SALSA – FROM A LEARNER’S PERSPECTIVE - Ashok Srinivasan

SALSA –was just another topping on my favorite dish till I planned a trip to Latin America. It all started one fine day when I decided to do a backpacking trip to a host of Latin American countries and do the necessary homework to prepare. I realized that knowledge of the Spanish language would come in handy and so I enrolled in a Spanish learning institute. As a part of this preparation, I endeavored to study about the Latin cultures and realized that dance formed an integral part of their lives and that the major dance form was salsa!! My knowledge of Salsa was very limited, limited in the sense that I would see that name only on posters of random dance schools claiming to teach the dance in 30 days or even less depending on the size of your wallet!

Having decided to learn Salsa, I was able to round off “Furor Hyderabad” as the apt choice to learn Salsa with the help of Google.

After discussing the formalities with Mr. Rishikesh Chhabra, the Salsa Guru of Furor, I joined the level one, weekly classes on Sundays for 2 hours for 8 weeks. Rish, as we call him, is a man of minimal words -- for every 10 words I spoke he always answered in 2! With the apprehension of a first time college goer, I entered the class one Sunday. Being the last person to walk in, I was left with no option but to stand in the first row. That was a little discomforting for me as I am usually a backbencher and being in the forefront was something like being on a battle front. Rish, started off with a warm-up and this warm-up itself made me sweat so much that I was drenched completely in it. I just wondered how some people can just advertise that they can teach salsa in 30 days, for it took me …. I am sorry, still taking me more than the level one to get my basic foot work on the “quick-quick-slow” rhythm.

A good thing about Furor, is that they organize socials on a bi-weekly basis

where a learner can put to use what he had learned in the class and also creating an atmosphere for a good social meet-up. In the beginning, I was a little hesitant to visit the socials. My first visit to the socials was at “the Cuba Libre” on Thursdays, a club featuring a huge space and a sizable dance floor. I was just a spectator there watching people dance. Some of them were amazing dancers and watching them dance was indeed a feast to my eyes. At times I would feel depressed  just thinking “When would I be able to dance like them?” For more than a month I used to visit these socials religiously just watching people dance and leave the place with a huge sigh.

This went on until one fateful day when I was pushed into dancing with a girl. I had seen her dance a previous song and she was an amazing dancer! She just did the basics with me for the entire song and even with that basics, I faltered. She corrected me patiently all the while and was all smiles…I liked her attitude where she didn't behave as if she was dancing with an incorrigible novice! I still remember that night when I came back home jumping with joy for a while and then doing the same basics over and over again….I had a good sleep that night…Well yes, I danced!!!

My dancing started from that day onward and slowly from just doing the basics I kept improving, adding some turns and moves. Well again not all girls are as good as my first dance partner. Well I have had the good, the bad and the ugly experiences on the dance floor. I have been left on the floor by a girl in the middle of a dance, I have been refused for a dance by one girl for as many times I have asked for and I have also come across a girl who had come to my rescue when these things happened and pampered my ego by telling me always that my dance has improved since the last one.

Finishing my level 1, I moved on to Level 1-Turn Patterns and Level 2, where more complicated stuffs were introduced. The experience of learning is something like climbing a mountain; the more you climb and you still find the peak going away from you. Initially I thought that after a few months I can be a good dancer but the more you learn, you feel that it is just a minuscule and there is still a way more to go. In the process of learning, I also had the opportunity to attend various workshops and conferences by being part of the Furor school. These workshops like “Salsa Upanishads” Hyderabad, and conferences like “India Fiesta Latina” Delhi, and “India International Dance Congress” Bangalore gave me a proper insight into the dance and also provided an opportunity to learn some tips about the dance from the leading personalities in the field. The artist line-up in these conferences were so amazing that when watching them perform, the dancers I used to see in the socials of whom I was always in awe, were just specks in the galaxy of salsa and me? – me, I don’t even exist!!     

I feel that interacting with senior dancers and utilizing the chances we get in meeting the great names in the field, always helps in improving our dance and in formulating our own style. For any learner of Salsa, the doom usually comes in the form of a beautiful girl who has just begun to learn to dance. When you dance with a girl who is new to Salsa, and try some tricky moves she would be naturally awe-struck and would say that you are an awesome dancer -- and that is the doom spelt for a growing dancer. This would get into the head and the learning process comes to a grinding halt. Probably I think most of them who are still at the same level of dancing in spite of years of learning must have been bitten by this bug.

Coming back to the Socials, they are the most happening place in the small world of salsa in Hyderabad! Let it be Cuba Libre, Spoil or any other place which Furor chooses, everyone wants to be there. The dance floor is an awesome place. So awesome it is that one can check where he stands in the social circle. I can compare the dance floor to the sea. If one has closely observed the sea, he can see that the sea retains things which are good to it and washes the undesirable to the coast. Let it be dead fishes or debris, eventually it all comes back to the shore -- it is just a matter of time! The reason for this comparison is that, every month a new batch of salseros enter the socials and among them, some come for girls, some come for fun and some come for the dance, but the dance floor retains only the people who have come for the dance and washes the rest to the fringe of the floor! This is the beauty of the dance floor! If you happen to dance on the floor then it means the sea has accepted you as its treasure! So what I learnt from the dance floor is “dance is for the sake of dance” not for any motives ulterior or superior!

What started casually for me has now become a part of life in due course and I now realize that salsa would never end even after I complete my Latin American trip. For I realized that through dance one’s emotions are manifested in the fullest and there can never be a faking. When you dance, you are what you are - your true pristine self. Moreover, the Socials and the interaction with the people who I started to meet on the platform of Salsa had a big influence on me. Each and every person I have met in this small world of Salsa has definitely made an impression on me. My interaction with people ranging from mediocre to intelligent has changed my outlook of life.

The journey is long and of course it is a bed of roses! To end I would like to quote Vicki Baum, the Austrian Writer, “There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them”