The day after
I came from Los Angeles yesterday. After four days of salsa in the salsa capitol of the world, Los Angeles, California, the salsa music is still banging in the back of my head. A lot of flashbacks are coming to me all the time, and turns me into one big smile. I see for me a lot of salseros and salseras dance to pumping latin rhythms in the sun on Santa Monica Beach - on a concrete path, on the grass, in the sand - everywhere where there is flat ground. I see the smile of Oscar D´Leon, the show of Sonora Carruseles, and I still feel the joy of dancing with maybe the world’s most famous salsera, Edie the salsa freak.
The last four years, the annual world salsa congress in Los Angeles, California, has been a mega-event. This congress gathers thousands of people from the whole planet to the biggest salsa party of the year. This years headlines for the event was Oscar D’leon, Jose Alberto, La Sonora Carruseles, Rey De La Paz and other live performers. In addition, local and international dj’s. Over 40 workshops by the best instructors in the world, almost 100 dance performances, and salsa dancing from 9 in the morning to 4 the next morning.
The event is produced by Albert Torres Productions. Besides promoting latin dance, Albert Torres is known from years of dancing, and he participated in Hollywood movies like The Mambo Kings and Dance With Me. I was lucky to get some words with the man himself on the first day of the event.
Anyway, it all kicked off Thursday morning as I woke up 3.40 am to drive from Corvallis to Portland International Airport. Most of my travel companions, the gang from Eugene; Socorro, Jack, Summer, Juan, Francisco, Laura, Johanna, Cecilia, and Stephanie, had already left a day ahead. These guys are even crazier about salsa than I am, all in performance groups, and some of them are instructors. I arrived Los Angeles Hilton Hotel about 12.30, and hooked up with them. We quickly rushed down to Santa Monica Beach for the pre congress beach salsa party.
When arriving at the beach I was amazed by the size of it! We were not far from the Santa Monica Pier, because I could glimpse the carrousels in the north. Walking between palm tress we could suddenly hear Latin rhythms in the distance. Everybody shouted with joy and we started running towards the music. It was a nice sight. The party took place in a little park area surrounded by palm trees, just a few feet from the golden sand, the characteristic lifeguard huts, and the yellow “baywatch” cars. People were working their tan in the sun, some were swimming while others were surfing the waves. But of course, the event on the park area was of most interest.
A huge music installation was rigged up, and was operated by some of the best salsa DJ’s in the world. The fastest sprinters, Francisco and Laura were already dancing as I arrived. A concrete path crossing the grass was filled with salseros dancing like crazy. People switched dance partner all the time. One fantastic song took over after the other. As more people came, even the grass became a dance floor. I even saw people dancing salsa in the sand. We all had great fun dancing and enjoying the weather, the beach, and known and unknown people.
At 5 pm, after four hours of dancing in the grilling sun, we were all pretty exhausted and went to the hotel to get some food and catch up before the evening’s big pre-congress party at Hilton Hotel.
Thursday night – Hotel Hilton
Albert opened the party with a welcome to everybody. He said that over 40 different countries were represented by the dancers. He introduced the youngest salsa band in the world – from Puerto Rico, and the party kicked off. It was a great night. All of us had had a great afternoon and were geared for the evening.
The party took place in a huge room with a stage and 3-4 dance floors on top of the otherwise carpeted floors. In the hall, vendors were setting up booths were they sold music, videos, shoes and clothes. Spread out along the walls and in the hall, bars were set up. Also there were plenty of tables where one could get as much water as needed (free).
People switched dance partner after every song and it was very easy to get a dance with anybody. I got myself some great dances. Some of the salseras were so good that I almost jumped in surprise by how they could spin by me barely moving the fingers.
We later hooked up with Jose, Nicole, Mario, Miguel and others. Another great surprise was all the people from Portland that I never knew would be there. I even met some other Norwegians, so when it was time to cool down and fill up the water tank there was always somebody to talk to.
It soon became just too crowded on the dance floors, but nothing could stop people from dancing. They were dancing on the carpet, in the hall, by the bar – everywhere!
In one of my break I talked to Albert Torres and Rey De La Paz. They both seemed to be VERY nice people. Albert took himself good time to chat with me, and was happy to hear that the first annual Norwegian salsa congress is being arranged this year. Befire the party was rounded up around 2 PM, Francisco was lucky to catch a dance with the famous Edie salsa freak.
Friday – Hilton Hotel
It was really weird to wake up Friday morning and realize that it was only Friday. I think we all felt that we had just had a super weekend, but the congress itself had not even started yet! I was so exited! After registering for the congress, we rushed to the two classes presented by Edie salsa freak and Al “liquid silver” Espinoza. They were some fantastic instructors! Al is a wild wild man. I think I have never laughed so much during a class and still learn a lot. I also got the chance to dance with Edie herself (thanks to Socorro, who convinced me to grab the chance)! What a kickoff start on the day!
At 2 PM, the doors to the dance rooms were opened. It was time for “salsa club”. Great DJ’s played nonstop awesome good salsa music so we could practice what we learned in class or just have fun. As always during the whole congress, there was plenty of water on tables around the walls.
Friday night – Hollywood Park Casino
Sweat, but just passably exhausted after the days dancing marathon it was time to go up to the room to shower and put on suitable clothes for the evenings salsa party at Hollywood Park Casino. I filled my little backpack with camera, camcorder, extra shoes and shirts.
It was arranged with minibuses that transported people back and forth between the Hilton Hotel and Hollywood Park Casino. The latter mentioned was a fantastic building. The congress took part on the second floor, above the casino itself. When coming up the escalator and through the heavily guarded entrance there was first a long wide hall. A lot of vendors were ready with their booths, there was set up an own restaurant with both cheap and very good food. Big TV screens were set up everywhere so that one would be able to see the dance performances from anywhere.
The dancing room was enormous, with four big dance floors separated with a few feet of carpet. In a corner a big stage was rigged up. Next to this room was a covered outside area and a stage where the performances took place. Behind rows of chairs was another nice dance floor. Dance performances went on throughout the evening and they were all fantastic. But there was a LOT of performances! For those who needed a “break” there was a dance floor in the corner inside the dance room where they played nonstop salsa. It was CROWDED there, but great fun to go there from time to time.
After a whole lot of dance performances that all blew my mind, it was time for LA SONORA Carruseles! This band from Colombia are maybe best known for songs like Federico Boogaloo, Arranca En Fa and Michaela.
13 musicians, 5 of them vocals started to play, sing and dance and made the crowd go wild. I think they played 3-4 songs before somebody started dancing. I would guess there were about 3000 people there. I had lost all of my friends from Eugene out of sight a long time ago, but that was all good, I packed down my camcorder, and put my arms out to a casual salsera. I had a lot of great dances, often barely without exchanging a word. Even though the dance floor was huge, it did not take much time before it was so crowded that people had to dance on the carpets. Some of the best dancers out there on the carpet made circles of people that gathered around to see them. I watched the guy that won the Mayan World Salsa Competition in 2001. It seemed like that couple broke all laws of physics. It was breathtaking to watch.
When the Sonora Carruseles concert was over, DJ’s took over until the party was rounded off 4 o’clock in the morning.
I came back to the hotel totally exhausted but very happy and still high after all the wonderful music and dancing. People were still dancing in the lobby and in the halls. I fell asleep with El Gran Combos Timbalero slamming in the back of my head.
Saturday – Hilton Hotel
All workshops were held at the hotel, so one could go right from the room and attend classes with fantastic instructors. The most vigour in the group caught the yoga + body centering workshop for salseros at 9 am. I was not one of them, I could not feel my feet when I woke up. The workshops went from 9 in the morning till 5 pm. In my breaks between them I walked under the influence of dancing. Humming on salsa music as I looked at the vendor’s booths, did some shopping and talked to known and unknown people. Before the last class ended, “salsa club” opened as the day before and I had a blast dancing again!
Saturday night – Hollywood Park Casino
Saturday night was perhaps the best night for me at the congress. It started with music and dance at Hollywood Park casino at 8 pm, one hour before the first dance performance. Finally there was enough space on the dance floor! I do not remember if it was a dj or a live band behind the music, probably the latter. That hour I had some of the greatest dances. I danced with the girls from Eugene – and they are GOOD! Also my friend Fransisco came dancing along side me and we started a small casino rueda. To have a long break with good food and a long break to watch performances after that was just perfect.
The performances were as the day before “spectacular” and “just amazing”. Biggest impression did a group from Puerto Rico using the movie MATRIX as theme, Al and Edie Espinoza with an Egyptian farao as theme. I highly recommend buying the video that I expect will be on sale from alberttorresevent.com soon.
Around 12 at night, Jose Alberto”El Canario” and his orchestra entered the scene, and played great music. I have not learned Spanish yet, so it is hard to remember the songs, but I remember Disculpeme Senora and Quiero Salsa. Once again I had a blast on the dance floor, dancing with salseras from Japan, Hawaii, Los Angeles, New York, Singapore and even Eugene. Between each song I could almost just take the first available hands I saw.
Sunday – Hilton Hotel
Sunday was very much like the day before, but with new workshops. After workshops in the morning I went to the congress seminar. It was a seminar with Albert Torres, Oscar D’Leon, Johnny Polanco and Rey De La Paz. They talked about the history and culture behind this music and dance, and it was very interesting. Oscar D’Leon was asked what is a Sonero, and to answer, he started snapping his fingers in 3-2 clave and began singing. Soon the audience was clapping along and also Rey De La Paz came into the song. The answer on the question was that a real Sonero makes the song as he is doing it. It also made a big impression to see Oscar get emotional, when he told his story about how he got into this music, and how it has kept him going for 30 years.
After the seminar I took another two-three workshops. The last one was most interesting. Fransisco Vasquez, known to be the man behind the LA style (along with the other Vasquez brothers) was giving a workshop with the title “L.A. Tricks on “1”.
He taught – or tried to teach us to in his opinion very simple tricks. The workshop should perhaps have been marked “advanced only” because I believe he became a little frustrated about what he saw. Personally I loved that class. I also learned that somebody is making a documentary about that Vasquez family. I will try to get a hold of that for sure when it is finished.
The salsa club opened up after the class as usual, but was not as packed with people anymore.
There was a dance performance at the same time, and more people were watching that – most of our party included. I was so lucky to get to see the show of Sabor Latino Dance Company from Portland, Oregon. It was fun because I know some of them. I have been taking classes of Joshua Faulkner many times. Their show was very popular. It started with a bandmaster with his stick entering the scene, followed by the rest of the group dressed in different costumes. They danced for each instrument in the song, lead by the bandmaster. It was particularly fun to see the one (George) that danced as the vocal, with refrains and pauses in-between the instruments.
Sunday night – Hollywood Park Casino
Me and the rest of the gang from Eugene did not get on our way to the casino until the time had passed 10 this evening. We talked about what a great time we had had, the things we had seen and learned. Somebody even watched TV – spanish soap opera!. We were not tired of dancing – no far from it! We just knew it would be a whole lot of performances at the casino – maybe a little bit too much. We just wanted to dance as much as possible the last night.
The dancing was great that evening, but I think the climax was when Oscar D’Leon entered the scene. He radiated an energy level and a joy that was impossible not to dance to. When his show was over and Dj’s took over I mostly watched the pro’s doing their thing in the circles of people gathered around them. They danced so it fizzled, and really showed what it means to combine speed and smooth. My feet hurt, but I was blissful. It was the best event ever!
Looking at the video recordings from the trip, it is still hard to believe I was there. I am so glad I actually went there though, because then I know when to have my suitcase ready for the next time. Although the congress itself was fantastic it would never have been the same without my Eugene friends. Thank you guys for a mega-experience!! I WILL be back!
