That’s the question that crossed my mind when I recently heard about The San Diego Tango Festival coming here in January. (The picture of the two killer whales tango dancing is the logo for the festival). Although tango and salsa dancing are intrinsically different in a number of ways, the idea of having a festival here serves the same local interests.
First, as we saw in the San Diego Salsa Festival here recently these events help promote the dance in a way that is different from your everyday exposure to the dance. This is so because these events help foster intense immersion into each dance in a way that is not possible unless you live, breathe, and work in the dance world. With tons of workshops and classes to be a part of, salsa and tango festivals are great ways to jump into the dance.
Secondly, these festivals are great for San Diego in that they bring great exposure to our local dance scene. With the recent San Diego Salsa Festival, people from all over the world traveled to participate in the event and helped to bring more visibility to our growing salsa dance community. Although I have yet to attend the San Diego Tango Festival, I imagine that it will work in a similar way to bring great exposure to the tango dancing that San Diego has to offer.
I’ll write more about this event as it approaches. In the meantime, I invite any readers out there familiar with the event to post comments or contact me with more information. For now, I leave you with a video taken from the 2007 San Diego Tango Festival. Enjoy!
It was a busy weekend for San Diego dancers and music lovers as both the San Diego Salsa Festival and Street Scene took place this last weekend. Both events had tons of performers and it would be great to hear from reader’s out there that attended both about your experiences.
If you’ve been following Ritmo Bello for some time now you know that I’ve written about the upcoming San Diego Salsa Festival covering topics ranging from San Diego Salsa Festival travel deals to tips for first time attendees. I thought it would be fitting to complete my review of the upcoming festival by including the full schedule and performance line up for the whole weekend.
Along with the original schedule of salsa dance workshops, this updated schedule below of salsa performers has the additions of Richardo and Michelle (Pretty Boys & Girls Dance Co.), Jo and Jo (Afeenix Dance Company), and Edwin Rivera and Ashley Dawson (From “So You Think You Can Dance?”). Most if not all of the performers are in competition to receive a coveted spot for the World Salsa Championships.
Don’t forget to RSVP for the San Diego Salsa Festival if you haven’t done so already to find out more information about the event that starts Friday night.
The San Diego Salsa Festival is almost here! Day one of the salsa festival begins this Friday night and I know many of you are excited to attend. I wanted to give you all a sneak preview of the salsa band that will be playing at the event on Saturday night. Salsa band Lucky 7, shown here in this video, is a multi-ethnic fusion of 1950’s and 1960’s Spanish Harlem. The band is known for bringing the high energy sounds of the classic mambo to those ready to dance.
San Diego has a new dance team under the direction of Susie Nguyen and Juan Garcia.Renamed as Ooh La La Dance, the duo help direct a number of dance teams including the Cosabellas and Hot Tamales.
In 2007, Juan and Susie participated in the 3rd Annual World Salsa Championships as the first San Diego couple to represent America’s Finest City.The video here in this post showcases their performances at the Championships.
This new dance company, along with many other local favorites like Majesty in Motion and A Time to Dance Studio, will also be participating in the upcoming San Diego Salsa Festival later this month. Make sure to check them all out if you attend!
As the San Diego Salsa Festival approaches, I’ve received numerous emails from people that are attending the event. For many of these folks it will be their very first salsa festival or congress that they will be attending. Many of these dancers are unsure about how someone can maximize their time at a salsa festival given that there will be so much to experience.
Apart from taking advantage of the salsa workshops that I mentioned in a previous Ritmo Bello article , I think it’s vital for new attendees to the salsa festival to fully integrate into the event by simply dancing and interacting with other attendees. I know from my own experience that it can be a little intimidating to arrive at a salsa event of this magnitude and be overwhelmed by the big names in attendance when you are just starting out. The Unlikely Salsero (aka Don Baarns , a friend of Ritmo Bello and online salsa dance resource, recently wrote about the upcoming San Diego Salsa Festival and addressed some of these issues. In particular, he’s written a 2 part series with tips and recommendations for those attending a salsa festival or congress.
Check them out and feel free to offer up any comments here to help out those attending the San Diego Salsa Festival for the first time.
For everyone that attended the San Diego Salsa Festival last year you’ll remember that a major focus of the Festival was the salsa competition. Indeed, the majority of salsa festivals or congresses are great opportunities for salsa dance teams, both local and from afar, to showcase the hard work they put into their dancing.
The San Diego Salsa Festival has the added benefit of being an official qualifying location for the World Salsa Championships . This major salsa dance competition is being held on December 3-6, 2008 in Florida and brings together the best in what salsa dancers have to offer.
The objective of the World Salsa Championships is to see which couple or teams in each division can best interpret salsa music and dance regardless of the repertoire of tricks that are employed. What this means is that the competitions are looking for those who truly feel the music and can express what they feel in the dance for the benefit of the salsa community.
The World Salsa Championships is a collaboration of salsa dancers around the world united under Albert Torres and The Salsa Seven, Inc , the producer of the event and pictured below. The hope of this major event is to bring more visibility to salsa dancing as a whole to the general public and to create what he describes as “unity through salsa.”
So what can we expect at the San Diego Salsa Festival for competitions? There will be 4 categories of competition with only 1 couple and only 1 team moving on to the competitions in Florida . The areas of competition include On1 salsa couple dancing, On2 salsa couple dancing, Team dancing, and a Cabaret couple division. An example of Cabaret style might look something like what is seen in this video included in this post below. (A Time to Dance Studio, the major supporters of the San Diego Salsa Festival, appear here during a recent performance at Aubergine.)
The judges will determine who moves on to the World Salsa Championships based on timing, overall technique, difficulty, connection/partnering skills, choreography/originality, appearance, and showmanship.
The winning couple and teams not only secure a spot at the World Salsa Championships, but they also get compensated for their hard work. This compensation comes in the form of paid flights to Florida courtesy of the San Diego Salsa Festival along with all meals and hotel accommodations provided by Salsa Seven, Inc. Not a bad deal if you ask me.
As it gets closer to the 2nd Annual San Diego Salsa Festival here in San Diego this September, there may be many of you wondering what happens at a event like this. Indeed, before I attended my first festival (aka salsa congress) for salsa years ago I really had no concept of what went on during an event like this.
If you are a beginner and just learning to dance salsa, the festival will present to you a massive assortment of options to dance, watch performances, and most importantly learn a great deal about salsa dancing. One aspect of the San Diego Salsa Festival that will be of particular help to new dancers are the numerous workshops scheduled throughout the weekend.
A salsa workshop is a little different from a traditional salsa dance lesson in that salsa workshops allow the instructor to really concentrate on certain aspects of the dance. This is helpful because let’s say you already know how to salsa dance but want to learn some new styling moves without going through the basics once again. A specific salsa workshop like the one Iran Castillo is hosting at the San Diego Salsa Festival might interest you as it will focus on “cool moves” and “On2” dancing.
The workshops during the San Diego Salsa Festival start on Friday night with a beginner’s boot camp workshop that will consist of 3 hours of focused dance instruction for those new to the dance. The rest of the weekend will have workshops hosted by local dance studios like A Time to Dance, Salsa Inferno, and Majesty in Motion. There are also workshops hosted by visiting studios and instructors from as far as Cali, Colombia.
It’s getting close to that time of year again, time for the 2nd Annual San Diego Salsa Festival ! Hard to believe a whole year has gone by, but I’m glad this fun event is coming up soon. This year the event is taking place September 19th through the 21st .
For those of you planning to attend the San Diego Salsa Festival this year I’ll be writing a number of articles with some helpful information, especially for those coming from out of town.
If you are traveling to San Diego via air, most people will be able to easily find flights that arrive at Lindbergh Field . Lindbergh Field is San Diego’s main airport and offers domestic and international flight options to travelers. If you are on a budget and don’t mind putting in a little work to save a buck another option might be the Tijuana International Airport . I recently took a family member there for an international flight to Colombia, South America and he was able to save at least $600 on his ticket. The only catch is that you need to make your way from Tijuana into the US and this could add additional wait time due to border crossing.
Once you arrive, you’ll need to get to the venue where the San Diego Salsa Festival is being hosted. This year the San Diego Salsa Festival will be at the Four Points Sheraton once again, same place as last year. If you stay at this hotel the reservations for choice rooms could be pricey, but you can try finding good rates through hotelscombined.com , as this website will allow you to compare over 30 major reservation sites in one search. I did a specific search for the Four Points Hotel and found that the rates are pretty good. Check it out here:
Apart from getting here and finding your lodging, you’ll want to explore San Diego during your stay and there are plenty of rental car agencies available for car rentals. You could take advantage of public transportation to get to places like Downtown San Diego most notably taking the iconic San Diego Trolley to travel around.
I’ll keep you posted on more things to consider for your trip to San Diego as it gets closer to the 2nd Annual San Diego Salsa Festival.
The San Diego Salsa Festival is coming again to San Diego September 19-21st. The festival brings world renowned performers, instructors, bands and DJ’s to San Diego. I went to the same event last year and it was cool to see not just visitors from out of town in competition, but also to see the local dance talent compete.
You can find out more information about it at their website (if you go there you might want to tell them that it is not COLUMBIA but COLOMBIA - I’m referring to their listing of Ricardo and Viviana from Cali, Colombia as seen here in the picture from the website. This isn’t the first time somebody has misspelled the name of the country much to the disdain of Colombians around the world and here in the U.S. This is apparent looking at articles and others like this on the internet.)
