WanderingSalsero

Free Casino Rueda Lessons at Waegook Cook Pub in Gumi..

Yeah.....as if hardly anybody who reads this blog could be there anyway, right?  :-)  But....it's good for SERPs.

Edie the Salsa Freak to do 'live' online salsa discussion

Just saw in my email that Edie the Salsa Freak has scheduled a 'live' online discussion.  Obviously it's about salsa.  I'm sure it'll be well attended.  I probably ought to be on it myself just to see how it goes.

I hope it's a big success.  I'm sure it will be.  But I gotta say, "I thought of it first."  And you just watch:

Now that Edie, certainly a name brand in the salsa game, has embraced that technology I'm sure you're even more likely to see other salsa stars do it too.  But.......how long ago was it that I, me.....the WanderingSalsero......said that anybody who wants to be a mover and shaker in the salsa business ought to start using more of the latest web communications technology??

If my memory serves me correctly, it was at least a year ago.

Anyway.......it's really easy to do and I'm not surprised Edie is the first to do it.  They don't call here "America's Salsa Teacher" for nothing.  Uhhh......waitaminute...

It was me that called her "America's Salsa Teacher" first, wasn't it?  Well...........she is.  And she ain't dumb.  She's making a very smart move with this online live discussion thing. 

I have no idea what platform she's using but actually there are several ways it could be done. 

If you're in the salsa business and you're not too proud to copy success, I'd highly recommend you be on that call she's doing.

Thriving Houston studio needs qualified instructors

Do you know any good dance instructors who are looking for work?

If so, have them contact Sonias World of Dance in Houston, TX.  I've been told that they've got almost more students than they can handle and they're looking for a few more good (and I stress....."good") instructors.

Sonias World of Dance has been around for several years and probably has one of the better social programs in Houston too.  They actually built their business mostly around the ballroom type dances and a C&W dancing but a few years ago (back when I lived in Houston) they started doing salsa and other latin dances and that part of their business has expanded a lot.

Part of the reason has been their excellent location in the dynamic and prosperous SW Houston/Galleria area.  But part of it also has been that Sonia(Sonia Farr, the proprietor) has attracted some of the best instructors in town and been successful in integrating an excellent social program into her product mix.

Their website is www.soniasworldofdance.com .  Give'em a call if you'd like to get more information about opportunities there.  If you're not from Houston but are looking for 'greener fields' than where you are now, I suspect Houston should be on your short list because the economy is relatively good there. 

There's several other reasons for moving to Houston.  Especially if you're a salsa dancer.  

• The climate is relatively nice (mostly warm)
• The salsa talent there is good
• There's 4 or 5 pretty good to OK salsa clubs
• The Texas salsa community is pretty 'tight'
• There's a salsa congress almost every other week somewhere in Texas (it seems)
• You're near three other Texas cities (Dallas, Austin, San Antonio) with lots of salsa talent.
• Living costs are fairly low compared to other US areas
• The people in Houston are generally pretty nice.

Check it out!

Don't confuse the foreplay with the orgasm....bachata-tango.

Over the last 3 years bachata has definately come a long, long way.  I don't see how anybody can deny that.  And actually, even going back a few more years, you realize don't you that bachata has only been 'out of the cultural closet' for not-that-many years.   I'm referring the it's under-the-table early years in the Dominican Republic where it's from.

As I've admitted several times previously, I actually like bachata more than salsa....  if I had to make a choice.  And I think with the events of especially the last 3 years or so a lot of other people have come to the same realizaton.....i.e. they were 'closet-bachateros' themselves.

But the point of this post is to say that I have reason to believe that we ain't seen nothing yet.  All the great things we've discovered about bachata in the last three years were not the orgasm.  They were only the foreplay.  There's some things coming down the pike, real soon, that I think are going to eclipse what's happened so far with bachata by a magnatude of 10X or more.

What am I talking about?

Well, I went out dancing tonight.  To Caliente in Itaewon.  Caliente isn't really my favorite club but lately since I've been doing this casino rueda class I've made some new friends and one of them, a Korean guy named Neon, is also a big casino rueda fan and for some reason which I don't fully understand he likes Caliente.

So I've been going to Caliente on Saturdays because he has a small circle of like minded friends and we've frequently been able to do some casino rueda there at Caliente.

Got it?

So.....tonight I'm there and I happen to know the DJ.  I don't know his name but he plays pretty good music and I always say 'hi'.   I used to see him over at some other clubs I go to but....I guess DJs bounce around a bit too, right?

Anyway, I'm loitering around the dj booth tonight and I say something to him about bachata becoming very popular in the US right now. 

Then he proceeds to tell me that there's a new dance.  Related to bachata.  He's calls it 'bachatango' or something like that.  I wasn't sure I heard him right and I sorta assumed he was talking about the 'bachata-tango' as started and promoted worldwide by the No.1 Globe Trotting Bachatero, Jorge Elizando.

Then he proceeds to look in his files (he had a digital DJ rig, you know) and he finds a particular file and hands me a headset and says, "Here.....listen to this."

I listen to it and.........Holy Shit!!

It wasn't like anything I've ever heard.  I listen to some pretty eclectic stuff, right?  But this was a quantum factor more exotic than any bachata I've heard ever.  It really had a serious dose of tango in it. 

I still could hear the bachata in it but it had a very, very distinct tango quality to it.  Much more sensual, stylized, ballroom-ish, passionate than regular bachata.  I really liked it.

Well, my interest is up, right?  So when I left the club I trotted down here to this PC bang where I am now and got into YouTube to see what I could find.  Actually, I think I went to Google first but it just so happened that a YouTube video was first on YouTube.  That happens a lot with videos, you know.

Once I got into Youtube I keep clicking on videos that had the title 'bachatango'.  I think that's what it said.  It wasn't "bachata-tango".  It was a variation of that.  I looked at one video...way cool.  And another.....way cool.  And another.....way cool!

I looked at enough videos to see that there was a consistently 'new' twist and style to this new upgrade of bachata.  Initially, it seems to have more accordian in the instrumentation.  Like tango.  And it seems to have slightly different melodies too.

The element that seemed to remain the same from traditional bachata was the clave part.  What do you call that instrument.......the wood block and wooden stick thing?  I don't remember.

But it's still there in bachatango.  And the rhythm of bachatango doesn't slow down and pause as much as it does in real tango.

But it does have, in several of the videos I saw, those same dark, passionate, slinky, suck-my-toes moves that you see in real tango.  Really sexy and beautiful.

So what does this mean to the dance world?

It means that if you thought that what people like Jorge Elizando (actually I mean 'primarily' Jorge Elizando) has done with bachata during the last three years of his meteoric rise and redefining of the bachata genre....if you thought that was something.....I suspect you ain't seen nothing yet.

I've been watching, as best I can from where I am, what the three prime factors in bachata right now have been doing.  That would be Jorge Elizando, Juan Ruiz and Rodney Aquino.  They're all doing some great work.  Even if bachata never evolved one bit more......it's still become a world-class dance.

But I happen to know that there's some (that's "some".....plural) major national events coming up soon.  So I'm putting two and two togather. 

Most of the videos I saw tonight of this new kind of bachata, bachatango, came from Italy, it seemed.  And guess who's been travelling more in Europe and the Meditteranean more than any other 3 guys the last year or two?

Yeah......our ol' Texas Home Boy.....Georgie Elizando!!

You don't suppose he's picked some of this new stuff do you? 

And you don't suppose he's got some killer new products and/or material and/or events up his sleeve........do you?  Hmmmm??!

I'll tell you one thing:  If I had to make a choice about who I was going to keep track of and learn everything I could from about the kind of new bachata that set souls on fire......it would be Jorge Elizando.

Remember that it was Jorge that coined the phrase Bachata Fusion in the first place.  And that's exactly what this is.  If I was looking for the newest, freshest, most innovative bachata on the planet, I'd go to Jorge Elizando.

And if I heard that Jorge was doing a workshop.....or some other type of event (hint....hint! ;-) anywhere withing driving or flying distance of me........man!  You can bet I'd beg, borrow or steal the money to get there.

(BTW........I hear airfares are ridiculously cheap lately.  You might want to check what they are to say........someplace like uhhhh......Dallas?)

One thing I've discovered lately is that bachata has become very popular all over the globe.  In places you'd never suspect.  Like........China, Singapore, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Australia, Korea and other places too.  And guess who's been living out of a suitcase the last 2 years travelling to all those places?  Guess who probably knows these global superstars better than probably anybody else in the US?

I'd think it would be good 'ol George.  George Elizando, I mean.

If you want to see what got me started on this, go to YouTube and look under 'bachatango'.  Or you can try 'bachata tango' too.   You might find some of George's videos from earlier Bachata Bootcamp World Tours tjere but I'm sure you find some of this new stuff I'm talking about too.  You'll recognize it when you hear it.

It's really amazing.

What I've seen tonight is going to raise the bar once again for bachata.  It'll never be the same.  It's that much different and that much mo'betta (more better).  And I predict that people will like it. 

They'll like it for the same reason that they liked George's original idea of bachata-fusion.  He discovered that bachata gave dancers, and especially women, the chance to be sexy and passionate in a way that salsa never did (not for the average dancer anyway). 

And when he made that DVD with Camille Yanantuano (did I spell that right?) that was a precursor to what I see going on now.  I always thought Camille was hot and I've noticed she's been involved in several other new products too.  That's great.  She's gonna be 'the right girl at the right time' if this new stuff takes hold like I think it will.

This new, third-generation, bachata is just made for gals like her.  Or anybody else who's been looking for a sophisticated looking, sexy but easy to learn dance to do.  I never took any tango lessons so I can't say for sure but I don't see the general dancing public, in the US anyway, every getting heavy into tango.  It seems too highly formalized to me. 

Of course I could be wrong on that.  Possible but not likely :-)

But if bachata teachers and community leaders can adopt this new, more simplified tango-bachata-tango styles, I think people will really love the results and fun they'll have.

I suspect the last three years were just the first stage of the bachata-rocket.  Get ready for ignition of the second stage.  I can feel it coming.

And keep your eye on Jorge Elizando too.  You never know what he's up to......til he does it.  But when he does do it.........I guarantee you it'll be ground-breaking and earth-shaking.

Casino Rueda 101 starts Saturday at Candela in Yangjae, Seoul

Major dance stuio in Houston needs professional instructor(s)

I'm originally from Houston, Texas and I still have a lot of friends and contacts back there.  One of them is a person who owns one of the major dance studios and he/she is looking for a professional level dance instructor.

This studio teaches all the well known dances.  My association with them was in regards to salsa so that's what I know about.  And I can tell you that this studio has excellent connections withing the salsa community.  If salsa is your bag, then you'll meet a lot of the right people.  Texas is one of the most dynamic salsa states in the US.

The studio also teaches a lot of tango, swing, ballroom and C&W too.  And many of their dancers compete professionally.  It really is a very reputable studio...but not stuffy.  They have a once-a-month salsa social that's very well attended.  It was one of the my favorite monthly events back when I lived there.

Would I recommend the gig?

Yeah.  I was told, by the owner, that they're looking for someone either temporary or permanent.  The owner himself/herself is originally from abroad so I'm assuming he/she would assist with the necessary visa sponsorship.

I have no idea what the compensation and benefit package is but I can tell you that Houston is the 5th largest city in the US and Texas in general is doing a lot better economically than other parts of the US.  Point is.......it sounds like they've got plenty of people wanting to learn to dance.

I lived there from 1980 until 2007 when I came over here to Korea to teach English.  It's a big place.  You'll need a car because their public transportation sucks.  It's nothing like Seoul or Korea.  But......cars are cheap there too, so........

Send me an email if you want to get in touch with the specific studio/studio owner.

Regards,

Art Williams

A weasel named Tim caught in the headlights

You've seen the pictures, and maybe it's even happened to you, of a possum or raccoon or some other little scavenging animal caught by an automobile's headlights on the road at night.  Isn't it cute how surprised they act?

Well, I wouldn't call it cute but I would call it funny........how these crooked politicians act when they can't avoid the questions of their constituency.  That's what's going on in this video of a recent town hall meeting someplace in New York state. 

This video is excerpts from a recent town hall between Congressional Representative Tim Bishop and members of his constituency.  There's actually several You-tube videos of this same encounter.  I think it's great to watch this little weasel, Tim Bishop, squirm.  Gee, you'd sorta get the impression that the people he supposedly works for aren't too happy with his performance, wouldn't you?

I got this video, or actually another one of the same incident, from World Net Daily (which I do recommend).  The higher point and inference of their treatment of it as news was that incidents like this are becoming more and more common across the US.  And that 'the people' and their 'tea party mentality' is picking up steam.  God, I hope so.  Their might be time to save the country yet.

You know, I think that 99.9% of the politicians think that they're the first person to ever pull some of these little tricks the pull on us.  They forget that they've done it before and they forget that politicians have been treating 'we the people' that way for quiet a few years now.  And they (the politicians) don't seem to think that we have a very good memory.  But we do.

I think people are starting to put two and two together.  I think we are starting to realize which end we're getting screwed from.  It's from Washington.  It's not the Russians or the Chinese or even the Iranians or the N.Koreans.  We can handle those little pricks if we're left to build and maintain an America like it used to be......prosperous, strong, confident and free.

What's almost bizarre about this Bishop video is to listen to the bullshit this guy tries to feed the real smart people in the room, those citizens.  And I listened to what he was saying and I just thought to myself, "God......this crap sounds like it's the script of some movie about ignorant, corrupt politicians!"

Yet there it is on You-Tube.  I thought it was kinda incredible.  A politician actually trying to lay that Washington-insider-politico-speak-bullshit on real citizens and apparently thinking they might fall for it.  I give them a lot of credit that they didn't put up with it.  I think Bishop is lucky he got out of town with his ass in one piece.   Not that I would hire him but I'm assuming that one of the first things he did when he got back to Washington was have his resume updated.

One thing that I thought was 'choice' was how he tried to talk about all the dire emergencies we're facing, you know the standard line......green house gases, environmental problems, yada, yada, yada. Yet neither he nor any of those other jerkwads in Washington have to live with those factors in their lives.

Why not? 

You remember, don't you?  You know how they vote their own pay raises every year.  matter of fact, they're even automatic.  You know how they live like kings on the public payroll.  You know how they get wined and dined by lobbyists.  You know their free post office privileges.  All that stuff...........sure you do!

Yet people like Bishop have the balls to talk to us about what 'we need to do'.....or else things are gonna get real bad.  I say, "Bullshit!"  I say the first thing we need to do is fire their ass.  Give them a quick transfer back to the reality of the real world.  Do not pass "Go".  Do not collect $200.

Anyway, I'm not going to let his worthless existence ruin my vacation (I've got two weeks off).  Actually I'm really encouraged by the video and the fact that those constituents took him to account like they apparently did.  Maybe there's still hope for America.  We need to do that for probably another 200-300 such congressional-critters, up to and including the Great-Deceptor-In-Chief.

Here's the video:

Casino Rueda Crash Course today in Seoul, S.Korea

ON a happier note, today is the big day me and a couple other people (but mostly me) do a two hour crash course in casino rueda.  I met a nice fellow who has a salsa studio in Seoul called Candela Dance.  He's very open minded about other forms of dance and offered to provide some studio space so I could do this workshop.

There was a lot of work went into putting it togather but it's finally going to happen today.  I'm expecting around a dozen people probably.  The idea is to try to put togather some kind of core group. 

So far it seems to be going the right way.  I'll know in a few hours.

Free 2 Hour Casino Rueda Crash Course

Here's a video showing the directions to the Free 2 Hour Casino Rueda Crashcourse I'm doing Saturday July 25, 2009 at Candela Dance Studio in Yangjae, Seoul, S.Korea.  Workshop starts promptly at 4 pm and goes til 6 pm. 

The only requirement to attend is that you already know basic salsa.  That's all.  The object of this 2 hours is to show you the basics of casino rueda and as many patterns as possible. 

This crash course will be great for salsa dancers who've had an interest in casino rueda but never had an opportunity to learn.  After you're finished, you'll be able to  enjoy basic Level 1 casino rueda at the clubs and parties.

Candela Dance Studio is an excellent learning venue.  It's well air conditiooned, there's change rooms, nice restrooms, and plenty of cold water.  Free refreshments and light snacks will be served too.  The studio space for this first-of-it's-kind event is provided compliments of Pill Hyun Hwan, Proprietor and Primary Instructor of the studio.  He'll be in the class too!

I hope to see you there!

Art Williams

010 5822 2277

Rhode Island..........it ain't America anymore.

They don't want to hear nothing about that "Constitution" crap up in Providence, Rhode Island.  They're not big fans of history....at least, not American history. 

Read the shocking story here.

I would definately say that Rhode Island would not be on my 'A' List of tourist spots.