The Definition of Sabor!

borikenSalsero said:
It is meant genuinely, I do not reject that. But, what does the label "latin@" really mean?
Why ethnically label movement to determine worth of dance, and/or appreciation of a culture?
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I doubt that when latin@s give this type of compliment they are thinking of labelling movement to determine worth of dance. But--why do they say this? Because--leaving theoretical discussions aside for a moment--the reality is that while there are indeed people of all ethnicities in the world who are marvelous Latin dancers, the majority of non-latin@s, including most of the ones who visit Latin countries, have little control of their bodies, little feel for the music, and as a result dance badly.

Note that I am not idealizing latin@s, there are plenty of them who are not good dancers. But the fact remains that when you go on a dance floor dominated by latin@s, you tend to see rhythm and nice body movement. When you go on a dance floor dominated by non-latin@s, you tend to see...other things. :rolleyes:

Also, as an ex-ballroom dancer I agree with your comment about ballroom dancers having lovely body movement. I've said this before, I credit most of my current dance abilities (salsa and others) to my ballroom dancing training in Eastern Europe which taught me good technique (both footwork and body movement), the likes of which is very hard to find in salsa classes.
 
Sabrosura said:
Note that I am not idealizing latin@s, there are plenty of them who are not good dancers. But the fact remains that when you go on a dance floor dominated by latin@s, you tend to see rhythm and nice body movement. When you go on a dance floor dominated by non-latin@s, you tend to see...other things. :rolleyes:
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I have a hypothesis that ethnic background of a region dictates the swing in the region. The more afro populated a region, the more swing. The Caribbean has the advantage of being a slavery hub, imprinting characteristics of slaves in the society; for us in specific, dance movement. The movement, plain and simple, is inherent to caribeños. Where as places with lesser afro influence tend to lack a certain swing. While clubs aren't the only lacking that swing. Ccentral American regions also lack in that department. Frequenting central american clubs as a youngster always made wonder why body movement was far different than the ones I was used to in the caribbean. Caribbean swing was very infrequent in them. South Americans, well there is swing there too.

Sabrosura said:
Also, as an ex-ballroom dancer I agree with your comment about ballroom dancers having lovely body movement. I've said this before, I credit most of my current dance abilities (salsa and others) to my ballroom dancing training in Eastern Europe which taught me good technique (both footwork and body movement), the likes of which is very hard to find in salsa classes.
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It's lovely to watch them dance.. I have my dislikes about posture and what not, but good movement is good movement. Lovely that you have it.
 
Sabrosura said:
Note that I am not idealizing latin@s, there are plenty of them who are not good dancers. But the fact remains that when you go on a dance floor dominated by latin@s, you tend to see rhythm and nice body movement. When you go on a dance floor dominated by non-latin@s, you tend to see...other things. :rolleyes:
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As long as you are talking about dancing (not just latin dancing, though I would be inclined to include that too), and you've already opened the can of worms about ethnicity, I would disagree.

Of all ethnicities (what's wrong with the spell checker on this site, it flags so many legit spellings as errors without suggestion of correct spelling), that I have witnessed, I think that honor goes to African ethnicity. Whether they are from Western World, Caribbean/Latin or African continent, as a percentage, more of them have rhythm and body movement compared to other ethnicities :) Just like they dominate long distance running.
 
wonderwoman said:
I'm convinced I'm terrible. I am told all the time I'm better than I think I am, but I do not want to know whether this is said just to soothe my obvious self-doubt at times :)
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Not that I am interested, but logically that doesn't seem to have anything to do with not wanting to disclose your location.
 
Offbeat said:
As long as you are talking about dancing (not just latin dancing, though I would be inclined to include that too), and you've already opened the can of worms about ethnicity, I would disagree.

Of all ethnicities (what's wrong with the spell checker on this site, it flags so many legit spellings as errors without suggestion of correct spelling), that I have witnessed, I think that honor goes to African ethnicity. Whether they are from Western World, Caribbean/Latin or African continent, as a percentage, more of them have rhythm and body movement compared to other ethnicities :) Just like they dominate long distance running.
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I think the can of worms was opened a long time ago. :)

I don't disagree with that and I don't agree either as I can't say I've seen as many people of African ethnicity dancing as I have seen othr ethnicities and also because I haven't come into much contact with non-Latin dancing. I wasn't really attempting to rank ethnicities, just to point out some observations about latin@s versus non-latin@s dancing Latin dances.

But I am interested in this percentage detail--what are these percentages of the different ethnicities' dance capabilities? :P Is there some sort of study that was done? And what about Latin@s of African origin? Are they the creme de la creme? :)
 
Smejmoon said:
This belongs to racism thread.
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No, it doesn't. Boriken started a very interesting discussion of "latino dancing" in relation to sabor and we are going off of that. You need to go back and reread his posts if you haven't before adding smart-ass comments here. :p Anyway I think this "ethnicities comparison" stops here because the point of the initial discussion was not to categorize how good different ethnicities are at Latin dancing.
 
I think differences in dance capabilities are about 99% cultural (at least). The area I live in has very few minorities; as a result, they (we?) tend to adopt the majority (European-descent, Christian) culture more than other places where it's easier to keep one's parents' culture.
 
borikenSalsero said:
I have a hypothesis that ethnic background of a region dictates the swing in the region. The more afro populated a region, the more swing.
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SnowDancer said:
I think differences in dance capabilities are about 99% cultural (at least). The area I live in has very few minorities; as a result, they (we?) tend to adopt the majority (European-descent, Christian) culture more than other places where it's easier to keep one's parents' culture.
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This, Both.
Re 1. Saw that in European salsa clubs where some of the West African salsa dancers were way fun to watch with their funky improvisations.

Re 2. Its also depends on what people reach for. If they want to stick to what they know i.e. meat and potatoes, they'll get meat and potatoes. Some people like to try out the new things (e.g. Quinoa, Jicama and whatever meat source is all the rage right now) and then one thing leads to another.
 
bailar y tocar said:
This, Both.
Re 2. Its also depends on what people reach for. If they want to stick to what they know i.e. meat and potatoes, they'll get meat and potatoes. Some people like to try out the new things (e.g. Quinoa, Jicama and whatever meat source is all the rage right now) and then one thing leads to another.
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No doubt... though I'm looking more at a "civic" movement. Something "inherent" to a region as opposed to something purposely learned by a selected group of people.
 
SnowDancer said:
I think differences in dance capabilities are about 99% cultural (at least). The area I live in has very few minorities; as a result, they (we?) tend to adopt the majority (European-descent, Christian) culture more than other places where it's easier to keep one's parents' culture.
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I think the same. It has to be, otherwise we'd all inherently dance the same.
 
Offbeat said:
Not that I am interested, but logically that doesn't seem to have anything to do with not wanting to disclose your location.
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If you aren't interested why ask? I guess if you were you'd have the read the whole post. I was referring to not wanting to post a video of myself, because I felt my dancing is poor.
 
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