They get pictures in shiny costumes that they are forced to buy, they learn choreography that they pay for, and think of all the friends you make during rehearsals and sex with directors you have along the way.
Festival and Travel Planner 2025
- Thread starter azana
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desconocida
Son
Speaking from personal experience here?
I've done this sort of thing once (it was outside of the US but with a US artist, similar concept) and can attest to the fact that none of that was happening. Well, except for a few rhinestones, but not enough to qualify as "shiny costumes". The general vibe on the very international but mostly US-based team was people wanted to grow as dancers and this format provided the necessary incentive structure to actually put in the work.
desconocida
Son
I think motivational factors are probably as manifold as people who are into this sort of things. Many of those who I met seek first and foremost a training opportunity and some sort of growth. Clearly, some also just love the feeling of being on a stage, with or without a ton of spectators, but in my experience it's not the majority. Many like the comradery of being part of a team. For some it's a great opportunity to travel as part of a group with a goal that is kinda cooler than just checking off sights from your travel guide. There are probably many, many others and possibly there are even some who have that "sex with directors" goal in mind Smejmoon mentioned, though I suspect that can probably be accomplished with much less effort, so why bother with all the commitment and expenses just for that?
Are they aware they grow as show dancers but not as social dancers? Stories abound about show dancers being bad social dancers. Probably they don't know when they start in a team.
I know a lot of dancers who joined a team because it has been a thing here. I don’t know anyone who joined with that goal in mind
like you said, there isn’t need to join a team for that. Something like that can also lead to weird dynamics in the team.The numbers of salsa dancers who go out regularly tends to be a large mix. It is primarily the new to intermediate dancers who join a team but it didn’t make a dent in the scene. There still are many teams but I hardly know any or who is part of it.
If I go back to around 2009-10, may be 200 to 300 dancers were affiliated with various local teams at any given time. Only 50-75 got to perform at a regular clip. Average time spent on a team was two years is my estimate. So a lot of revolving doors. Some dropped out after a thrill of one or few performances at prominent congresses. It took a lot of commitment to be on the performance team. Camaraderie endured whether you were performing or not. Many stopped dancing around 4 to 5 year mark or slowed down.
Salsamania (led by John and Liz) by itself was like an empire. They could easily have 100-150 students across their pre-training, training, amateur, semi-pro; and pro teams. When you include their alumni, they could easily fit 300 dancers at their socials just affiliated with them. Now include other 4 to 5 prominent salsa teams. And then some smaller ones. There hardly was any bachata or kizomba game in the town. Those attracted about 100 odd dancers each is my guess. Whereas salsa was attracting at least thousand or more regular dancers across 10-15 weekly parties/socials. A lot more at local festivals. Casino may have been additional 200-300 dancers but the crowds never mixed. Everything it was tried, it ended up neither side being happy and stopped very shortly.
There is usually a big audience. Rarely I have seen audience numbers that would be underwhelming. So unless something has drastically changed it should be houseful.
I can’t remember when I last watched. But I have reached near end sometimes because social dancing starts soon after or the shows were running 30-60 minutes late.
I don't disagree with with you that there are many reasons why people sign up for show groups.
Apologies for the sex joke. Metoo movement and instagram in 2023/2024 dug up so many first and second hand stories about behavior of performance group directors in US, that this profession is very stained in my eyes. And I know some of these people and their victims over here personally.
desconocida
Son
Now imagine poor John and Liz actually did have to fork out those "rewards" to all of those students who allegedly joined with the sole goal of seducing the directorI know a lot of dancers who joined a team because it has been a thing here. I don’t know anyone who joined with that goal in mind
...
Salsamania (led by John and Liz) by itself was like an empire. They could easily have 100-150 students across their pre-training, training, amateur, semi-pro; and pro teams. ...
desconocida
Son
No apologies needed. But as a woman who has been in in the scene for 20 years and at different times close to male dancers in one way or another, I also know the other side of that medal, and how many women actually do expect for male dancers to pursue them and literally throw themselves at anything that can move nicely and hold the beat for half a song. So in my experience that is very much a two-way street here and I do not ascribe to the notion that everything a woman regrets the day after qualifies as r...pe (do I even have to censor this word here? So used to that from social media now...). Humans are just humans, and many shitty at that, regardless of their gender (identity
).
desconocida
Son
That would be a fallacy, actually. Because you have to consider these phenomena separately. Performance teams do not produce bad social dancers per se. Not actively pursuing skills necessary for social dancing does. So a somewhat experienced social dancer who joins a performance team, at least speaking for follows here, will almost certainly become a better social dancer as well just from practicing any other aspect of dancing. At least they will train their stamina and balance and improve their overall movement quality - and the first two are definitely a huge step towards improving your partnering skills. There is some potential downside of follows starting to overstyle, but I don't think that on average that cancels out all of the improvements. Now, if a director recruits complete salsa beginners for their teams but never does anything to either teach them social dancing skills, or at least make them aware that they actively have to pursue those - yes, that will produce bad social dancers. But the fact that some (ok, many) people use this tool poorly shouldn't demonize the entire essence of it. Fact is, if you're a young, passionate dancer, maybe one who has some background in sports or other dance styles, you'd be bored out of your mind with just social salsa. So if we want the scene to survive, we need that visibility and those performance opportunities especially for younger people to want to participate and just hope that the addictiveness of social dancing still kicks in at some point (if it hasn't already).
It is not only the young. I seen many middle-age dancers join the team too. The extent of ambitious goals differ. A young could have a mindset of becoming the best or conquering the world. The middle age is only seeking overcoming the challenge of performing on the stage. These are two ends of the spectrum. The third is many who genuinely believe it will improve their dancing.
Between group classes where you may not learn much and training with performance teams, there aren’t any pathways for dancers to improve. A few teams offered dancers to join workout requiring them to perform. Like salsamania locally, I think the NYC teams like Santa Rico, Yamulee. BaSo, also had graded training programs before you could be considered for amateur or semipro teams.
May be these days less people are starting to learn salsa and there isn’t enough demand for different levels of training programmes.
Younger people get attracted to trends. They also have tendency to reject what was trendy with the earlier generation.
At least in the USA, the numbers of venues where you can hold dance parties has declined. This is certainly true of SF Bay Area. I suspect it is true of other west coast cities as well as NYC. The leasing costs have gone up or gentrification displaces old structures with new buildings. Shrinking spaces to host large dance parties.
City govts and corporates can do more to create spaces for art and culture. However there is lack of foresight and imagination. Salsa organizers are not business savvy. They neither understand business world nor city administration.
Agree that it is mostly helpful for followers - at least showgroup girls like to go into shines because they know enough solo dancing. On the contrary for leaders it can backfire because it trains pattern thinking, rushing throw combos and therefore eventually rough leading. You do not train soft leading when you constantly need to rush through fast crazy combos.
I never saw it that way, but yes youngsters like to compete. That said, there is also a strong unofficial competition on the latin social dancefloor - who's the most impressing? And some add the "Who's the sexiest looking?" competition - without the latter a bachata dancefloor is not even thinkable.
And I guess the visibility factor nowadays has moved from stages to instagram, which is the much bigger stage.
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This. There were no showgroups in both dance schools I visited back then, but I guess in my perplexity how to improve I may have considered to join one. Gladly I was forced to find other ways.
Something like what Svetlana is doing is interesting. I doubt that will scale at local levels. How many are motivated to join, if a similar course/project were offered locally by an instructor. It will require peer validation and peer pressure for people to want to sign up for that type of course.
Svetlana is doing it online. Therefore the challenge of enough people signing up to make it worthwhile for an instructor gets resolved. Doing it offline with only local students will be very challenging.
Wanting to perform (whether you do it poorly or not) is a strong motivating factor. I have seen it first hand. Amateur psychologist in me thinks that with performance there is definite end goal. You will be performing on certain date and venue. That goal visibility means people have something definite to aim for. If they get better in doing so, it is either a bonus or as with most seeking perfomance team is automatic consequence. When you are training to get better you do not have an end goal that you can point to. Without a goal, motivation lacks. Without a goal you can’t map your journey on how you can get from here to there. What is there? Hence most dedicated or self-motivated will undertake the journey - its the process and not the end goal.
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In a performer heavy city, you would have been recruited by schools and peers non stop.
Consider yourself lucky that you avoided that rabbit hole.
But maybe in that case Mr MamboJazz would be multiple world champion by now, and headlining festivals?
I don't know how she's doing it, I've never taken classes from her. But I've danced with plenty of her local level students and they were great. Better that her in my opinion. She clearly knows what she's doing. She's actually university educated about human mind. And you can just talk to her and ask, since she's pretty much alive.
bailar y tocar
Son Montuno
50-75K expenses? For a congress? In the US? Are you joking? The sound system rental alone is 15K. The floor rental is 8-15k depending on how tough the negotiator is. The hotel will not bill for ballroom rental if the hotel room quota is met.... but they do bill for everything else. There are also billing and credit swipe fees, security company, transportation company and so on.
Oh and let us assume it is all NON-UNION! I would be shocked if downtown SF is non-union. Most downtown hotels in most cities are 100% union.
If the hotel is a union closed shop = double everything I mentioned above.
it hardly matters because by all accounts she appears to be successful with her model of virtual remote teaching. People who join the program have been giving positive reviews.
The location is not in downtown SF. It is very close to the airport. There was very little union labor involved. During the first two years, it was volunteers who were installing and uninstalling the floor. I don’t remember how much the floor rental was. The sound system, lights, and stage were provided by the same vendor. If I recall it was about $10K or less.
My $50K to $75K didn’t include the stage, sound, lights, floor rentals, etc. These are fixed costs. I was referring to $50K to $75K for costs of hiring DJs and the “artists” which would include travel and lodging.
I went conservative in total attendees at 2,000. I know the number was higher last two years. The average of $100 per head (across those who sign up for party pass, full pass, daily drop ins and performs pass) is also very conservative.
Security is provided by the hotel and included in the ballroom rental. Like water refilling, clean up every day is also included.
Hotel is not providing transportation. Any transportation is volunteer driven. That I know for a fact.
Hotel doesn’t offer any payment or billing. For the rooms people pay directly to the hotel. As a LLC, the congress has its own direct square or similar account for credit payments. I doubt their rate is higher than 2.5%.
It can’t be denied that the SF SBK overall makes tidy profit. First year goal was to break even and not go into the loss. They key organizer looking after the financial aspects is savvy with business and not an “artist”
in year 1 and 2, the accounting was handled by someone who was a CFO of public company.