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Twirl and swirl
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The salsa workshop organised by the Academy of Modern Danse saw young enthusiasts sweat it out
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SPRIGHTLY STEPS Learning the salsa
She called it the machacha. Or maybe it was the pachacha. My ears were still buzzing from an intensive session of merengue. Or maybe it was merangue. As you have probably figured out, I barely survived.
A three-hour workshop on the `cha-cha, jive, rock `n' roll, salsa and merengue' sounded like fun — in theory. Blame it on the Latinos. They make dancing look so easy, and addictive. In their world, the merengue is about super strappy stilettos, fiery cocktails and high-voltage music. Just like the salsa. Watch a couple of dances and you would imagine that all you need to be a great dancer is a nice swirling dress. Oh, and killer hair wouldn't hurt either.
Unfortunately, it takes more than pretty shoes to be a dancer, as a group of young enthusiasts learnt last weekend thanks to a workshop that involved sweat and tears. But mostly, sweat. Organised by Gautam and Kokila from the Academy of Modern Danse at the Russian Cultural Centre, the workshop was conducted by a group from `Rock Around The Clock,' a Bangalore-based dance school.
We should have realised we were in trouble as soon as they arrived, a veritable dance Mafia, swaggering across the studio in pointy heels and polished boots, well-sprayed hair and professional pouts.
Merengue shake
And before you could say "ouch," everyone was lined up in front of the mirrors and doing the merengue shake like their lives depended on it. The merengue, by the way, is a dance form that is rumoured to have taken its name from `meringue,' the confectionery made of sugar and egg white because of the "light, frothy nature of the dance." Not that there was anything even remotely frothy about my version. Luckily, my twelve-year-old partner — who quickly acquired stardom during the break thanks to his uncanny ability to do perfect splits — picked up the twists and twirls really quickly, so we managed to bumble through without anyone breaking an arm.
My salsa partner, however, was far less fortunate. Now the thing about this pesky dance is it involves a lot of quick stepping. The instructions go, "Cuban salsa... quick, quick, slow. Turn. Twirl. New York salsa. Quick, quick, slow." And whether you're in Cuba or New York, two left feet are two left feet. And they usually result in bruised toes.
And then there was the machacha, which looks suspiciously like a dance made up after one too many tequilas. It involves a shake to the left, a shake to the right and then a truly bizarre hip swing from left to right. "Machacha!" snorted a long-suffering young man, after losing his balance on his painstaking hip shake for the third time. "Let's invent our own dance. We'll make the dappan koothu look exotic, and then go to Latin America to teach it," he says, adding excitedly, "We'll call it the macha-da."
Three hours and one jive session later, everyone was beaming and ready to drop. "Well, workshops are easier for people who have already learnt some dance," says Gautam, explaining how workshops like this help dancers work on their skills. "There's no spoon feeding, because there's so little time. This makes a student learn faster."
The Academy of Modern Danse will be holding `Salsa Night' at the Russian Cultural Centre this Friday. So, try making friends with a salsa dancer (and the city's now swarming with them) so you can tag along. Just remember, setting the dance floor on fire involves more than a frantic shoe-shopping binge before the party. Sigh.
SHONALI MUTHALALY
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