NW Salsa Congress

Shin and I recently performed at the NW Salsa Congress in Tacoma, Washington. The event was a blast, and our performance was well received. We performed the "Indestructible" routine, complete with our shinny silver outfits. This was the first ever salsa congress in the northwest, and we can't wait for more to come in the upcoming years.

We arrived Friday night at the Tacoma convention center for a night of social dancing. To our surprise, the event wasn't very packed, only a small dance floor was available, and the sound was loud, full of echoes, and rather distorted. Not so great on the venue. However, what was lacking with the venue was made up with the number of good dancers that night. After a long night of dancing, we called it a night.

Saturday was full of great workshops by Victor and Gaby, Shaka Brown, Ismael Otero, Junior & Emily, and many others. The workshops were great, but because we had just come back from New York, we were slightly disappointed in the level of the workshops. We were also craving more On2 workshops.



That night we performed for our first congress. We were definitely pretty nervous to say the least. Albert Torres helped calm everyone down before the performances backstage with his encouraging words. We got to hang out with some of the best dancers beforehand, and we really felt like superstars that night. When it was our turn we stepped up on stage we stepped on stage to a full house of cheering salseros. Two minutes later we exited the stage and return to normalcy. That will be our last performance of Indestructible for a while. I doubt it will be the last, but it is definitely time to start working on something new.



The night concluded with more performances from Clavekazi, Junior & Emily, Descarga Caribe, Ismael and Magna, and Al Liquid Silver & Keren. Finally, Jimmy Bosh's band came to the stage and rocked the house. After a long night of dancing it was time to start the car and drive home. Definitely a good weekend.

Click here to see all of the photos.

New York City

Shin and I decided to take a week off from work and head to the big apple. Most people go to New York for the shows, the sights, and the city. For us, NYC was to be a week of salsa training from the very best in the world. Mambo, or On2 salsa dancing was born in the streets of Spanish Harlem here many years ago. We were going to NYC to take classes from the King of the Mambo, Mr. Eddie Torres, along with many others.

We arrived in NYC several hours late due to "traffic delays" cause by the TSA's lovely new air travel restrictions. Got to love those shampoo bottles. After a crazy landing at Laguarda we hoped on a cab to my cousin's place in upper west Manhatten. I hadn't seen my cousin Amber in quite a while, so it was definitely good to catch up. Being that it was already 10pm we decided to call it a night and rest up for the weekend.

That weekend, and for most of the following week, Shin and I lived the good life. We slept in during the morning, did some sight seeing in the afternoon, took salsa lessons in the evening, and went out salsa dancing late at night. We repeated this pattern from that first Saturday till the Saturday the following week. Basically our schedule was something like

8:00 - Wake up and say hi to Amber
8:30 - Go back to bed
13:00 - Get out of bed
14:00 - Leave Amber's place, go sightseeing in NYC
18:00 - Start taking salsa classes
22:00 - Finish taking salsa class, head to salsa club
02:00 - Leave salsa club
03:00 - Go to bed

So what did we see (besides people dancing)? Some of the more memorible sights we saw in NYC were Central Park, the remains of the World Trade Center, China Town, SOHO, NOHO, Times Square, and Greenwich Village.

Now for the good stuff. Time to talk about salsa in New York.