Salsa Salvation

[youngsta]

Here's an excerpt. The entire article can be found at http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=565&IssueNum=32

“Salsa is not like the Western music we are used to,” Bello says. “Part of what is going on is the clave – I truly believe that, inherently, we have this madness for a primal connection to rhythm. I ask students, do any of you remember the first time you heard salsa music? Most can. Wherever you were, all of a sudden a smile spreads across your face, and you’re thinking, ‘This is great! Somebody teach me.’ You know you’ve got to do something with it. When you connect to something primal, you start to feel good physically, and that feeds the fever, the addiction. I think after a while that addiction morphs into a passion, which is more textured, like the music itself.”

[Sagitta]

I read it! I liked with Albert Torres says about "Havana Nights"-- as long as it gets people hooked into trying it out...so see the movie...or the trailer...you like it....? Try out sasla!! :)

[pygmalion]

That's a gorgeous quote. And it does feel almost spiritual, like a calling. I don't want to go too far out here, because people will think I'm nuts, even more than they already do. But for real salseros/salseras, there's a lot more to it than dance steps. It's a connection to the soul. :D

[peachexploration]

Very good article. Loved it!

The following excerpt is excellent:

“We have to learn to relate to each other again. For us women, we need to learn to be feminine again, and that there is nothing to apologize about in being feminine, and men have to learn how to take charge, but without jerking us around. What we learn in the dance is that we are empowering one another.”

[vey]

Beautiful article!
Thanks, Youngsta!

Cannot restrain myself from posting my favourite excerpt:

But in the glow off gel lights illuminating the dance floor, I saw the fat people dancing with the thin, the old with the young, short with tall – a rainbow of colors happily whipping against each other. I heard Spanish, English, Hebrew, Russian, Korean, and French that night, and I don’t think one of them was talking about what kind of work they did. And I swear, like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, with God as my witness, each of them looked beautiful. More than beautiful – they were alive. Here was a taste of the humanity we are capable of extending to each other. In the air there seemed to hang an acceptance of ourselves for what we are, this human thing. Here everybody was enough. I wanted to inhabit this Los Angeles forever.

[youngsta]

I loved it too! It was a very long article and she kept me engaged the entire time. I can relate to nearly everything she said. :D