Black Sheep
04-10-2003, 08:38 AM
Salsa History 101,
I don't mean this in a bad way, but Salsa sucks when compared to Mambo. Let me give you the historical facts which I lived through, before you jump to any defamatory thoughts:
In March I949, I was looking through the want adds in a Hollywood newspaper, and came across an add for dance teachers with free training and no experience needed. A week later I was in a teacher's training class at Bill Williams dance studio with a dozen other men and ladies. Anita Arkin had recently arrived from New York and was dressed like a gypsy with a colorful full sleeved blouse and several skirts down to her ankles and wearing large looped golden ear rings and a stoic face that never smiled. During our breaks in the training class she took it upon herself to teach me a new dance that was becoming popular among the newly arrrived Puerto Ricans.
In those post WW II days the best Afro-Cuban dancers were from Puerto Rico, just as the best Lindy dancers were our Harlem Afro-American dancers. The new dance that Anita taught me in 1949 became popular in Southern California around 1954-1955 when the Arthur Murray studios introduced the Cha Cha Cha. Within a year the Mambo also became popular in the Los Angeles area. But whenever I danced with an Arthur Murray teacher, I always had arguments about the rhythm, although the Ladies followed me well enough. The rhythm problem had to do only with two factors: the accent and basic foot pattern. Anita had taught me to accent the second beat (Syncopation) and to step (rock) forward and backward on that second beat, and hold my feet together on the first and fourth beats. Arthur Murray teachers were accenting the first (down) beat and breaking forward (rocking) and backward on that first beat. A seemingly trivial difference, but it eventually some forty years later the Arthur Murray version of the Mambo became called the Salsa, and the authentc Puerto Rican Mambo became history.
Occasionally I do come across an authentic Mambo dancer, and that's when I whale. But when I try dancing to the Salsa rhythm, the dance loses the excitement; and it becomes bland, it's like eating a burrito without salsa. I don't mean that in a bad way!
Black Sheep
[edited by DanceMentor]
I don't mean this in a bad way, but Salsa sucks when compared to Mambo. Let me give you the historical facts which I lived through, before you jump to any defamatory thoughts:
In March I949, I was looking through the want adds in a Hollywood newspaper, and came across an add for dance teachers with free training and no experience needed. A week later I was in a teacher's training class at Bill Williams dance studio with a dozen other men and ladies. Anita Arkin had recently arrived from New York and was dressed like a gypsy with a colorful full sleeved blouse and several skirts down to her ankles and wearing large looped golden ear rings and a stoic face that never smiled. During our breaks in the training class she took it upon herself to teach me a new dance that was becoming popular among the newly arrrived Puerto Ricans.
In those post WW II days the best Afro-Cuban dancers were from Puerto Rico, just as the best Lindy dancers were our Harlem Afro-American dancers. The new dance that Anita taught me in 1949 became popular in Southern California around 1954-1955 when the Arthur Murray studios introduced the Cha Cha Cha. Within a year the Mambo also became popular in the Los Angeles area. But whenever I danced with an Arthur Murray teacher, I always had arguments about the rhythm, although the Ladies followed me well enough. The rhythm problem had to do only with two factors: the accent and basic foot pattern. Anita had taught me to accent the second beat (Syncopation) and to step (rock) forward and backward on that second beat, and hold my feet together on the first and fourth beats. Arthur Murray teachers were accenting the first (down) beat and breaking forward (rocking) and backward on that first beat. A seemingly trivial difference, but it eventually some forty years later the Arthur Murray version of the Mambo became called the Salsa, and the authentc Puerto Rican Mambo became history.
Occasionally I do come across an authentic Mambo dancer, and that's when I whale. But when I try dancing to the Salsa rhythm, the dance loses the excitement; and it becomes bland, it's like eating a burrito without salsa. I don't mean that in a bad way!
Black Sheep
[edited by DanceMentor]