bailar y tocar
Son Montuno
A Broken Ankle, A Delayed Flight And A Missed Call.
It started out ominously. I got an e-mail from one of our team members that she had slipped on the ice and fractured her ankle and was out for our rueda performance which was to take place in 48 hours. We were confirmed as part of the Thursday night performance showcase at around 11pm. Twenty minutes and two phone calls later I had lined up a substitute couple who had been confirmed to teach casino rueda at the congress and were going to be arriving early at the Westin salsa congress hotel. Whew. Now if my flight was on time and I arrived in Chicago at 8:30pm as scheduled we would have about two hours to go over the calls and moves before showtime. Not. I arrive at the gate and my flight is delayed. Forty minutes and three phone calls later I had the team members, the substitute dancers and the leader of the other team of La Rueda x2 ready to practice without me. La Rueda x2 is an ad hoc rueda group formed for this performance. It consists of two teams from Minneapolis and St. Louis, respectively, who perform a separate rueda circle initially and then join together to form one large circle approximately half way through our performance song Abre Que Voy by Miguel Enriquez. I did finally arrive at 10pm, everyone had checked in for our performance call and we went on. After all of this I was the only one who messed up a rueda call towards the end of our performance but fortunately it wasn't clearly visible and the audience was delighted with the show we put on. It was a testament to a great team spirit all around and I am awed and inspired. And so I am pleased to announce that we will be doing it again next year for the 10th Anniversary Chigago Intl. Salsa Congress minus the broken ankles and delayed flights, but I am not making any promises on missed calls.
The New Generation Lays Down The New Order.
Many salsa congress veterans complain that the performance showcases are too long, that some teams shouldn't be on a stage and that the MCs drag it out even more. What they are missing is that when the teams really do belong on the big stage, the show directors (don't all congresses have show directors ?) schedule the acts to be on time and keep it exciting and the MCs keep the commentary to a minimum - then the shows are over so fast you wonder where the time went. Special thanks to Maricza Valentin (Evening Shows) and Andy Cruz and Zeke Rubalcava (Matinee Shows) for excellent Show Directing. But the real stars were the dancers of ABC Lane Tech, Aspira, Imagines del Swing, Soneros del Swing, Modern Clave and Gifted Souls. This new generation of young dancers is so exciting to watch they make it hard for the pros from New York, New Jersey or Puerto Rico to keep up. There is now a clearly identifiable Andy Cruz "signature" choreography that his best students have adopted and are taking out to the rest of the world. And the rest of the world had better take note. Even if only half of the 40+ dancers from the aforementioned teams stick with it when they reach age 20, they will be setting the standard everyone else will be measured by. Lets see what happens for the 10th Anniversary Chicago Congress in February 2011. This thing is at the breakout point.
It Still Is All About The Music.
Its been 9 years of live music programming and the Chicago Congress has never disappointed. The opening night was a jam of three of Chicago's finest salsa bands, then Edwin Bonilla and his band on Friday followed by two big surprises on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's band was Julito Alvarado del Sur a Norte of Puerto Rico with a hard core jazzy salsa dura playlist for the 1st set. I had my best dances of the whole congress in that set. For the 2nd set which started after midnight on what was now Valentine's Day, romantic salsa singer Nino Segarra came on to please another kind of dancer. I still heard the strong rhythm section though under the romantic vocals so I still got my fill. Sunday featured an opening act by Anissa Gathers the star of "Celia El Musical: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz" which is stopping off in Chicago on their US tour. She sang a few standards of Celia's repertoire. Then Jose Alberto "El Canario" came on. This was his third appearance at the Chicago Intl. Salsa Congress. 2003 & 2004 were his previous engagements. I don't know if it was the flair of the venue, the audience, the ambiance or whatever. Once again, just like in all previous Sunday performances at the congress, the main act stepped up and put on a phenomenal show. There was his signature whistling act where he is imitating a flute. There were his improvisations on the conga (!). But above all there was his last number (before the encore) where he pays (plays) tribute to all the Caribbean rhythms including the bomba and plena from Puerto Rico, the merengue from the DR and the guaguanco from Cuba. Then he takes the microphone, gets down from the stage and on to the dance floor and is leading the dancers and audience in a line to the rhythm of a Cuban conga. You had to be there. I've heard that something special is in the works for the Sunday performance for the 10th Anniversary in February 2011. You'll have to be there.
It started out ominously. I got an e-mail from one of our team members that she had slipped on the ice and fractured her ankle and was out for our rueda performance which was to take place in 48 hours. We were confirmed as part of the Thursday night performance showcase at around 11pm. Twenty minutes and two phone calls later I had lined up a substitute couple who had been confirmed to teach casino rueda at the congress and were going to be arriving early at the Westin salsa congress hotel. Whew. Now if my flight was on time and I arrived in Chicago at 8:30pm as scheduled we would have about two hours to go over the calls and moves before showtime. Not. I arrive at the gate and my flight is delayed. Forty minutes and three phone calls later I had the team members, the substitute dancers and the leader of the other team of La Rueda x2 ready to practice without me. La Rueda x2 is an ad hoc rueda group formed for this performance. It consists of two teams from Minneapolis and St. Louis, respectively, who perform a separate rueda circle initially and then join together to form one large circle approximately half way through our performance song Abre Que Voy by Miguel Enriquez. I did finally arrive at 10pm, everyone had checked in for our performance call and we went on. After all of this I was the only one who messed up a rueda call towards the end of our performance but fortunately it wasn't clearly visible and the audience was delighted with the show we put on. It was a testament to a great team spirit all around and I am awed and inspired. And so I am pleased to announce that we will be doing it again next year for the 10th Anniversary Chigago Intl. Salsa Congress minus the broken ankles and delayed flights, but I am not making any promises on missed calls.
The New Generation Lays Down The New Order.
Many salsa congress veterans complain that the performance showcases are too long, that some teams shouldn't be on a stage and that the MCs drag it out even more. What they are missing is that when the teams really do belong on the big stage, the show directors (don't all congresses have show directors ?) schedule the acts to be on time and keep it exciting and the MCs keep the commentary to a minimum - then the shows are over so fast you wonder where the time went. Special thanks to Maricza Valentin (Evening Shows) and Andy Cruz and Zeke Rubalcava (Matinee Shows) for excellent Show Directing. But the real stars were the dancers of ABC Lane Tech, Aspira, Imagines del Swing, Soneros del Swing, Modern Clave and Gifted Souls. This new generation of young dancers is so exciting to watch they make it hard for the pros from New York, New Jersey or Puerto Rico to keep up. There is now a clearly identifiable Andy Cruz "signature" choreography that his best students have adopted and are taking out to the rest of the world. And the rest of the world had better take note. Even if only half of the 40+ dancers from the aforementioned teams stick with it when they reach age 20, they will be setting the standard everyone else will be measured by. Lets see what happens for the 10th Anniversary Chicago Congress in February 2011. This thing is at the breakout point.
It Still Is All About The Music.
Its been 9 years of live music programming and the Chicago Congress has never disappointed. The opening night was a jam of three of Chicago's finest salsa bands, then Edwin Bonilla and his band on Friday followed by two big surprises on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's band was Julito Alvarado del Sur a Norte of Puerto Rico with a hard core jazzy salsa dura playlist for the 1st set. I had my best dances of the whole congress in that set. For the 2nd set which started after midnight on what was now Valentine's Day, romantic salsa singer Nino Segarra came on to please another kind of dancer. I still heard the strong rhythm section though under the romantic vocals so I still got my fill. Sunday featured an opening act by Anissa Gathers the star of "Celia El Musical: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz" which is stopping off in Chicago on their US tour. She sang a few standards of Celia's repertoire. Then Jose Alberto "El Canario" came on. This was his third appearance at the Chicago Intl. Salsa Congress. 2003 & 2004 were his previous engagements. I don't know if it was the flair of the venue, the audience, the ambiance or whatever. Once again, just like in all previous Sunday performances at the congress, the main act stepped up and put on a phenomenal show. There was his signature whistling act where he is imitating a flute. There were his improvisations on the conga (!). But above all there was his last number (before the encore) where he pays (plays) tribute to all the Caribbean rhythms including the bomba and plena from Puerto Rico, the merengue from the DR and the guaguanco from Cuba. Then he takes the microphone, gets down from the stage and on to the dance floor and is leading the dancers and audience in a line to the rhythm of a Cuban conga. You had to be there. I've heard that something special is in the works for the Sunday performance for the 10th Anniversary in February 2011. You'll have to be there.