Beginning today, Delhi will play host to its first ever Salsa festival. Hips will be swaying and spins will be attempted. The BBC reports:
Kaytee Namgyal, the president of the Salsa India Dance Company and festival organiser, says he opened his first salsa studio in Delhi four years ago.
With the growing demand for salsa lessons, he now runs nine centres in the city. He is hoping to open a school in Mumbai (Bombay) soon.
Kaytee says he’s taught close to 1,500 students in the past four years and the number of those wanting to join his studios is ever growing.
So what makes salsa so appealing?
“Salsa is funky and fancy,” Kaytee says.
I think this introduction of Salsa into the motherland is just plain wrong. Hear me out. Picture if you will a guy and a girl. They are in love but the girl is being coy and evasive. Suddenly, they start singing, and dance…the Salsa. Now I ask you quite simply, what would their friends in the background do? Hindi-film dancing provides opportunity for these background hang-arounders to just do their thing. It’s very individualistic. I can’t imagine all those extras hip grinding as well. That would be scandalous!
And now for the zinger:
“Indian people are not great at salsa. That’s because they are so attuned to dancing to Bollywood lyrics. They can’t dance to beats. And salsa is totally based on beats.”
And that’s not the only problem Indian dancers have.
“Indian men don’t lead well,” says Jaquelin, who learnt salsa in Geneva.
“And it’s not really the music they listen to all the time. Also, there’s a cultural problem here. In salsa, you have to touch the woman. And it’s not always easy for the men here to do so. They have to learn to do that.”
Ouch. Luckily there are boot camps for this sort of thing.
Namgyal and Jaquelin are full of it. As SM’s resident salsero, I can tell you the only thing Jaquelin is right about is guys’ discomfort with touching. As Hitch said,
But desi women are even less comfortable with the dance-focused flirtation intrinsic to salsa than the guys are.
All the rest is crap. Filmi music is extremely beat-based, and desi culture is quite passionate (in contrast, Japanese salseras are predictably precise but stiff). Lots of Bollywood moves are ripped straight from salsa as it’s a couples dance form– it’s running around trees, but more artistic. And my friends and I have happily bhangra’d to salsa and salsa’d to bhangra on three continents, all over the U.S., London, Spain and India:
What Namgyal is trying to say is that many Indians don’t dance, and what Jaquelin means is salsa expertise is still lacking in India (as it is, for example, in Spain– it’s a Caribbean/Latin American thang). But indicting the entire culture is hogwash. It’s early days yet in salsa’s takeover of the world 🙂
And who you gonna believe, the frigid Swiss? Get out to a decent salsa club and see it for yourself. There are good desi salseros in every big city:
As for your question, ‘what would their friends in the background do?’, watch a salsa competition sometime. It’s breathtaking.
As for your question, ‘what would their friends in the background do?’, watch a salsa competition sometime. It’s breathtaking!
I agree, but that’s the problem. In a Hindi film song sequence you can’t have all the background couples overshadowing or competing with the main characters. I too think Jaquelin is full of crap. I like to lead 🙂
Yeah, I agree, Indian music is totally beat-based, and some of the best salsa-dancers I know are also bhangra impresarios. You can, actually, kinda salsa without touching too much, if you’re that uncomfortable with it. The main problem I see is that salsa requires a fairly chill upperbody to really show off the hip motions, and when desis like to dance, they like to dance. As for Abhi’s more logical wondering. . .have ’em in the background doing quick-quick slow and snapping their hands or twirling. Their ain’t no problem a little creative choreography can’t solve.
Like filmi dancing, they just do synchronized moves in the background.
Sounds like her complaint was they don’t lead well 🙂
That’s true, salsa has some of the restraint of flamenco, but without the tormented underbelly. There’s a smooth style of bhangra that’s similar, but you can’t really get around the scythe moves.
Near as I can figure, bhangra evolved so big Punjabi men had to move their aloo parantha-laden bellies as little as possible. Think about it– the paunch stays stationary, the limbs orbit 😉
Indian men can lead too – If you don’t believe me, check this out.
Salsa is quite big (and getting bigger) in bangalore. I know of atleast four separate schools.
Nice choreography Anil, but which one are you? Cheers for the leader chick and ouch for the girl (all in the far right corner) dancing all by herself. Men! Get on it, and start dancing!
Salsa dancing has a really gay stigma for men the US…I wonder if it will catch on in India.
All dance that’s not derived from hip-hop or football is considered gay by American men. By and large, American men can’t dance, it’s not an emotionally expressive culture.
Funny things overheard at salsa clubs:
Woman watching a guy intently: ‘Oh, I get it… he’s not gay, he’s Spanish!‘
Male friend: ‘Dude, that’s so gay…’ Thinks a bit… ‘Do you meet women this way?’ (only he put it more crudely). Half an hour later, his ass was on the dance floor.
I’ve even seen one of the mutineers, one who swore on his copy of The Road to Serfdom that he was a rifle-racked, pickup-driving red-blooded American male, sheepishly learn salsa a short while later.
Ahh, it shouldn’t be that hard to pick out the only desi guy in that group! One girl had to dance all by herself coz her partner was a no-show that night. Two women were stood up, but the instructor (who happens to be a delightful lady) took on the role of a guy for one of them.
Oh btw, two girls dancing salsa is just as great as a guy and a girl doing it. Some of the best salsa I’ve seen has come from female pairs.
lol Manish
Yes, I went to a club in Caracas and was shocked at how “expressive” (ALMOST to the point of being vulgar by American standards) the men were while dancing (and the women!). Frankly I think that if Americans can’t even stomach Latin dancing (i.e. the touchy-feelyness), desis don’t even have a chance.
damn, yo. why you gotta blow up my spot like that? you swore you’d never tell. 😉
Salsa is pretty intense, but feeling up the girl is usually the last thing on your mind when you are trying to lead with a different move after each turn. If you want a gropey dance, look no farther than the bump ‘n’ grind on a hip-hop night. And I haven’t seen any Americans uncomfortable with either 🙂
Yep, real salsa clubs are pretty clean…
By the way, re: the title of this post, the Gipsy Kings don’t really do salsa (their ‘Salsa de Noche’ isn’t typical). They do rumba flamenco / nuevo flamenco.
But desi women are even less comfortable with the dance-focused flirtation intrinsic to salsa than the guys are.
You got that right! As a desi woman who loves to salsa, I don’t agree with “dance-focused flirtation intrinsic to salsa”. There’s something to be said for just having fun; good music, good beat, good dance moves, and NOTHING ELSE. Particularly unwelcome are thoughts of OhIwonderwhathesthinkingohihopeshesnotgoing tograbthisorthat while I’m trying figure out whether its a one or two beat.
I think salsa can be in equal parts about bonding with friends/loved ones and about “flirtation”. And I think partners , depending on their notions about dancing, can make you feel comfortable or otherwise.
Oh man, you struck a nerve.
Salsa requires so much technical skill, it’s so focused on dance and dance alone, that it’s much cleaner than most nightclubs and parties.
And unless you’re dancing with family, it’s a performance art. There’s a big competitive salsa scene, like competitive ballroom, and key to it is that you’re supposed to focus on your partner. Nothing annoys me more than partners who don’t get the difference between dancing (80% of the moves are centered around performing a flirtation) and real-life flirting.
They’re usually novices, they’re sometimes desi and they tense up like mad. I put four feet between us, keep arms squared and hand high on their shoulders, grit my teeth and wait for the song to end. Then I kick myself for not gauging experience before asking someone to dance.
It’s just four minutes, but it’s unpleasant. Conversely, SDD, you say you love to salsa, but you might want to find a club with more serious salseros.
80% of the moves are centered around performing a flirtation … Conversely, SDD, you say you love to salsa, but you might want to find a club with more serious salseros.
I think its possible to love salsa without being too preoccupied with PERFORMANCE.
Serious salseros who take themselves and their dancing too seriously take the joy out of it for me, by rolling their eyes, and expressing exactly how heavy and important perfecting this double turn or that slide is. All this in the middle of the floor and music. Thats just one example.
I hope we can agree that a fun night at Nell’s, which does not imply sloppy dancing, is not the same thing as taking the floor in a salsa competition. And I prefer the former to the latter.
This is what really bugs me about most salsa places I ‘ve been to, everything is so performance oriented that there’s really no magic. There’s very little dancing for the love of dancing, atleast among the non-latino people. I’ve seen this phenomenon in India as well as in Australia.
re: the title of this post, the Gipsy Kings don’t really do salsa (their ‘Salsa de Noche’ isn’t typical). They do rumba flamenco / nuevo flamenco.
I’ve spent many a night salsa dancing (in Denver of all places) so I know that this is true. However, for virgin salsa dancers the Gypsy Kings invoke images and thoughts of salsa music and are thought by many to be synonymous with it. Especially this song.
Salsa requires so much technical skill…it’s much cleaner than most nightclubs and parties
What’s the point then? Dude…for real. If I’m going to bust my ass doing some unenjoyable shiznit generally enjoyed by non-heterosexuals (not-that-there’s-etc.), I’d better get some action for it. As it is, there are more time efficient ways to pick up women. Who wants to be “Lord of the Dance” if the only people on the floor are prudish women worried about you grabbing something and gays trying to grab your somethings?
Dude. I love salsa. The performance itself requires technical skill, but the payoff comes later ;), when everyone’s about to swoon from the facility with which hips are moved and smoldering gazes issued.
cough Not that I’d know anything about that. Seriously.
Yeah, that’s no fun. Try telling them your salsa ability when they ask you to dance. If you’ve told them up front you’re not an expert, there’s no point in them giving you a lesson instead of just enjoying it. On the other hand, the advantage of dancing at a serious salsa club is there’s less unwanted romantic attention.
Maybe you’d enjoy it more if you went to a casual salsa club in a group and politely declined to dance with people you don’t know? That way you feel comfortable and don’t run into demanding dancers.
The thing with demanding leads that a lot of women don’t realize is, men have to invest much more time learning than women to be even passable salseros, because they have to learn and lead the patterns. I’ve seen female novices led through some basic steps in one or two lessons, and the women come away thinking they know salsa.
Presumably those who perform do it because they love it. And I hear you on dancing for the love of it, but there’s a steep learning curve for the leaders. You can’t really just pick it up if the women are good dancers, you’re gonna need lessons. I was already a decent (non-salsa) dancer, and it took me six months of weekly lessons before I was comfortable asking just anyone to dance.
Yes, but then many also confuse Iran with India, it’s the imprecise exoticism we rail against so much on this blog. ‘Volare’ and most other Gipsy Kings songs use all 4 beats in a bar, while salsa, as you know, relies on 3 of those beats. Off topic, we should take a group out salsa dancing in LA sometime…
Yes there are! And you should go do them. Salsa is for those who love to dance. Thank you, come again 😉
Manish I’m so with you, salsa is a gift a man learn’s for the sake of his woman…its work but the pay-off is seeing her eyes light up when you’re moving together
that said, i like cumbia much more…its like a dirty south version of salsa
Yes, but then many also confuse Iran with India, it’s the imprecise exoticism we rail against so much on this blog
Manish, I think the real reason you are so upset is because someone else attempted a pun. No longer can you hold your monopoly over our heads.
“Give me punnery or give me death” -Puntrick Henry
i have been learning salsa for quite some time now,currently i am in the third level of salsa…..i agree that salsa is too performance oriented but it depends mostly on you and your partner…….whether you want to finish first or just feel the music and enjoy each moment of dancing….it also depends on the music…..if it is fast …then yes it is kinda technical as you have to think about the next step..but if it is slow then you get to concentrate on each of your moves.Salsa enthusiasts must watch “dirty dancing:havanna nights “….which has latin ballroom dance…u would quite enjoy it
//also its true that indian women and men have reservations about touching or feeling each other while dancing.in cuban dance the partners dance as one..they flirt and feel each other .its different .indians would percieve it as vulgar and indecent ……but again its an art.
//“Indian men don’t lead well,” says Jaquelin, who learnt salsa in Geneva. //
i dont agree with dat! indian men nonetheless are very good salsa dancers.its true that they love to lead and they do so very well.
//The thing with demanding leads that a lot of women don’t realize is, men have to invest much more time learning than women to be even passable salseros, because they have to learn and lead the patterns. I’ve seen female novices led through some basic steps in one or two lessons, and the women come away thinking they know salsa.// Manish i agree that it one has to invest time to learn to lead a woman….its like the boy has to make the girl dance.if the boy dance well the girl dances well..else…..!but there again its not so easy for female dancers to get used to being pulled,spinned,twisted and then suddenly dropped in less than a minute..it happens so fast that everything in front of the eye goes dark!its amazing dancing to sals music..its breathtaking…..after dancing you would be like….wow! ya but the point is that female dancers may get their basic steps right pretty fast……but agin they have to invest time to learn to trust her partners evey move…match up his speed….to sway her hips even as she does the simple walk…and never try to lead him instead even when he forgets his next step…..
its like she has to be flexible….and oh boy….my body used to ache after each class….but its worth it!salsa really does give you that adrenaline rush!