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The New Mexico Dance Fiesta is back!!!
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If you are, please post or forward. Thank you!
DANCE FIESTA BRINGS WORLD-CLASS DANCERS TO THE DUKE CITY
The 20th New Mexico Dance Fiesta, one of New Mexico's biggest competitive, instructional and performance dance events, returns to Albuquerque this September 23-26 at Hilton Albuquerque.
As in the past, the four-day event - sanctioned by both the United Country Western Dance Council (UCWDC) and the World Swing Dance Council (WSDC) -- will include pre-dances on Thursday and Friday evening, professional and amateur competitions, beginner to advanced workshops taught by world-class instructors, a Saturday evening dance and dinner show which will include the 3rd Annual Randall Designs Fashion Show (exclusive Designer for "Dancing with the Stars") with a special guest performance by World Mambo/Salsa & Tango Champions Carolina & Felipe Telona, and ending with a free Sunday evening "wrap up" dance.
Dances included in both the workshops and competitive presentations are: Country-Western Two-Step, West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, Hustle, Cha Cha, Nightclub Two-Step, Waltz, Salsa and Polka. The Fiesta has expanded to include competition in all the ballroom dances on Friday.
Operated for many years by Mike Haley, an Albuquerque dance professional recently retired from the field, Dance Fiesta is now being presented by David Hammon and Ivory O'Leary, professional dance competitors and instructors from Colorado. They continue the tradition of offering top-notch performances and instruction at reasonable prices. The event is open to the public - for those who want to social dance, take workshops, compete and those who are content to cheer from the sidelines.
All events will be held at the Hilton Albuquerque, 1901 University NE. A full schedule of the events, on-line registration forms and pricing information is available by going to www.DanceFiesta.net. Registration may also be completed by mail (information on the website). Info: info@dancefiesta.net or in Albuquerque call 505-299-3737 or e-mail glkello@nmia.com.
Don't miss this opportunity to see some of the world's finest dancers and enjoy some time on the dance floor yourself.
Contact: Susan Kellogg
glkello@nmia.com
(505) 299-3737
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Cuban Singer Revives Nat "King" Cole's Latin Numbers
By Judy Cantor-Navas
August 20, 2010
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - In 1956, Nat "King" Cole emerged from a plane in Havana holding a pair of maracas and began a series of dates at the club Tropicana. For the first of Cole's three subsequent Spanish-language albums, 1958's "Cole Espanol," he was coached by Bebo Valdes, then the pianist with the Tropicana's Armando Romeu Orchestra, to phonetically sound out the lyrics.
The suave but quirky charm of Cole's notable American accent and the swing of the musicians who joined him on great songs by Latin composers and Spanish translations of popular English numbers made the trilogy of Cole's "Espanol" albums a hit in Latin America and beyond.
"Cole paid homage to Latin American music and the Spanish language with the effort he put into singing these songs and the feeling with which he sang them," says Issac Delgado, whose album "L-O-V-E" includes 12 songs from Cole's repertoire and features the celebrated singer's brother, vocalist Freddy Cole, and a cast of top Latin and jazz players. It will be released August 31 on Calle 54/Sony Masterworks.
A megastar in Cuba, Delgado is known for his elegant but streetwise approach to the aggressively percussive Cuban dance music called timba, or Cuban salsa. The departure he takes with the jazzy romantic ballads on this album is something of a return to his roots.
"This is timeless music for me," says Delgado, who moved to the United States in 2006 and now lives in Miami. "It was the music we listened to every day in my house growing up."
The songs on "L-O-V-E," including a Spanish version of the title track, have a distinctly contemporary vibe, drained of the syrupy flavor characteristic of Cole's time. Pulling from the extended Cole songbook, the album also includes a song in Portuguese, and two additional tracks -- "Mona Lisa" and "Stardust" -- will be available as digital extras.
Sony Masterworks general manager/senior vice president Alex Miller says he first heard "L-O-V-E" after Sony Spain released it last spring and immediately made plans for it to be released stateside. He says the album will be promoted "the old-fashioned way," around an extensive U.S. tour that Delgado will do with Cole in the fall.
"I didn't want people to feel they were listening to an old chestnut. I wanted it to sound as though it had just popped out of the oven," says producer Nat Chediak, who, by working with Spanish filmmaker/producer Fernando Trueba on the latter's Calle 54 label, has brought new life to Latin classics on a series of critically acclaimed albums, including the Grammy Award-winning "Bebo y Cigala." "I wanted the musicians to stretch," Chediak adds.
"We were having fun in the studio," says Cole, who once accompanied his brother on one of his visits to Havana. "Everyone was loose and free, and it came off that way."
(please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)
Copyright 2010 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures
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Salsa Jams Hit Lincoln Center Stage Anew
Friday, August 13, 2010
By Janaya Williams
Fans of salsa music have been waiting a long time to hear a performance of pianist Larry Harlow's 1977 classic “La Raza Latina, a Salsa Suite," and now the song is being performed live in New York for the very first time.
The ambitious 32-minute symphonic work traces the history of salsa music in four steps—from Africa to the Caribbean, then on to New York and into the future.
Harlow, a Jewish New Yorker, fell in love with Latin music and traveled to Cuba in the 1950's to study Afro-Cuban music. In 1973, his opera, Hommy, was the first Latin music performance at Carnegie Hall.
Harlow will recreate “La Raza Latina, a Salsa Suite" along with a 40-piece orchestra at the Lincoln Center’s Out Of Doors festival on Saturday night. They are joined by drummer Bobby Sanabria’s band, Panamanian singer Rubén Blades, and Cuban singer Adonis Puentes.
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Published: August 4, 2010 17:02 IST | Updated: August 4, 2010 17:05 IST August 4, 2010
Salsa, the way it was
Shalini Shah
The Hindu Members of Colombian band La-33 in New Delhi. Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
Skipping over the last two decades, Colombian band La-33 derives its music from the salsa of the 1960s and 70s.
In terms of how it has managed to transcend boundaries and endear itself to people the world over, irrespective of how far-fetched it is from the music of the local populace, salsa has little competition. Salsa holds sway among non-classical dance classes and salsa music concerts are always packed and mostly characterised by dancing in the aisles. The same when La-33, salsa band from the Colombian city of Bogota, performed in the Capital recently.
La-33 is a big group; 12 in all. It comprises Sergio Mejia on bass guitar, Santiago Mejia on piano, Guillermo Celiz, David Cantillo and Pablo Martinez on vocals, Cipriano Rojas on congas, Juan David Fernandez on timbal, Diego Sanchez on bongos, Vladimir Romero and Jose Miguel Vega on trombone, Felipe Cardenas on saxophone and Roland Nieto on trumpet.
Salsa has been one rolling stone that has gathered moss wherever it went. But as Juan David Fernandez from La-33 (the name derives from the Bogota address where the band used to practise) tells us, “Bogota is a big city, so we pretty much listen to all kinds of music. But you can't tell that from our music. We don't fuse it. We play only salsa. We do salsa based on the salsa of the 1960s and 70s.” The salsa that followed in the 1980s and 90s is “more commercial, more pop,” he says.
Mixed influences
He adds, “We use the same instruments as in the 60s and 70s. Nowadays salsa bands play drum sets. We don't.” La-33's percussion includes the bongo cero, congas and even cowbells.
The stress is on purity, even when the origin of salsa is steeped in mixed influences. Dispelling the popular notion that Colombia is the home of salsa, Fernandez says, “Salsa came from all the immigrants who went to New York— Puerto Ricans, Cubans, all these people had their own culture and traditional music, which they mixed with jazz when they got to the U.S. Salsa is a mixture of different music styles, like Guaguanco of Cuba, Bomba of Puerto Rico. Thus, salsa came to New York and only when it became more popular did it come to Colombia.”
Even in Colombia, Bogota was hardly the place salsa took off.
“Cali was where salsa came to Colombia at the beginning (from U.S.A). Now it's shifted to Bogota,” Fernandez informs. “Bogota doesn't have a salsa tradition. It's kind of weird to think that salsa comes from Bogota. Actually, we are the very first salsa band out of Bogota.”
Colombia's topography has also affected the country's music. “Salsa is one of the different kinds of music that Colombia has. We have two Oceans, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and in every coast the music is very different. And then there is the centre,” we are told. Fernandez, tuned into jazz and rock in the beginning, joined La-33 to learn salsa. He's been with the band since the beginning, for almost eight years now.
La-33 has three albums behind it — “La-33” (2004), “Gozalo” (2007), “Ten Cuidado” (2009). “The musicians in the band compose their own songs. They sing about their own lives,” says Fernandez. So topics range from their “love lives and breakups with girlfriends to colonial society.” All their songs are in English, with one exception — an arrangement of the track “Roxanne” with English band The Police for “Ten Cuidado”. Was Sting there? “Sting wasn't there. It was just an arrangement that we did. Hopefully, he listened to it. He had to listen to it to approve it,” Fernandez smiles.
This year this time, there are apparently five Colombian independent bands touring the globe.
Despite thousands of concerts the world over, two stand out. “We went to Japan in 2008. We had a performance in Tokyo. It was really interesting to see how people knew our music, to see how our music reached such a distant place. So that's something to remember,” recalls Fernendez. The other was in France three years ago, in a festival called Tempo Latino. “It was a really, really beautiful concert. We finished the whole set, played an anchor and we went backstage. I was already changing. And after five to 10 minutes, an order came backstage, ‘Hey, go back to the stage, they want you again.' And we went back to the stage. ”
The percussionist seems flabbergasted when encountered with examples of the reach of salsa. “There are several salsa bands in Japan. They even sing Spanish. Sometimes they don't even understand what they are saying, but they do sing Spanish!”
Music composers Salim-Sulaiman were front-rowers at the concert later. Any collaboration on the cards? “We have been talking with Indian producers (no names mentioned). So probably you will be having some surprises,” is all that Fernandez reveals for the moment.
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The Torito: "the merengue Street should have another name"
Singer. Hector Acosta matches Johnny Ventura to call another form called "urban merengue". Santo Domingo
Merenguero/bachatero singer Hector Acosta (El Torito) stated that it coincides with Johnny Ventura in the sense that those who cultivate the so-called "urban meringue" should seek another name to this music stream, because, in his understanding is not meringue.
The Torito valued their creative work authors and performers of the said motion, recognizing that really sustain their songs in situations and realities of the neighbourhoods where were born and have been developed, but raised should be seeking other identification.
"I think that they are married with glory is looking for a name other than meringue to identify this music", expressed Hector Acosta statements offered the "Francamente using" program that is transmitted each week from 12 midnight Saturday on Channel 9 color vision.
The most popular performers of urban merengue include Omega (the Fort), the tasting and Tito Swing.
Concert in the TN
Also announced that it will be Saturday 11 September next when presents its new show "Total delivery" in the main hall of the national theatre.
Singer declared that already the direction of further sizing art venue in the country given that date for their production, which will be in charge of Edilenia Tactuk mounting.
"I want to thank the good treatment we receive part of the Director of the theatre, Catana Perez of Cuellar, and the fact that that date there separately for us." Let's do a show that will be all that we have made this year in the various presentations we've made both in the country and abroad; there will be a little bit of everything ", expressed El Torito."
On July 1, Hector Acosta introduced an "unplugged", at Hard Rock cafe Santo Domingo, concert was very well accepted by the public.
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The Roots of Bachata
Throughout the Dominican Republic's rich and difficult history, which includes foreign occupation and a repressive dictator, the festive spirit of its people has allowed the island nation to persevere. The music of the island has helped fight many of the trials presented to it. During the reign of the dictator Trujillo, merengue was proclaimed the official music of the nation, to the shock of many Dominicans. Although the dictator introduced many repressive measures to Dominican society, the freedom of merengue helped the nation cope with the hardships.
The shock of the official recognition of this expressive type of music was exacerbated by the fact that most Dominicans do not accept the African and Haitian roots of the music, despite its similarity to Haitian mereng in dance, rhythm, and in the name. Musicologists debate about whether the music's origins stem from Afro - hispanic or European roots, but the intertwining of these influence in the music is readily apparent. With a big orchestra format, merengue became a celebrated national form when most other types of native Dominican music were considered crude.
One of the so-called crude forms of music was bachata. The definition of "bachata" meaning something like "a racous party." The name itself implies so-called "low class" people with "loose" morals. Bachata was played by campesinos - or peasants - whenever a village would get together for a party. The party always included drink, food, dancing and music. These rich roots led the members of privileged classes to ostracize this musical culture from the mainstream. Until the 1980s, the music had the reputation of being "base," and no self-respecting club would book such a band. Luckily, beginning in the 90's, the music began to be tolerated, if not loved. Today, both bachata and merengue can be heard at musical venues in the New York metropolitan area, but especially in Washington "Quisqueya" Heights. Bachata, along with merengue, expresses and celebrates the creativity of the too-long-denied working peasant and African roots of Dominican identity. And to forget one's identity is to forget one's history.
Related Links:
http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~pjetax/historias/history_bachata.html
http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~pjetax/historias/history_merengue.html
http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/dsi/index.html
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Cuban singer Carlos Varela set for U.S. tour
By Esteban Israel
Reuters
Friday, April 23, 2010; 5:28 PM
HAVANA (Reuters) - With U.S.-Cuba relations at their lowest point since President Barack Obama took office last year, Cuban singer Carlos Varela will launch a six-city U.S. tour next month with hopes of bringing the two countries a little closer.
Varela, often referred to as Cuba's Bob Dylan, will start in Los Angeles with a concert on May 5, then work his way across the country for a final show on May 15.
Varela, 47, last performed a concert tour in the United States in 1998 but put on an impromptu show for members of Congress in Washington in December while lobbying for new U.S. policy toward communist-led Cuba.
Varela and his band will tour the United States amid new tensions triggered by the December arrest in Cuba of a U.S. contractor suspected of espionage and the February death of a Cuban political prisoner on a hunger strike.
Obama, who took office in January 2009, said early on he wanted a "new era" in long-hostile U.S.-Cuba relations and took modest steps toward rapprochement.
But he has adopted a harsher tone in recent weeks, saying Cuba has not reciprocated and has in fact shown its same old "clenched fist" with the arrest of the American and mistreatment of island dissidents.
Cuba, in turn, has stepped up criticism of Washington in state-run media, and accused it of orchestrating, with Europe, an international media campaign against the island.
TOUCH THE HEART
The bearded, black-clad Varela told Reuters in a recent interview his songs, known for their metaphorical social criticism, cannot by themselves bridge the political gap between the two countries.
"But they can touch a man's heart. And it is men who wage wars, build hatred, separation, borders and religions," he said. "We musicians often are closer to the people than politicians," he said peering through dark glasses during a break in rehearsals at a warehouse near Karl Marx Theater.
His concert tour will be the latest in a series of cultural exchanges under the Obama administration, which views them as a way of increasing people-to-people contact with Cuba.
Cuban musicians including the salsa band Los Van Van and Buena Vista Social Club singer Omara Portuondo have crossed the Straits of Florida to perform for American audiences.
Under the Obama's predecessor, President George W. Bush, Cuban performers, including Varela, were mostly prevented from playing in the U.S. He was denied a visa in 2004.
U.S. band Kool and the Gang played at Havana's Anti-Imperialist Tribunal on December 20.
Varela believes the cultural exchanges will survive renewed U.S.-Cuban hostility and predicts more U.S. musicians soon will play in Cuba.
"Art in general can contribute a lot to relations among neighbors," Varela said. "We can't spend so many years so far away and yet so close."
In addition to Los Angeles, Varela's other U.S. stops will include Oakland, Chicago, Boston and New York City. He will also play private events in San Francisco and Sonoma, California, and a concert on May 16 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
(Editing by Jeff Franks and Todd Eastham)
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April 11, 2010
Continuing Days of Independence for Calle 13
By LARRY ROHTER
SAN JUAN, P.R.
EVEN after three CDs and a dozen Grammy Awards, much about Calle 13 remains a mystery or a contradiction. For five years this band has been one of the most popular and innovative in Latin music, without fitting any recognizable mold; Calle 13 is certainly not a salsa band, but neither is it rock, rap or reggaetón.
Then there is the group’s confrontational frontman, who spews political invective onstage and on record and has also offended sensibilities across Roman Catholic Latin America with the sexual explicitness of some of his lyrics. Yet the largest of the many tattoos on his buffed torso is one of his mother, whose hand he kisses when he takes her leave.
“If you are writing and really being honest with what you feel, you’re going to be writing about everything you live with, about the society that surrounds you, and not leaving things out because they might bring you problems,” René Pérez, the band’s lyricist and lead rapper, said in Spanish this month over lunch at a seaside restaurant here. “Besides, I haven’t really used all that many bad words.”
On Friday Calle 13, which regularly performs to arena-sized crowds in Latin America, will be playing at the opening day of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., on a bill that also includes Jay-Z, LCD Soundsystem and Vampire Weekend. That booking — with the release of a new CD planned for late this summer, perhaps with some bonus tracks in English to follow — appears to be the start of a concerted effort to expand the group’s audience to include English-speaking pop fans.
“Our goal and objective is the world, and to do that you have to pass through the United States,” said Angelo Medina, who manages Calle 13 and other major Latin pop acts. “Coachella is both a challenge and an opportunity, one that can open doors to the biggest market in the world and help Calle 13 spread its message.”
In live performance Calle 13 is an 11-piece ensemble, including horn and percussion sections, fond of mixing every pop genre it can think of. But the group’s founders and creative core are a pair of stepbrothers: the boisterous, restless Mr. Pérez, 32, whose stage name is Residente, and the slender and restrained Eduardo Cabra Martínez, 31, known as Visitante.
The pair have been together since they were 2, which was when René’s mother, the actress Flor Joglar de Gracia, and Eduardo’s father, now a lawyer, began a relationship. After the couple separated, René moved to a house on 13th Street, or Calle 13, in a gated community in Trujillo Alto, a suburb of San Juan. At the main gate of the complex, security guards would ask those seeking entry “Resident or Visitor?” and the brothers would have to respond according to their status.
Calle 13 emerged in 2005 as part of the global reggaetón craze that included Daddy Yankee, Don Omar and Wisin y Yandel. In contrast to those performers Calle 13 did not overtly identify itself with that movement and from the beginning sought to incorporate other influences, like rock guitar, cumbia and jazzy clarinet, into its music. “The truth is that the first record had only four reggaetóns,” Mr. Cabra said, referring to “Calle 13” (White Lion/Sony), which yielded a pair of hit singles that helped the CD go gold. “Those were the cuts used for promotional purposes, and so that’s the brand that was put on us. But from the beginning, to me, reggaetón never offered anything musically. My brother liked it, yes, but we always tried to execute it in an organic way, with real instruments and mixing it with other genres.”
Close as they are, the brothers have somewhat different musical tastes. Mr. Cabra adores the Beatles and is also fond of rock en Español performers like Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Café Tacuba, and Brazilian percussionists like Carlinhos Brown. Asked to name influences for his lyrics, Mr. Pérez cited the salsa composers Rubén Blades and Tite Curet Alonso, the Dominican bachata star Juan Luis Guerra and the Spanish troubador Joaquín Sabina.
“The tendency is for everyone to talk about René because Eduardo doesn’t really talk that much,” said Mr. Blades, who has become a friend and mentor of the duo. “Eduardo may seem like a wallflower, but he is not only a very interesting musician, full of ideas; he’s also a stabilizing force. So it’s not just one guy. It’s brothers with an interesting background who have developed their education and can talk about all kinds of interesting stuff, like Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray. ”
Born here, Mr. Pérez moved in 2001 to the American mainland to enroll at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. While Mr. Cabra, who has a degree in computer science, played keyboards and guitars in varied bands here, Mr. Pérez remained there for three years, earning a master of fine arts and studying animation, illustration, sequential art and film.
All of that became useful after he returned home and began making demos with his brother. “What I used to do with my visual art is the same thing I do now with my lyrics,” he explained. “My songs are descriptive, very visual.”
Early in 2007, as they were wrapping up their second CD, “Residente o Visitante” (White Lion/Sony), the brothers made a monthlong trip through the Andes and the Amazon. It was the first time, they said, that they had ever traveled in Latin America on their own, and it broadened their horizons both in terms of the subject matter and the music in their songs.
That journey has been chronicled in “Sin Mapa,” or “Without a Map,” a documentary that Sony released last year. “In a way they were quite innocent, growing up as solidly middle-class guys in Puerto Rico, which because of its relationship with the U.S. can be incredibly insular and sheltered,” said Marc de Beaufort, the Colombian co-director of the documentary. “But they have this enormous curiosity and dedication. Of all the pop groups in Latin America, they struck me as people who want to see things differently.”
Calle 13 hopes to release its fourth CD in August, and the week before Easter, a time when many Puerto Ricans are traditionally on vacation and enjoying the beach, found the brothers hard at work at Playbach Studios here. They have been considering a track tentatively called “Baile de los Pobres,” or “Dance of the Poor,” as the first single from the new album, and they needed only two lines of the lyrics and some overdubs to complete the song.
As Mr. Pérez sat writing in a corner of the control room, a loop boomed over the speakers, showcasing the salad of influences in the band’s music. A string quartet played an Arab-flavored melodic figure that also included tango flourishes, and four tubas underlined a burbly synthesized bass line that wouldn’t be out of place on an OutKast record; a Brazilian batucada will provide the rest of the rhythmic base.
Finally Mr. Pérez was ready. “I’ve got the genetics of a peasant, that’s why I enter your palace through the kitchen,” he rapped in Spanish. “You’re upper class, I’m lower; you dress in silk, me in straw. We complement each other as a couple: you drink distilled water, mine has microbes; you live easy, I have to struggle; you perspire perfume, I reek of hard labor; you’ve got a driver, I walk on foot; you eat filet, and me, canned meat.”
The most controversial of the band’s songs may be one not included on any of its CDs but which is sometimes part of its live show. That song, “Querido F.B.I.” (“Dear F.B.I.”), accuses the federal government of assassinating Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, the principal leader of the Macheteros, or Machete Wielders, in 2005. That group advocates the independence of Puerto Rico through armed struggle; the song castigates local authorities for not protesting vigorously and threatens revenge.
Under the leadership of Mr. Ojeda Ríos the Macheteros claimed responsibility for the killing of Navy sailors and a police officer here, as well as numerous bomb and rocket attacks here and on the United States mainland. The federal government classifies the Macheteros as a terrorist organization. The brothers said “Querido F.B.I.” was not meant to endorse violence. But Mr. Cabra described Puerto Rico as “a colony” of the United States, and Mr. Pérez said, “Our ideal has always been that Puerto Rico be independent.”
Late last month Calle 13 found itself embroiled in another political controversy after the band traveled to Havana and played to a crowd, estimated at 250,000, at the “Anti-Imperialist Plaza” in front of the American quasi-embassy there. The show, which included “Dear F.B.I.,” came amid a campaign of Cuban government repression that led to a political prisoner’s death in a hunger strike. In Miami exiles erupted with criticisms.
Mr. Pérez defended the trip, which he said had been incompletely and inaccurately reported both inside and outside Cuba. He acknowledged that Calle 13 did not meet with dissident artists but said that the band had remained true to its principles.
At an awards ceremony, “I told Cuban musicians like three different times that ‘you have to write without fear, you have to say things without fear,’ ” he said. At the show, he added, “we said things that no artist had said from the stage, like ‘here the people are in charge, and the government has to obey.’ ”
Mr. Blades, who has become a critic of the Cuban government, counseled patience and tolerance with both the politics and the music the brothers are exploring. “They are young guys still finding their way, so you live and learn,” he said. “More surprises are in store, I think.”
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A Venezuelan Cafe In Town
I discover a Venezuelan Cafe " Cafe Choroni", We real Cachapas y Arepas Venezolanas.
What is an Arepera? An eatery that makes and sells Arepas. What is an Arepa? Unlike breads, Arepas are made with corn instead of wheat, and molded into a flat patty which can be baked, grilled, or fried. The Arepa is split after cooking, and filled with your favorite ingredients like, cheese, beans, avocado, shredded beef or chicken, pork, and deli meats. Both Venezuelans and Colombians view the Arepa as a traditional national food, and has a long tradition of local recipes. The predecessor of the Arepa was a staple of Amerindian tribes that lived in the northern Andes. After the Spanish colonization, the sensation that would become the Arepa flooded into the region we know today as Venezuela and Colombia. 3120 San Mateo Blvd NE Albuquerque, NM 505.554.3311 STORE HOURS: Mon-Sat 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM Closed on Sundays. www.cafechoroni.com
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Let's zumba
High-energy fitness class moves to a Latin beat Latin dance exercises really deliver with fun workouts
By Jennifer Rundell | Daily Herald Correspondent
Published: 9/1/2008 12:03 AM
Whether you dance for fun or exercise, it's rare that you won't feel a hard-core sweat when you are done shaking your hips.
So what do you get when you put Latin, dancing and aerobics together? You get Zumba, which is one workout that is sure to leave you gasping for breath when you are finished.
Zumba is a Latin-infused exercise program that combines international music and easy-to-follow dance steps with interval training. How many people out there have wanted to get into Latin dancing, but have always felt that they needed a partner? Not with Zumba, this current Latin phenomenon.
Not only do you get to experience all the sultry and sexy moves of a Latin dance, but you are also burning 180 calories every 20 minutes. That means at the end of a one-hour class you will have burned over 500 calories. Just think of the possibilities if you Zumba three to four times a week.
As an added motivation, Julie Russell, owner of Latin Flair Fitness, dresses up in colorful clothing and stands on a high stage when she teaches her classes.
"Each class is an hour long and we start with a warm-up of basic moves," Russell said. "Then for the cool down we work with soft music."
In between, the heart of the workout is what will keep you coming back w more. Each Latin dance - cumbia, regaetone and salsa, just to name a few - gets your body pumping in different, unique ways while still giving you a sweat-infused workout. Cumbia focuses mainly on one side of your hips, and regaetone is a high-intensity cardio workout, while salsa dancing works your stamina and leg strength. The rhythm for each routine changes from slow to fast depending on the song and dance.
Although it's your hips that are getting the constant workout, Zumba ultimately focuses on the core muscles, especially the abdomen as well as the arms and legs. At the same time, each muscle group is being used with each routine, while giving you a looser, more relaxed kind of training.
Participants are always being challenged due to the multitude of movements. A Latin dance instructor took Russell's class to help build his endurance before a dance competition.
"You don't need a partner while doing Zumba because its focused for fitness," Russell says. "You are i,, n a fitness format, but still feel like you are dancing. People who don't know how to dance, but are somewhat familiar with a high-low aerobic class will do just fine."
Zumba got started by Columbian aerobics instructor Alberto Perez. He forgot to bring his regular music to his aerobics class one day so he ran out to his car, grabbed all of his favorite music and improvised.
The rest is history and a new fitness craze. It first hit big in Florida's South Beach, where Russell got the opportunity to take two training courses with the legendary Perez.
The Columbian slang for Zumba pretty much says it all: "To move fast and have fun."
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Bad Dancers?
There aren't any BAD Dancers!!
Often times, I listen to people make comments such as, "he has no rhythm .... or she can't follow". Sometimes the comments are even more harmful, "what do they think they're trying to do - that looks simply awful", or "he can't dance at all, he's just bopping - maybe he should take some lessons"!!
Have you ever thought this? Ever voiced this to your friends? What's really important about dancing anyway?
I've attended many social dances and many competitions and must admit there is one dancer that I always enjoy watching on the floor. Have you , ever seen the dancers that dance every dance (even if they can't Dance?) but they're always smiling - , always having fun. I watch these dancers in fascination, they are actually having a great time.
When I watch people on the dance floor, I often wonder, why are they dancing - they look like they're in pain? I am truly amazed that anyone would go out for an evening of torment and painstaking work - there is a time and place for everything in life.
Social dancing is people moving together on t, , he dance floor and enjoying themselves. We don't all have to dance the same way. Even if you just get up and sway to the music, that's your way of expressing pleasure in dancing. Did you ever think to yourself, "They're not bad dancers - JUST DIFFERENT".
A dance floor will always have people with different styles and knowledge levels about dancing: which ,, , , ,, ,, , d, , oe, sn, , , , 't mean they are good, , ,, , or bad dan, ce,, rs, just people enjoying themselves for an evening. Maybe if you take dancing so seriously that you're lo,, ,,, ,, , , , , s, ing your ability to laugh at yourself over a mistake it's time to take a lesson or two from a social dancer that doesn't perform ballroom steps but actually moves to music for, ,, ,, , , FUN!
By: Karen Kiefer
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Getting the Most from Your Dance Lessons
Dance students naturally want to get the most they can from their lessons, but often lack a clear understanding of how to do so. In fact, any student's progress depends mostly upon how they approach and use their lessons. Fast, complete and efficient progress will result only from a logical and structured approach to learning.
1: Set a Goal - Quite simply, unless both the instructor and the student have a clear understanding of the skills and abilities that are to be developed, then progress suffers. A frank discussion of goals and the formation of a solid teaching plan are essential.
2: Correct Frame of Mind - The student-teacher relationship is one of both physical and mental participation. Knowledge can only be gained through focused attention and a willingness to learn. Students should take care to apply themselves to the task at hand, and to do their best to perform the new elements according to their instructor's direction.
3: Concentration and Focus - Sometimes students, in a desire to "do everything right", will focus on one facet of dancing while the instructor is attempting to work on another. The experienced instructor will not expect their students to correctly perform all of their old skills while learning something new. The student should direct their attention only to the topic which the instructor has chosen, and the instructor will later amalgamate the new knowledge with the old.
4: Allow the Instructor to Teach – The student is wasting their instructor's skills if they do not allow the instructor to exercise their own judgment and abilities. Many students, who would not dream of telling their doctor what medicine to prescribe or their mechanic how to repair their car, will not hesitate to tell their instructor which part of their dancing most needs attention, and how they should be taught. Instead, the instructor should be given rein to teach as they see fit, so long as they are working to the best of their abilities towards the student's goals. If this path does not yield the desired results, then another instructor should be found.
Remember also that learning to dance is different from learning pure mental skills - sometimes understanding comes only after correct performance, instead of the other way around. The student should always try to allow the instructor to complete a presentation, since quite often full understanding dawns only when the presentation is complete and a "feel" for the action is obtained. If at that point the student does not unde, rstand, then they should ask for clarification. Otherwise, they should try to allow the instructor to exercise their professional skills - after all, that is what they were hired to do in the first place.
5: Practice - Practice is probably the most under-rated aspect of a student's learning. Those students who apply themselves to their practice invariably show more consistent progress than those who do not. Students of tennis, skiing, martial arts, music, golf, or most other physical pursuits consider practice an integral part of their learning, but all too often students of social dance do not. The human mind can consciously demand only so much of the body at one time, and is not capable of simultaneously monitoring or directing more than one or two aspects of the body's movement. In order to correctly perform several different dance elements, the body must be able to function independently of concentration - in other words, good dancing skills must be habitual. Habits can only be formed through repetition. This can also be a pitfall, since a repeated action will become habit whether that action is desirable or not! Care must be taken to ensure that CORRECT performance is practiced AT LEAST 50% OF THE TIME, since the body will "remember" those actions which it has performed MOST OFTEN.
6: Regularity - Regularity also has a bearing on progress, since too much time between lessons breaks up the continuity of the learning progress, allows the student to forget too, much of any lesson's instruction, and forces the instructor to unnecessarily repeat topics.
7: Variety:
A - Instructors - Just as a single sculpture may be described in different ways by observers with different points of view, so may many dancing elements be described or approached in many different ways, serving to develop a more complete and thorough, understanding. However, one instructor should be chosen to be the main guide to a student's progress, serving as a "manager" for that student's overall learning. (Beware of instructors who advise you only to take,, lessons from themselves!)
B - Lesso,, , n Types - Smart students also participate in different types of lessons; private lessons, group classes practice sessions, coaching lessons and workshops all serve to strengthen, reinforce, and diversify the student's learning.
C - Partners - A variety of partners serves to broaden dancing skills. Dependence upon a single partner can lead to the formation of weaknesses, since when a certain aspect of dancing is not challenged or used, it atrophies. A var, iety o, f partners tend to challenge a student's skills in a larger number of situations than most single partners can provide.
By: Dan Pittman
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The Beat
Most dance music is based on 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4 music time. In 2/4 and 3/4 time the first beat of a bar is emphasized and can be clearly heard in the bass = drum, bass or bass guitar. This is the beginning beat of the music and is the beginning step of the dance.
In 4/4 time the most emphasized beat is the first beat and there is then less emphasis on the 3rd beat. Again this can be clearly heard in the bass instruments. As always, the first beat is the beginning step of the dance. In some music the bass instruments will play every beat in the bar. Listen to the music - you can hear and feel the beginning beat of the bar and go from there.
The most important thing to remember is to move to the beat - listen for the bass instruments and , they will show you the way. Remember there is nothing worse when dancing than to be "off the beat" - so listen and enjoy!
By: Eldene Heikkila
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Sept 4
Ivon Ulibarri & Cafe Mocha @ The Cooperage Rest
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Wellington Guzman
MI MAMBO
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