Hi, it's Rose Knows, with internet thanks to my ehubby, Ziv, who's checking out the beaches in LA while I just keep meeting up with dancers, promoters and webmasters from all over the World. Everyone I've met via the net over the past few years is here in LA and already some of us are surviving on 3 hours sleep... why am I writing on Salsafix.com and not on TOsalsa.com?

Well, Ziv never left me instructions on how to load up a new story on TOsalsa.com, so this is the next best way to unload some salsa overload.

May 26, 2003

Sleepless in LA... Part 1

Here's a snippet of my diary at the beginning of the week...

Last Friday was a non-stop day of meeting up with dancers, instructors, promoters and webmasters from all over the World. Everyone I've met via the net over the past few years is here in LA and already some of us are surviving on 3 hours sleep...

Just finished watching the preliminaries of the Smooth Moves Salsa Competition and there were 11? couples competing -- mostly from LA. It was a fun competition to watch, but not many of the cream of the crop decided to compete -- which was very disappointing. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the names of the finalists for the final competition, but you will see Alex Da Silva with his new partner, and Eric Gonzalez also from LA, along with 3 other couples.

Last night, I also got to meet the gang from Salserosweb.com, the usual Congress superstar regulars (too many to name), and really had a chance to really sit and talk to some performers and promoters whom I only used to say "Hi" in passing. It never ceases to amaze me how you can really connect with the salsa community and totally be at one in our love of the dance and music.

Tonight (Friday), the performances start and the salsa insanity of trying to find your regular friends to dance with begins... but as Ziv has discovered as he is a West Coast Salsa Newbie, you can pretty much ask anyone for a dance... and I've noticed it too, there's a lot less rejection on this dance floor, everyone's here to have a good time. And if you're not too intimidated to ask someone, almost all of them will say "yes"! An interesting observation made to me by the guys was that many of the LA girls love to dip themselves...

Over the next few days, there will be a huge gallery of pictures and then an on-slaught of videos... and if someone can figure out their camera, hopefully, I'll also have the Sportmen's Lodge Competition on tape... I got the scoop from the horse's mouth and got to see the footage regarding Raul Santiago imitating Frankie Martinez... not! only the facepaint was the same -- the routine was totally different in look and feel. And yes, Raul Santiago is moving to New York City to be a part of Frankie Martinez' dance troupe -- Abakua... and apparently will be working also at Tony Meredith and Melanie LePatin's dance studio.

And on that note, I guess I'm not Rose Knows for nothing... (grin)... it never ceases to amaze me how I sometimes can be at the right place at the right time...

Saturday Afternoon Post...

The marathon continues as I got 4-1/2 hours sleep? But last night the shows were off the hook, and I just took a look at some of my pics and some of those are totally off the hook. Not including some of the shows I have on video... you can be sure that I will be posting some awesome shows that will rock your salsa world!

Personally, for the LA West Coast Salsa Congress, I would have to say this is the best year yet, in terms of facilities, quality of shows and the fact that you can pretty much dance with anyone if you get up the nerve to ask. Why ask strangers? Well, by the time you look around for old friends from other cities to dance with, you could spend half the night looking and miss out on quite a few dances.

May 27, 2003

Sleepless in LA... Part 2
OR
Welcome to the Party...

What Party? Well, no pun intended, but "Welcome to the Party" is the name of an awesome song that was used at least 3 times on Friday night alone!

In case you don't know this song, you don't know what you're missing or maybe after hearing it so many times you got desensitized... It's the new favourite "performance song" of the Congress -- we must have heard it at least 6 times the whole weekend. In fact, there's an interesting discussion on Salserosweb regarding Frankie and Seaon and the use of this song.

And what were my favourite performances that night? Well, let me start by saying that the quality of the shows this year was better than last year and there was a lot less non-interesting shows to watch...

The group that totally stole the show from everyone this weekend, was the Royalty Salsa Kids, starting Friday with their "Michael Jackson" routine which was a spin-off of the Royalty Salsa routine from last year... It was obvious that they had jazz and ballet training.

A Japanese Group called "Wasabe" which had a very entertaining routine which was loosely based on cartoon-type characters dancing salsa -- their facial expressions were priceless.

Latinmotion, a group from "down under" in Australia, who surprised me with the strength and energy in their routine.

Afeenix' Hillbilly routine that was also fun to watch and high-energy.

And how could you forget Jai and Candy's sexy new routine?!

Of course, I can't forget Frankie Martinez and Jayson Molina who are just awesome to watch!

May 28, 2003

Sleepless in LA... Part 3
OR
How the Kids Stole our Hearts...

Just to show you how much enjoyment I got out of this Congress, here's the next set of pics from the Saturday night performances which is also considered usually the best night where the best of the best perform -- Show 1 and Show 2.

I am still so tired from the past week of non-stop work and non-stop Congress running-around that I just don't have the energy to go out and party it up in Toronto just yet. It's not possible to go auto-pilot back to normal Toronto time when I was used to going to bed at 7 to 9 am Toronto time (LA is 3 hours behind), and getting up no later than 10 am, which was about 1 pm TO time.

Coincidentally, I got a few emails today from dancers in the US who got hooked on my Congress Updates, and/or just saying HI since they either met me at the Congress or somehow missed me in the day-to-day activities. It seems many of the same people are also planning to hit the New York Salsa Congress... and if I'm lucky, I'll finally get to meet up with them there. There just wasn't enough hours in the day or night to do everything I would have liked.

On Saturday night, I had a chance to talk to one of the radio announcers being honoured that night and his son just happened to be the oldest member of LA Salsa Kids. At the time (when I was awake), I spoke to him about possible interviewing his family, but by the end of the night, we all just wanted to get out of the show tent and relax after about 2 sets of 19 shows each, totally about 3-4 hours of performances.

Saturday night happened to be the busiest night as the tent could hold approx. 2400 people and the band, dance floor and booth area, could hold about another 3500 -- which equated to a jam-packed night of about 6000 people. Also Oscar D'Leon was featured to play that night, along with Johnny Polanco, but because the shows were so long, we really didn't have time to listen to them.

On top of that, during the intermission, I decided to go to the main casino area to quickly check on the dancing, but was stopped by the Fire Marshals prior to getting back to the casino. They warned us to go back to the tent as there was no guarantee we could get back in. But then when many of the dancers headed back to the tent, we were stopped again at the other end and told to line-up in an already long line of people who had paid and were waiting to get into the tent to see the shows. By this time, many people were upset, either from waiting in line after paying for an evening pass OR after having just stepped out of the tent without being told that we would have problems getting back in. Some dancers had left their bags in the tent and for myself, I had my cameras inside with my friends. Even if you were media or a performer -- they didn't care and wouldn't let us in. After about 10 minutes I finally found someone in charge who was understanding and finally let me in... Needless to say, there were many people upset by this incident.

Unfortunately it didn't end there, at the end of the night when we everyone including performers headed back up to the main congress area, we were stopped once again as it had quickly reached capacity after the shows and many of us had to wait up to an hour-and-half to get back in; and pretty much missing most of Johnny Polanco and Oscar D'Leon's performance. By this time, I also lost any energy I might have had left to even remotely be interested in social dancing so basically I strolled around checking out the dance circles, which for me (as a slightly jaded Congress goer) wasn't exciting any more as the novelty of watching congress social dancing has worn off. Also, after taping and taking pictures on and off over the last 6 hours of the evening... you just aren't interested in taping any more; plus some circles was so crowded, I would have needed a tripod and a chair to tower over enough to videotape... so I chose not to... Through the grapevine, I also heard that when Francisco Vasquez and his group was stopped at the front of the line, a fire marshal had the nerve to put his hand on Francisco's chest and warned him to back off while Francisco politely but firmly told him to take his hand off of him and to keep his distance. Needless to say, there were some tense moments that nearly could have gotten out of hand. Those fire marshals seemed to take their job a little too seriously and dealt with the public in a manner that didn't make anyone want to cooperate with them.

This was unfortunately, the only really bad experience from this whole weekend; and it was surprising that Albert and Maya hadn't foreseen the possibility of reaching capacity as they so meticulously start planning almost a year ahead and obviously didn't have a plan for how to control this type of situation.

And which dance teams made a lasting impression on me?

Tropical Gem from Italy -- They had a strong all woman routine the night before, and then there was this number which included the men. Unfortunately, the principal male dancers could not perform in LA as they were denied entry by Customs at the airport. But even without them, they managed to pull off a highly-charged energetic show. This is the first time they have appeared at the West Coast Salsa Congress and are regular performers at the Puerto Rico Salsa Congress and back in Europe at various congressos.

Edie the Salsa Freak and Al Espinoza, LA -- Of all the routines I've seen them perform together, I think this is my favourite... and not because they are wearing all black (grin -- my favourite wardrobe colour). I find this routine the most intense in terms of role playing and I like the mix of hip-hop, salsa and tricks with a little batman-catwoman acting thrown in -- perfect show material.

This martial arts and salsa routine by two male dancers was also a crowd-pleaser. They did a fabulously intense sword fight that looked very real and then had some wonderful crowd-pleasing shines and tricks which got the audience roaring their approval. In fact the audience this whole weekend was totally supportive of all the dance groups; but because the shows were so long, the audience started to lose their energy about halfway in the second set of shows and became "desensitized" in showing appreciation.

And from Puerto Rico -- on your left you have Jayson's Molina's troupe; and then there's Papa Tambour on the right. This time there was only male dancers representing this troupe, but because they had so charisma, they didn't need partners.

Or how about Caribbean Soul Dancers in their latest routine... The audience just fell in love with their interpretation and choreography as they used a little bit of imagination and used the ladies' backs to become musical instuments that blends very nicely with the salsa guitar music. Apparently our Toronto talent pool inspired Ismael to take his group routine to the next level; and it seems their shows never seem to disappoint me while watching and also inspires me to do my best as a dancer.

And finally, the act that stole the show almost completely once again -- Royalty Salsa Kids! This time only one boy and girl performed, and put on such a show that they once again got a standing ovation. This routine had more cartwheels and some aerials which were moving so fast, it was difficult to capture the golden moment on digi-film. You can be sure you'll be seeing a lot more of this dance troupe.

And here's another 12-year-old female dancer who was absolutely amazing to watch. Samantha and David had great charisma, stage presence and a few tricks up their sleeves (right).