2001 Detroit Bacardi Salsa Congress

May 24-27, 2001

Article and Pics by Rose Knows (posted December, 2001)

May 28, 2001

Home Sweet Home!

Well, I just got back from a quick salsa fix after our 5 hour car ride home from the 1st Detroit Bacardi Salsa Congress. It was great seeing all our fellow Detroit salsa dancers once again and to dance and hang out with dancers from Chicago, New York and LA! As we suspected, it wasn't a huge congress, but there was enough dancers to make it fun and you had a chance to develop existing or new friendships. You'll get a full update later with pics, but the most memorable highlights for me was the swing, cha cha and rumba performances by Melanie LePatin and Tony Meredith, Latin Dance Champions from New York, taking their fabulous rumba and cha cha classes, and finally, (a dream-come-true for me) to have the chance to sit down and "get up close and personal" for 2 hours after their Saturday performance with Tony and Melanie about everything to do with dancing! And then, after they went back to New York early Sunday morning, apparently Melanie had surfed my web site and emailed me a note! (Go to the Dear TOsalsa section on the right.) Well, that just put the icing on the cake for me and I still haven't gotten off the high of finally seeing them live, being able to take classes with them and having the chance to talk to them! Other nice surprises was having Francisco Vasquez replace Johnny Vasquez from LA, having Eddie Torres, his niece, Duplessy, Frankie Martinez and Aisha Koswara come in last minute from New York!

On Saturday, Ziv and I had a chance to sit down and chat with Eddie Torres for about an hour about the first formation of his dance group, how he got started and about some of his experiences with the late Tito Puente. It was also nice to meet Frankie and Aisha again for the second time and having them hang out for one evening with the Toronto dancers. Another pleasant surprise were the couples from Puerto Rico, Tito Orta and Vanessa, and Angel and Gisela. It was the first time to see Puerto Ricans dance and their styling just blew me away! Apparently, Tito, Vanessa and Gisela were dancers of the PR dance group, Papa Tambour, who performed last year at the West Coast Salsa Congress in LA.

It was also a very interesting experience to travel with the Toronto regulars whom you only know from the clubs dancing or chatting. You really get to know your dance-friends' true personalities when you travel with them and it's amazing how we can act like a bunch of siblings all trying to get along and/or agree with what plans we should have. What was really challenging for us was not knowing our way around Detroit and having to figure out how to get where we're going. You had to know what major cross-streets you were heading to before you asked someone in Detroit, or they had no clue. What made it more hilarious and doubled our travelling time is that we didn't get the most accurate directions and ended up in different parts of the city. It was definite-ly a challenge even for the organizer, Elaine Marrero, who lives in Detroit who got lost travelling from the hotel to the Masonic Temple -- we got there before she did and we left about half an hour later than she did. Although we stayed in the Hotel, all of the events were held in various parts of the City, so we always took a full change of clothes in case we didn't have time to go back to the Hotel (which was most of the time) and we wouldn't be stressed out having to rush from place to place in case there was a change in plans (which there always was). Plus imagine trying to get everyone to leave on time from anywhere or to get up early enough when you only had time for about 4-5 hours sleep each night! By the 3rd night, we all had trouble trying to get up with our wake-up call! We also had 3 carloads from Toronto, and it was hilarious watching everyone look for someone from their group to leave or find out what they were doing and we never seemed to plan or find out where we were going in advance which also added to our chaos, and it became fend for yourselves dependent on whose car you were in -- if we all met up at the same place, we were lucky! It was also unbelievable that all we could find open most of the time were fast food restaurants so our diets went down the tubes, except for the first night where Elaine had provided a great buffet and on Friday when we had an all-you-can-eat buffet at the Volcano Grill -- that was probably our last healthy meal for the balance of the trip; which is why I'm so glad to finally be back so we can lead our normal dancing lives. Although I'll miss all the friends I made at the Congress and wish to relive some of the highlights, I'm sure most of us agree that we're glad to be home again!

While I was talking with Eddie Torres at the Detroit Congress, he told us some of his experiences with Tito Puente. Because of Tito, Eddie choreographed his first dance performance for a "Machito" tribute with 60 dancers from the New York clubs, including David Melendez and Delisle Thomas; and that's when Eddie first came up with the idea of forming his first dance group. Apparently Tito Puente was one of those tireless musicians who couldn't slow down until his health gave way. Even when he was ill, he had asked Eddie to send him a collection of all the dancers' performances so he could watch them "now that he had some time on his hands". Eddie had spent hours putting videos together only to find out that they never reach Tito before he died when they came back in the mail -- which was a devastating moment for Eddie. Thank you Tito for leaving us with your beautiful legacy to dance to... you will live forever in everyone's hearts through your music.