This Week in Salsa

Earlier this month, Jonathan Goldman wrote an excellent piece on Fania's fifty-year anniversary, aptly named "Fania at Fifty". In the article, Goldman paints the picture of the Latin music scene in the 1960's and 1970's. He discusses the rise of salsa and the decline of Latin boogaloo and the controversy.

The article is a must read for every salsero, seriously, read it now. My interview with Goldman sheds even more light on this boogaloo/salsa transition at Fania and was a truly enlightening interview for me.

Jonathan Goldman teaches literature and writing at the New York Institute of Technology. He is author of Modernist Is the Literature of Celebrity (and has written about culture and hisotry for such publications as The Paris Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Open Letters Monthly, James Joyce Quarterly, Novel and Narrative. As a musician, he leads the Latin boogaloo band, 

Finding salsa when traveling is tough. We're excited to meet local dancers and will show up to a local salsa night only to find out that it shut down a year ago. Never fear, this week's podcast takes you through tips to help you find the quality salsa nights in any city your travels take you. The tips covered include:

Google (duh)

Facebook (double duh)

Facebook groups/graph search

Congress organizers

Airbnb

We hope you enjoy this week's episode. Remember to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes and leave us a 5-star!

What is body isolation?

Body isolation is simply moving one or multiple parts of your body without moving any others. You see this often in hip hop dancing but it's useful for salsa, too. For example, when you see a salsa dancer roll their shoulders forward and back in beat with the music, that is an example of isolating the shoulders.

Why do we want it?

The best salsa dancers can isolate parts of their body to better interpret the music. It brings a fluidity to your dance that separates beginner and intermediate dancers from the advanced salseros. 

How do we get it?

Today, we're doing part 1 in a series called back to basics. One of the most common moves in salsa is the cross body lead. As much practice as we get on this, it's incredible how often beginner and intermediate dancers get this wrong.

This one move is the building block of so many other moves in salsa dancing. The goal of the cross body lead is for the leader to bring the follower from one side of the line to the other. Remember, in LA and NY style dancing, we dance back and forth on a line. If the leader is facing north and follower south on a straight line, by the end of the cross body lead, the leader is now facing south and follower north.

For the first 4 counts, the leader should be getting off the line. Now that the follower has an unobstructed view, she can dance across the line on the next 4 count. By the end of this 8 count of dancing, the two have switched positions.

Today on the podcast I've taken the song 'El Dia de mi Suerte' and translated the meaning to English for all the Gringos out there. If you don't speak Spanish then you are missing out on an entire spectrum of information in every song you dance, information that you could be using to improve your musicality and dance style. 

The song chosen for today was originally sung by Hector Lavoe and is a classic that you will hear all the time in social dancing. The main theme of the song is that bad shit happens and you have to remain positive, then one day your luck will change. But on deeper inspection Hector is singing from a point of desperation, not determination. 

Check out the episode here to get the rest of my thoughts on the song. I would love to hear your opinion of this song and if I missed anything in the translation or if there is subtext related to Hector's history that influenced this song. And for a word by word translation of 'El Dia de mi Suerte', check it out on YouTube.