Salsa in Sydney

Quite a bit coming up around town, which is nice: it's great to be inspired to get out and go dancing.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is Noche de Fuego, with Mi Tierra, a few DJs, including Sydney's best, Mani, and a slew of dance shows. The Manning Bar is a great venue, with two rooms and a big balcony, and if the mild weather holds out, that will be the place to be. There are details about the event here.

Next week is the biggest event on the Sydney Latin calendar, Fiesta, at Darling Harbour: three days; 30 bands; 45 dance groups. There are dance classes as well. Mi Tierra are playing on Sunday, and they always totally rock the harbour - it's one of the best places to see them.

The other highlight of the bill is the Ruben Blades tribute band on Sunday at 1pm. It's led by Martin Taylor who really knows his stuff when it comes to big bands; and features the music of the legendary Ruben Blades. I think that all speaks for itself. I'm working, but I'll try and sneak out and catch them.

See the full program here.

There are also bands playing every night at Port Orient after the bands finish at the Aquashell (from about 11pm). These include Mi Tierra, Club Havana Band and Salsa Rica Orchestra. More details on Facebook.

Friday, the headlining bands at Fiesta are Watussi and a band from Colombia Aterciopelados - both are Latin rock, so dancers will want to be at Hotel Chambers for One Night in Cuba, with myself, Mani, Nandez and AV el Cubano.

Cubamemucho Melbourne Pt 2

The statues cast an eye over the dancers.

Well, Saturday night was pretty excruciating. So much for there being more opportunities to dance. Part of the entertainment for the evening was to be a performance by the teachers, and before we left the hotel, I made a throwaway comment about how “knowing those show ponies, they’ll never get off stage”.
Alas - there never was a truer word spoken in jest. The night started with some pretty ordinary music from the DJ, then Adrian, a local Cuban ex-pat, who is an excellent dancer but has musical aspirations (regrettably, he is not alone), got up on stage to shout some impromptu reggaeton. This went longer than I would have liked, as opportunities for dancing were already looking like they might be rare, seeing as we still had the performers' routines to see. The impro reggaeton had put them behind, and they came out more than one hour later than scheduled. They all got a chance to show off their chops - some more than others. There was a pretty good variety - Afro-Cuban, guaguanco, son - and there were quite a lot of modern dance elements in some of the routines.
Alexis Borrero, whose (men-only) rumba workshops were apparently outstanding, jumped off the stage and took off his jacket. Then ... took off his pants, and danced in a g-string. Interesting decision. It was a very athletic performance - the guy is all muscle. A tiny weeny ball of muscle.
None of the performers were introduced so I wasn’t certain who everyone was. But you couldn’t miss Seo and Alessia. Or escape them for that matter. Dudes would not get off stage. Then when they did... they came back again. And again. The pair had some real showstopping moves - which you can no doubt see on youtube - but Seo returned on his own, to do a Michael Jackson impression to Billie Jean which was, admittedly, very good. He came back yet again, to sing a bachata to a backing track. That was ... not so good.
Oh, that the evening had sped along as quickly as my report: it was beset by delays and silences in between acts and belaboured announcing from the MCs. Not to mention an endless unrehearsed free-for-all by the teachers at the end. How I longed for them all to get the fuck off the stage so we could dance ourselves. Just when it seemed the end was near, someone else would come out (usually Seo) and do another routine.
There was probably some more reggaeton after that - I don’t know, I was practically in a coma by this stage, and then finally the band, Mi Tierra, came on. But alas, they had been unable to have a soundcheck, and worse, the promised gear had not been organised for them and they had had to scurry around town at the last minute to get some drums. They were playing as a 13 piece, and with no soundcheck, in that big-ass old theatre, they sounded like shit. By the time they got to the end of their sadly only hour-long set, the sound was about right. But by then it was 1am, the curfew had kicked in, and we were being kicked out.
I was really pretty ready to go home by that point anyway. Time to cut my losses. The Cubamemucho crew headed off to party at a bar called Boricua. If the music lived up to its name, it wasn't going to be my cup of tea. I called it a night.

I had one class owing, and I was interested in doing a rumba class with Madeleine, as she had received good raps from people who had done the classes on Saturday, but it was being held at 11am. I woke at 10 and just didn’t feel like rushing. So after a nuclear strength cafecito, I went to the dance school in time for Rafael’s cha-cha-cha class. This was a lot of fun. There were no arse jokes, just lots of moves taught at a rapid clip. The only drawback for me was that he assumed everyone there could dance rueda: once he’d taught us the moves, we danced them in a rueda. It’s a been a hundred years since I led a dame. But overall it was a lot of fun.

Wasn’t sure what to expect for the final night after the disappointment of Saturday. It did not start well: for the first 40 minutes or so after I arrived, the music was a mixed disc with no Cuban music on it; worse, it contained the dreaded Micaela. Ay, ay, ay! Most of us were in a pretty foul mood about that. If we want to listen to shit Colombian salsa we can stay in Sydney and go to any one of a bunch of free nights instead of forking out a load of money for airfare/hotel/cover charge. Things didn’t improve after that either - Adrian led the Cubamemucho gang in - not dance - of course not. Why would you think that? No, they all got up and played and sang. Why stick to your skill set? After I finish writing this, I’m off to invent a cure for cancer. With all this experience in journalism, I’m sure I’ll nail it. That went for waaaaay too long. The finals for the rueda comp were supposed to have been held at 8.30pm. Sometime after 9.30 (I stopped looking at my watch) they began. You can see the winning team below, and the others at youtube.



While they tallied the scores, a local band, Carlito’s Way, started playing, and they obviously had soundchecked; the sound was crisp and clear. They started with Ritmo Oriental's Yo bailo de todo and followed it up with Paulito's Tú no me calculas. The band had baritone sax and trumpet and two lovely voiced male singers. Both those songs sounded great and I had a couple of great dances (thanks Mauricio and Manuel!). The other songs weren’t as fab, but then, they had set the bar high.
After the winner of the comp was announced, there was a gargantuan rueda, with circles inside circles. It looked like a bit of a madhouse. One of the teachers, Jorge, gave the microphone to the leaders of the competing teams to call, which was a cool idea. When the song had finished, son expert Mario wanted to keep it going, but one of the MCs shooed him away - damn straight. Some of us non-ruederos wanted a turn, and the band still had a second set to play.
It was just as good as the first and finished with Manolito's El aguila and Marcando la distancia - I almost felt like I was at Miramar for a second, dancing down the front. My friend said: this just makes me want to be in Havana. It was a lot of fun, and it was pretty disappointing when the band finished and they booted us out.
People wanted to kick on and I was dubious but I thought, why not? We go home tomorrow. So we headed over to Fitzroy to Night Cat, which has a salsa night on Sundays. It closes at 2 and we all got there about 1.30. Reggaeton was playing, then some dull Issac songs. I sat around until I got hassled by a young Colombian guy. He had the unblinking stare and the disregard for personal space typical of someone on their 14th beer. I tried to be polite. That was my mistake. Verbal brutality had to follow. When that didn’t work, I ran. What else could I do? The reggaeton continued and the stars of the weekend were holding the floor. Fortunately it wasn’t a dead loss for me as the DJ closed the evening Havana D'Primera's Resumen de los 90, and I just happened to be standing next to an excellent leader when it came on. ¡Aaaaagua!
I was thankful that a weekend of ups and downs finished on a high note.

Cubamemucho Melbourne Pt 1

The Forum Theatre

The first night was held in a fabulous decaying theatre in the city: chipped statues and ornate cornices; the ceiling painted midnight blue with sparkles for stars. It was not entirely unlike 1830 at night, with its little grotto and shining beacon.
There weren't actually very many people there (the Chilean Independance day celebrations are on this weekend - there are two different festivals for that apparently; no doubt free - might have paid to think about that in advance I'd have thought), but there were enough. It didn't look empty and the dancefloor was mostly full, but not so full that you'd get an elbow in the head.
Nice big wooden dancefloor, which sadly didn't get used enough - by the crowd, anyway. There were heats of the rueda competition and on top of that there was a welcome show by a group playing rumba but incorporating the didgeridoo, and there was lots of slow talking into the microphone. The speediest speaker, alas, wasn't allowed to run the show.
There were seven rueda groups ranging from students to fanaticos. The standard was mostly pretty good. One did a hideous overly theatrical production with zombies and girls in short nurses outfits (puh-lease) in the LA congress style and another actually danced to a New York salsa track. WTF? I vagued out for that one. The others chose more wisely: Pupy, Tirso etc.
Four finalists were chosen to perform on the closing night.
While the judges were deciding, Kenny Lopez, a Melbourne muso who has played Cuban music for many years, took to the stage with his son outfit which included violin and one trumpet. They are very polished, and Kenny knows his stuff, but, you know, son. And although it was sweet, I would have rather had a little less live Kenny and some pre-recorded Havana D'Primera.
The DJs (no sign of Melao so far) were pretty conservative: old Manolito, old Bamboleo (Yo no me parezco a nadie), recent Issac, Fresquecito (about the liveliest song all night I think). There wasn't a lot of hard timba. Not sure why.

The Forum by day

Tonight should provide more opportunities for dancing: Mi Tierra, a local timba band are playing. They should rock the house.
Today I went down to the Victorian College of the Arts where the workshops are being held. I had thought I might do a son class, but we got there late and it was packed to the gills. So me and my friend went and got a coffee. I came back later and did advanced casino with Jorge. They were mostly moves that we have learnt here in rueda under names like El nudo and El mago, but that was OK, as I've never learnt to lead them. It was just too bad he spent a large part of the class talking about his partner's arse (with her translating these pearls of wisdom into English, in case we didn't get it), instead of talking about dancing. Would have been nice if, when we came to dance to the music, he had played salsa instead of reggaeton too. Some might argue it was salsaton. I'd say it was a pretty salsa-less ton.
I would have done the orishas class but the schedule got completely rearranged this morning, and when it got moved from 5 to 3, it kind of clashed with ... lunch.
So I have one other class to choose from tomorrow, cause I paid for two. I'll probably decide on the spur of the moment. Again.
To be honest I don't really care if I do another one, though I suppose I may as well. Mainly I'm just looking forward to some dancing tonight.

Timba en defensa del CDR

Here's something interesting that popped up after this week's episode of Piso 6 - luckily, Richard at Mucho Swing left the VCR running. It's a music video praising the virtues of CDR - the Comités en Defensa de la Revolución, featuring various luminaries from the Cuban music scene.

I didn't recognise everyone, but it looks like Arnaldo from the Talisman in the control booth directing everything - he also did the Egrem 45th anniversary song, so I guess he is flavour of the month with whoever is commissioning these government works. On the other side of the booth is Haila, Amaray and El Noro. Others I recognise, but not by name (the red-headed chick is from one of the pop bands I think), and others I don't know at all.

If you can name some of them, please do so in the comments.

Update: Mirco at Timba por siempre has pointed out that this is to commemorate the 49th anniversary of CDR.