Dance troupes in salsa competitions often come up with elaborate themes to set themselves apart from the endless parade on stage. Some of the themes are quite inventive. One Korean couple even dressed up as Ryu and Chun Li from the Street Fighter video game.
At the Women in Salsa event last year, a salsa troupe from Philly/South Jersey opened their performance with ‘Daya Daya Daya Re’ from Dil Ka Rishta. Longtime readers know that I love Hindi/bhangra/salsa fusion. The video clip isn’t advanced salsa, but it’s fun to watch.
Dancer Alpita Patel probably chose the music:
Alpita has 8 years of training in… bharatnatyam… she was introduced to salsa in 2004… her dance styles include hip-hop, modern, jazz, and Indian folk… Alpita has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University and currently works full-time for the State of New Jersey Judiciary. [Link]
Techie salsa dancers are teh hott 
Bollywood choreographers often lift salsa spins and armplay. They should rip from it completely. Please, please bury that standing-head-thrust move which makes male stars look like retarded monkeys.
Watch the clip (WMV format). For more advanced performances, watch this (trick dips) and this.
How cool! Manish, can you recommend advanced-beginner salsa classes in NYC, preferably Manhattan? Been searching for a while and haven’t found anything that’s clicked.
Haha, I’m sure most of the men will appreciate the part of the video where they strip off their lehngas =)
A friend of mine likes Santo Rico in Spanish Harlem. I’ve seen them perform at the L.A. Salsa Congress, they’re amazing.
Sigh…we seriously need more brown (the desi kind) ladies in salsa down here in Houston. I must be one of like, 3 Indian salseros in the huge salsa scene here. There’s just sooooo much possibility with Indian classical dance/salsa fusion that some creative salseras could totally exploit.
I’ve always wondered why I see more desi guys in salsa than the gals and discussed this with fellow salser@s. Any thoughts about this? Is this true only down here in H’town or all over? Finally, this seems like the perfect thread to discuss this, thanks, manish! Cool video too.
I’ll be performing for the first time at the Texas Salsa Congress in march, and later in the LA and PR congresses…so will put up some videos on my blog and stuff 😀
To add more meat to the thread, feel free to suggest your favorite ‘unconventional’ salsa tracks i.e. from non-latin countries/languages/backgrounds. For instance ‘Habibi’ by Amr Diab is a famous instance of Arabic salsa. Also, can you think of bollywood/bhangra tracks which would be great if ‘salsafied’?
I’ve seen that too, but only anecdotally, and that’s the opposite of the mainstream (there are way more female salseras). Among the 1.5-2nd gen I think it comes down to discomfort with partner dancing.
Qué bueno! Definitely post videos.
You’re right, there’s lots of fusion potential here. I bet a lot of Arabic-flamenco and Arabic-salsa fusion comes from the proximity of Spain to Morocco. Check out MÃrame, which is Hindi-reggaetón fusion.
Many thanks. I have been dancing – other ballroom, flamenco, desi classical – for many years now and was looking for Salsa for experienced dancers. This may work!
“Deedar De” from Dus ?
Or the “Saki saki” song from Musafir (the one with Sanjay Dutt and Koena Mitra singing in the video).
Salame from Dhoom Sholon Si from Shabd
Hey! I remember Alpita from Rutgers… good for her.:)
I’d have to dig into my Punjabi collection and get back to you on which Punjabi tracks might do well with salsa, but there are a ton of Arabic tracks that come to mind… mmmm Amr Diaab… “Amarain”, anyone?
that habibi track is great. makes me think of spices and exotic deserts and djinns…. 😉
anyway, yeah man i think salsa dancing is great and i totally see desi guys out there….we get to blend in and all the gals think we might be native so they’re willing to dance…at least at first till they see in my case that i know….three moves
there’s nothing hotter than mixing dance styles
Yeah, Amr Diab is kinda the king of Arabic salsa.
My own love affair with salsa started because I dig the music, and it provides me with a creative outlet I never really had before in my life (hell, I’m a comp sci grad student, ex-IITian, never had time or opportunity to get creative with anything back home). I think that’s probably true of a lot of other desi guys (fob or not).
Desi gals on the other hand, have culturally “approved” opportunities for creative pursuits in terms of classical dance (Bharatnatyam, Kathak) so maybe they generally don’t feel the NEED for expressing themselves through salsa. Just a thought. Do you guys agree?
Manish, you are right, there are way more salseras in general. I went to a couple of salsa clubs in France this winter, and by the end of an hour I was quite in demand…with girls asking me to dance and all, even though I speak minimal French. Quite an ego-boost 😀
The London Flamenco festival has just started and I’m hopefully going to swing by. There are loads of salsa classes in London, but the most I fun I had was at a huge place in a really nasty part of town, called the Ministry of Salsa. Interestingly enough, the DVD they were selling was taught by ‘Jai and Candy’, but Jai is one of those multi-purpose names, so he’s probably Latin (like the guy in Queer Eye).
DesiDancer has now seen the Bong Breaker dancing (albeit a shitty video with off-sound). None of you others will though, unless it’s live 😉
Ha ha ha, that’s sooo true in my case! A little anecdote…
Last night, I was dancing a bachata with this Latina gal in a club. She seemed amenable, so we went into a down-n-dirty Dominican style. After the dance, she came up to me and spoke something in Spanish of which I got only one word ‘dominicano’. I misunderstood and replied,’ Yeah, I love dominican style’. She goes: ‘Yeah! Se dominicano!’ I am: ‘Nope. No hablo español. Soy no dominicano. Soy Indiano’. She: ‘No way! You look totally dominican! You dance totally dominican! Besides, I didn’t think Indian guys could dance!’
Well, now she knows…
Great story! For everyone else, bachata video, I didn’t know the name for this style.
Without knowing salsa, this thread is like Christmas without family, eh BB? 😉
I’d have to say as a salsa loving desi girl myself, I’ve seen quite a lot of other desi girls out on the dance floor….more than guys..at least in SF!
If we’re talking about good Middle Eastern salsa-esque tracks, Amr Diab for sure (Leily Nehary is a good faster track). There’s a band called Fatal Mambo from France that sings salsa in (of course)French. They call their style salsaioli and they have some lively tracks on their first album.
Oh, and for a great online source of Arabic music of all types including, I suspect, good “salsa’ type tracks. http://www.aramusic.com
no that is the kind of patriotism we need! learn to dance if you want to protect the image of Bharat Mata!
I don’t know, tpg, I think anybody who has experienced enough styles of dance knows that kathak doesn’t feel the hole in your soul which longs for a hip twitching groove. Like Bongsy has his breakin, Manish has his salsa… what gets your blood flowing and inspires your inner rhythm can’t be limited by bullshit reasons like “it’s our culture”… anybody who subscribes to that sort of excuse for boundaries– in my opinion– is NO dancer.
Aw, did I touch a nerve that day? ;p Who said I didn’t know salsa? Ah well, I’ll say it. I’ve taken a few classes and I’ve done two salsa performances on stage, but they were pretty basic – bar a few moves. It’s cool stuff.
Sh*t, I’m in the wrong place (again)! 🙂
Thanks, Manish. The first few seconds of the video are sort-of Dominican. AFAIK, pure Dominican style is full contact, with your right foot between your partners feet, almost no traveling and no spinning the girl or such patterns. The couple moves and turns as a unit. Other styles (dunno the name, so I’ll call them ‘American’) are less daring, as in the latter part of the video. Most people in the US would mix and match, depending on comfort levels. Latin@s tend to prefer more ‘pure’ Dominican, in my experience.
On the lighter side, Salsa Mafia, a self-confessed salsa ‘fundamentalist’ website, loves to deride bachata as ‘two people wriggling together rubbing each other’s bits, while having a bad case of hiccups’.
That woman Alpita looks like a dude.
Salsa allows you to express another facet of yourself. I’ve been dancing Bhangra and Gidha most of my life, and teaching/choreographing for a while now, and I love it – I also learned Kathak when I was younger. But I also love salsa and merengue – they allow me to express myself in a way unlike Bhangra or Gidha, just as the latter provide me a release that no other dance can. Some of it is just a matter of exposure.
exactly, FuerzaD. we need other types of dance for the un-homely attributes of our personality 😉
[kids, don’t do helicopters without proper training and supervision… and even then. Turbo/Boogaloo Shrimp is missed.]
Yup. Plus there’s no Punjabi cover of The Lambada as yet… hmmm maybe I should work on one – anyone want to join me?
Fuerza Dulce,
No, but there was a Hindi one: In the film Ghayal, starring Sunny Deol and (I think) Meenaskshi Seshadri.
Does anyone know who’s the lead girl/dancer in the Deedar de video in Dus? She’s sooooo hot!
Vik,
It’s Mayte, Prince’s ex-wife.
I doubt…. Jai, where did you get this information…. Vik, I agree.. She is soooo bloooody HAAAAT.. and an excellent dancer.
you know what… jai is right it is her.. please check mayte.com and you will be very happy .. Make sure you click on the Photos Link… She is beautiful.
Thank you for mentioning my name and I have love for my Latino and Indian brothers.
Take care Boogaloo Shrimp/Turbo
The lead dancer in the film Dus’s song Deedar De Deedar De is Puerto Rico-born actress and former spouse of singer Prince, Mayte Garcia who made her Bollywood debut with that song.
31-year-old Mayte was seen gyrating in a number called Deedaar De from producer Nitin ManmohanÂ’s film Dus . The song is sung Sunidhi Chauhan and composed by Vishal-Shekhar.
The idea for shooting the number on Mayte came from LA-based choreographer Liz Imperio.
Nitin says that he was looking for a girl with a hint of Latin American looks for the song in the film. He adds that Mayte fitted the bill perfectly because she has ‘a mix of Latin American and Indian looks.”
nce can u figure out how danc to the song deedar de from the film dus
THESE ARE FUCKING SLUTS PULLING OF LEHENGAS TO LOOK LIKE FUCKING WHORES…FUCKING TYPICAL INDIAN SKANKY CUNT WHORES !!!!!!!!!!!!! MAKE ME SICK TO MY STOMACH…AND OH PLEASE DONT EVEN BOTHER TELLING ME ” BUT ITS JUST A PART OF SALSA DANCING” WHAT PASRT OF SALSA SAYS YOU HAVE TO DRESS LIKE AN ABSOLUTE SKANK WHORE PLEASE TELL ME WHORES ??? LMFAO !!!!