First performance

[nycsalsero]

I'm visiting a city for a few weeks with a small salsa community, and as a result of my many months of practice in new york I'm the best dancer at their socials.

After seeing me dance last night, someone from a ballroom dancing club at a university asked me to give a performance to demonstrate salsa at their annual social in a week. Some questions:

1) I assume it's too late to come up with a choreographed routine? Better to leave it mostly extemporanious?
2) What do you think of playing Vasos de Colores, my favourite salsa piece?
3) I've always wanted to dance with two women at the same time. Is that a good idea? Or should I stick with what I know? Would it look stupid to trade off dancing with one woman and then the other, not really dancing with them both at the same time?

[noobster]

I'm visiting a city for a few weeks with a small salsa communityIs this the month you said you were going to take 'off'? That's cool if you found some salsa. I have to go to a small city for a few weeks also and I am dreading the hit to my dancing.

and as a result of my many months of practice in new york I'm the best dancer at their socials.Isn't it fun to go out of town and feel like a superstar instead of a n00b for once? (I found you can also get a similar experience by going to the Copa or other non-on2 NY club once in a while.)

Anyways, congrats on your success. I wouldn't try to dance with two women at once if you're not used to it. I would suggest that if you are going to do something in public, it should be significantly below your current threshold of ability, so you can be sure to do a good job. I wouldn't stretch yourself in front of people. But that's just me.

(Plus are there two women in your scene who will be able to handle performing and also know what to do with themselves when you are not dancing with them, etc.?)

[nycsalsero]

Is this the month you said you were going to take 'off'? That's cool if you found some salsa. I have to go to a small city for a few weeks also and I am dreading the hit to my dancing.

Isn't it fun to go out of town and feel like a superstar instead of a n00b for once? (I found you can also get a similar experience by going to the Copa or other non-on2 NY club once in a while.)

Anyways, congrats on your success. I wouldn't try to dance with two women at once if you're not used to it. I would suggest that if you are going to do something in public, it should be significantly below your current threshold of ability, so you can be sure to do a good job. I wouldn't stretch yourself in front of people. But that's just me.

(Plus are there two women in your scene who will be able to handle performing and also know what to do with themselves when you are not dancing with them, etc.?)

This is indeed that time away from nyc I mentioned! Fortunately their isn't a total absence of a scene, as I had feared initially..

Yeah, the copa is great for feeling good about one's dancing... for different reasons, the pickup artists in the on2 social scene like to head over to the copa on tuesdays :)

There are a few girls that have been dancing for a few years and can follow almost anything I throw at them, though they sometimes get lost if I stack up move after move in a fast song. But their biggest problem is that they can't shine! In nyc, girls HAVE to have a little bit of game for when they are led into a shine pose. But over here apparently that just happens much less frequently.

Maybe you're right about dancing at less than my maximum for my first performance... I'll let you know how it goes! (Maybe with video! :)

[Lita_rulez]

After seeing me dance last night, someone from a ballroom dancing club at a university asked me to give a performance to demonstrate salsa at their annual social in a week. Some questions:

1) I assume it's too late to come up with a choreographed routine? Better to leave it mostly extemporanious?


Unless you are a great choreographer, a superb dancer, and an amazing teacher, 1 week is definitly too short to come up with a perfect routine and work out everything with your partner.

What you still have time to do, however, is to choreograph a few (3, 4, 5 or 6, depends on the length of the song, number of breaks, etc) high moments in the song, where you are going to hit the music big time. The rest you can pretty much fill in as you see fit, with moves that are not too demending for you, so you can do them well and not mess up the lead-in to your next wowser.

Though this will never work with real salsa enthousiats who have been to 6 congresses over the last year and have digested every show they can lay theire eyes on, for a moderately proficient salsa croud, you will get a much better response with a few well placed moves with great musicality, then a totaly improvised dance on the spot. Those few moments are what they will leave the arena with.

Just my 0.02 ;)