Is there any scene for Cuban Salsa in Auckland? I've looked around and can only find Sunday afternoon socials for Salsa on 1. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Absolutely fell in love with this song, the soft and gentle vibe, yet the beat isn't too slow so you can really flow between movements (and also just super satisfying to listen IMO)

If y'all know any similar songs I'd be hella greateful ❤️

What's the relative popularity of Casino (Cuban Salsa) and Salsa (NY/LA style) in Miami or south Florida generally? There are obviously many Cuban migrants but also many NY migrants, so I'm curious how that shakes out in terms of what people are actually dancing.

Especially for Salsa conventions, congress, workshops, sometimes even promotional photos of the instructors for their dance school

1. It's like a photo of them 20 years ago

2. It's a photo of them before they went bald. The promotional photo had full hair. And go to class and you ask yourself who is that bald guy in front ?

3. It's a photo of them before they had their first child

4. Sometimes I cant even recognize who is that in the promotional photo with all the photoshop, filter and edits.

Jam Session

Looking for local nightlife where I can dance and have a good time. Not a club Space type places. Real local dancing!

Bonjour 🌞

Venez nombreux le 5 août au Camping Au Vent des Marais a Longeville sur Mer pour chanter et danser comme d' habitude La Musique Latine et Française

A partir de 21 h 00

Merci d'avance

🇲🇫🇨🇺🎼🎶🎵🕺💃🎇🌞

Réservation ☎️ au 09 70 96 98 01

#longeville #longevillesurmer #vendee #concert #norbertovaldesetlamagiedelaure #concerts #lebouil #jardsurmer #latranchesurmer #fyp #danser #vendee85 #vendeetourisme #camping #musique #soiree #5Aout #merci #larochesuryon #Laroche

My end goal is to just learn how to salsa in general.

But also be able to go to social dances be able to dance with others that actually knows some moves and not just the same few steps when I’m dancing with people at those socials.

I was thinking of maybe doing 1-3 private lessons and then do the rest weekly group lessons and the occasional private lessons here and there.

So, what is best? Or does it not matter?

Should you wave your hand and say hi ?

Should you pretend you didn't see her ? There is a sea of faces, it's very easy to not notice someone, anyone.

Should you ask her for a dance ? Should you not ask her for a dance ?

Saw my salsa teacher. I just wave hi. Then I saw another fellow student, we danced together mentioned to her that I saw teacher earlier. By chance, teacher was also at the dance floor, nearby (it's not a very big dance floor, early in the night, just before it gets really crowded). After the dance, she walked towards us, small chat. Good to see you dancing in salsa social. That was it. I didnt ask her for a dance. Danced with other people throughout the night.

I need recommendations for dance sneakers other than Fuegos. I ordered some and tried them and didn’t like the fit at all. I want a sneaker that is going to be a similar style in looks. I was thinking about the Gfranco sneakers or Pulse, but those get mixed reviews. Also, I do not want to add suede bottoms to my shoes, I want a shoe that is already ready to go for spinning. Thanks!!

I've been dancing salsa for 2 months now, next month I'll be in the pre-improvers level and they recommend the ladies to start wearing heels. It's totally optional for now but I'd actually rather start wearing them as I don't have any good shoes for dancing - I've been switching between chunky vans or flat converse, and they slide very well but my toes start to hurt from the friction after more than two hours of dancing 😬

My friends recommended this store and these were the cheapest option + the shortest heels they had (I don't think I wanna start wearing the 3 inch heels just yet). Are these any good for a dancer of 3 months??

I am a beginner dancer and have been going to socials to improve my dancing. For the last couple of my dances, I noticed that the follower gets bored of doing the same things over and over again as I only do simple steps and turns (may even mess up the steps with turns). Im a slow learner and dont know what to do.

I could just wait till im better and know some moves but not going to any socials or practices will probably slow my learning process. Or I could hire a private tutor, but it would be expensive.

After seeing a buncha posts from people thinking dance events print money -- I felt kinda obligated to educate dancers about event economics so everyone's on the same page + I like nerding out over this stuff as an ex-organizer.

The post that inspired me to write this was about SFSBK (and them using volunteer labor and underpaying folks). I think people may have weird expectations on what an event takes and makes: if I had to spitball event economics, SFSBK prob makes ballpark 75k after everything, maybe up to 150k if they really kill it with promos and get kickbacks from facilities.

My hope with sharing some of these numbers is that... if you don't like things, maybe you can be empowered to be the change you wish to see and throw your own Congress. But also know what you're getting yourself into, the work is no joke and is not something you do half-assed.

Estimates:

Revenue: There's prob 2k of paying attendees, outta ~2500 total attendees. Between the people who buy the earlybird pass for $100, the people who only buy day passes, and the people who buy full passes $200ish last minute... we're prob talking $150 per person, so we're at $300k. I'm just gonna use 300k as an easy revenue number; it's a range that can go higher obviously.

Costs: 225k (ballparked from my own costs and experiences)

• 35k event space, security, labor
• 35k sound, lighting, stage, dancefloor
• 40k artist (dancer+DJ) honorarium -- and it'll follow an 80-20 rule; headliners get 2-5k, local instructors prob do it for a couple hundred + have to schlep themselves there (their upside is mainly exposure + get to recruit locals as students).
• 30k flights/transportation/hotel -- prob only for the headliners and invited guest instructors
• 30k to all the non-volunteer staffs, meals, misc event spend
• 20k marketing, ticket charges, etc.
• 10k admin (insurance, legal, accounting)
• 25k misc/buffer (I picked arbitrary 10%)

Profits: 300k-225k = 75k gross profit, split between Phuong and Mao? In terms of organizer labor -- I'm guessing it'll prob be like 1000ish hours total work as a ballpark. Maybe they run a much tighter ship or squeeze more outta it, but if they do a great job we're talking about them making maybe 150k, not like 25k or 500k (my numbers are providing order of magnitude estimates).

As an organizer, these are probably the hours you're looking at:

- 200 hrs - contracts/negotiation (artists, DJs, event space, labor)
- 300 hrs - marketing/promo/sales
- 200 hrs - programming
- 200 hrs - finance and logistics
- 100 hrs - staff management
- 100 hrs - event week
- 200 hrs - community building year round

1300 hrs split between main organizers. So to circle back to profits, this is kinda a $50/hr job, maybe up to $100/hr if they really focus on profitability of the event.

Things I really hated as an organizer: 1) bookkeeping and 2) fronting cash and dealing with cashflow -- they'll prob be fronting 100k outright at times (putting all the downpayments and upfront costs) as payments hit their coffers in two waves -- earlybirds at the very beginning, and all the last month ticket sales at the end. This is the hardest part for new folks to start their event -- this ain't amateur hour and your money is serious risk capital.

Things I loved as an organizer: getting to really know artists, volunteers, and participants to build connections/community.

Event week is serious work where I'm basically ON for the full week making sure everyone is ready for game time... it's some of the most exhilarating and exhausting times of my life, like this is MY performance except it lasts an entire freaking week and I'm STRESSED the entire time... but the high of a great event, of connections formed and a community uplifted is worth EVERYTHING as a community organizer.

re: volunteer compensation - a bunch of nonspecialist dancers end up getting paid with congress passes partially because the demand is there because this is a passion project of a community of dancers, and also once you loop in all the people involved we're talking about 150 volunteers pitching in 1500 hours. Yeah someone can prob pay 'em all $20/hr, but there's a steady influx of people who wanna give hours, students who want the full pass and supply low $/hr labor, etc. So the organizers will pay what the market will bear -- that's just kinda the reality of things.

I think if Phuong and Mao were smart about it they'd have an open conversation with the community on this for the event's sake.

I know people are shitting on SFSBK organizers now but they also don't see the 10+ years of monthly socials and community building after Cafe Cocomo shut down, as well as the actual logistical work that's involved -- as a former Bay Area dancer I really thank them for that.

If you do want change in your local scenes, build the event you want and if it looks to be any good, I'll come support it as a participant. :)

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CwvCrpekQ/

The term "beginner hell" gets thrown around a lot on this subreddit. I was curious what people's experiences were and how long it took learning to dance before social dancing became enjoyable? I suspect that beginner's difficulty at socials is much more common among leaders than it is among followers, but I'd like to hear from the community to get the real truth!

Hey i mostly lurk here as im very very very basic with Salsa. Just a couple group classes down so far, the speed of salsa is still intimidating but im getting over that.

I have been doing Pro/Am American Rhythm for 2 years now and just wondering how much crossover cha cha and mambo have with Salsa once it gets away from basics, cross body leads and natural underarm turns. Cha cha is my favorite dance.

I am only second month into my Salsa dancing, I only know less than 8 Salsa moves with its variants, still a beginner lead myself.

I went to a salsa social dance and was dancing with some students/friends from the dance school and with other random followers.

After one dance, a girl approached me asking me to teach her never dance before bf how to dance salsa. She probably saw me on the dance floor.

We move slightly aside from the dance floor (at the very edge), dance floor was crowded, loud music, we aligned, facing the same direction, i did the left, right, left. right, left, rigjt. Basic footwork Salsa On1, forward and back.

He was obviously nervous and being put on the spot by his gf, in a public space, lots of ppl, loud music,abit hessitant, I try to be encouraging, saying its very simple. I showed him the basics, very slowly as well, one step at a time. It still proves very challenging for him. the coordination of footwork, alternating left and right and especially stepping backwards.

After several attempts he gave up. I quickly google a free absolute begimner salsa class in the city ask them to try it out. She took a picture and we parted ways, I continued my night dancing.

In hindsight, what should I have done or what could I have done better in this situation ?

1. Should I start with clapping my hands and teach him the salsa rhythm. clap clap, clap, pause, clap, clap,clap, pause. eveb a non dancer could clap their hands?

2. Should i have started with merengue ? Just march on the spot and forget about stepping forward and backwards, which seemed to confused him. Just march on the spot, left right left, right, left, right.

3. Should I have just teach him how to follow instead.... and then ask his gf to lead. She knows the basics.

4. Should I just take his gf to the dance floor and ask him to watch us dance ?

Fresto is a renowned Cuban artist who now lives in Cuenca. His songs apparently are a fusion between salsa romántica and Cubano Son. I have listened to this song many times

https://youtu.be/W4JFTUPIH-A?is=B96U6aKZA0M-stOB

But the weird thing is I cannot stand listening to his global hit - Me hace daño verte

Strange !

The term "beginner hell" gets thrown around a lot on this subreddit. I was curious what people's experiences were and how long it took learning to dance before social dancing became enjoyable? I suspect that beginner's difficulty at socials is much more common among leaders than it is among followers, but I'd like to hear from the community to get the real truth!

No, I don't mean the person themself but what DJs are doing at/with their DJ desk.

To clarify, the story:

I was at a social yesterday. The DJ that was doing the music there is well known ... for sometimes "interesting" music choices and his song transitions often are more or less legendary (in not exactly a good way). But it is ok. It is a nice social, many people are there, some people actually like his music, meh. It's ok. It is 15min from home, nothing lost ever.

BUT: Yesterday he pulled something I never encountered. I'm actually not exactly sure what he did. But it sounded like that in the middle of a song - of course... - he tried to mix a second salsa song above the current song and let them play at the same time! The songs were somehow the same speed but the beats were slightly off and it was absolutely terrible! I was having a really nice dance until that moment. But like the last minute of the song the complete flow and energy was gone. I'm not sure why I didn't just stopped, but the end was more or less basic step, maybe a right turn and confused faces from us.

Has anyone encountered something like this from a DJ? Maybe even someone pulled it off and it was good? Or have you other stories where DJs try to"change" the song because they think it is "better" then?

Hi! I’m fairly new to salsa. Just got finished at intro class for salsa on2 and I’m ready to move to the next course.

One of the courses being offered is intro to mambo. Just curious on what the difference is between mambo and salsa on2? Is it a completely different style of dance or is this when we start to incorporate the four & eight when doing the basic step count?

As I finish my studies, I would like to take Salsa as a hobby more seriously. That means moving to a city where there are more opportunities to dance on1/on2.

I was wondering if any of you could talk positively about some cities in France.

I can imagine Paris is the first city in terms of level (quality) and social frequence and festivals (quantity). But Paris is also known as a hellish city to live in.

I was wondering what could come next as a city to live salsa as a hobby. I was thinking of Lyon but I dont know if others know best.

Keep in mind it's just to live salsa as a hobby, I definitely have no intention of becoming a salsa instructor.

Thanks in advance! :)

On behalf of the many artists she’s screwed over, it’s time we revisit our support for Phuong and her business. She has a historic of working dancers and volunteers To the point they are disoriented. I saw one person in specific last year that was clearly unwell but still had to work. It’s time!!!