Jewish Community Center location. After that, it was on to the Canton-Plymouth High School Salsa club's social and then if that were not enough dancing a final stop at the Dance Revolution Serious About Salsa social. Then came Sunday...

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Enthusiasm and passion.
This is was the intersection last Saturday where the Canton-Plymouth High School Salsa Club met YA Salsa. The kids at Canton-Plymouth created their own salsa club to promote unity and understanding of Latino culture and they of course love to dance! That is where YA Salsa came into the picture.

After their annual dance show, the Canton Plymouth Salsa Club finished off Saturday evening with a potluck dinner and a social of their own. We had a nice turnout of about 15 dancers from the Detroit area as well as our guest instructors Johnny & Andres Giradaldo from Boston and Chezron from Colombus Ohio and topped it off with a group of terrific dancers from Toronto who came to hang out and dance for the weekend.

One of the great highlights of the evening was not just Johnny & Andres' performance, but that the reception for the the audience was so overwhelming and positive. In addition we got a chance to dance with the students and their teachers and even provide an impromptu lesson on the basics.

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A few years back I stumbled across an album in the Latin bin of a used record store and it instantly became one of my favorites for dancing. I doubt a lot of a people have heard of Celina Gonzalez.... Of course neither had I at the time and I had no idea exactly who or what I was listening to - but I was immediately transfixed.

Known as the Queen of Punto Cubano or Queen of Country in her native Cuba, Celina's fantastic voice and great arrangements from Frank Fernandez and the Adalberto Alverez orchestra seemlessly blend the old sounds of guajira & son with the new sound of their descendant salsa, jazz and even a little funk.


Celina Gonzales con Frank Fernández y Adalberto Alvarez

Part 3 of Awareness

What is “your space”? For want of a better definition, your space is the area that is more or less reasonable for you and your partner to use on the dance floor. Generally speaking in club dancing, that space is a rectangle with a line running down the center where you and your partner stick. In formal terms, this is called “slot-dancing” and it is generally the best way to make a predictable and comfortable dance space. The key for dancing in the slot is drawing these imaginary lines -- North, South, East & West -- and following them without fail.

The Slot

Probably everyone has heard of "the slot", but not many of us dance with a real awareness of it. Most styles of salsa dictate that you move in straight lines. Every cross body lead, enchufla, and turn must start and finish on the lines. For leaders, that means getting out of your partner's way (being exactly perpendicular) and establishing a clear path that can only be followed one way. For followers it means following that line and staying within the boundaries your partner is trying to set. Dancing with this awareness and control will not only make you safer, it will improve your turns and make everything you do even better.

After a few too many accident reports at our March social, we are declaring April Awareness month at YA Salsa. While, its fortunately pretty rare that anyone is seriously hurt, it's too common that people end up wincing in pain from footsteps or the occasional collision.

Dancing safely isn't just for crowded dance floors – the floor often gets crazier when there is lots of room and couples start pulling out all their favorite yet unperfected moves. Regardless, some simple principles apply and over the next few weeks, we will try to cover them all. The point here is not to make the dancing boring or preach: The point is to make it a better experience for everyone.

There are a lot of things to cover, so we'll break them out into separate articles over the next month:

• Be Aware
• Protect Your Partner
• Dance in Your Space
• Step Lightly & Turn Tightly
• Watch the Dips, Drops, Tricks & Kicks