Art and his dance partner, Cristina, demonstrated some of the Rueda steps for me. Rueda is a Salsa dance style, but it is choreographed to be danced by a group. One member acts as a caller (in Square Dancing, by contrast, the caller is customarily not a dancer, but can be).
"Seeing is being infected with the excitement of rueda," Art says enthusiastically. "The primary reason it isn't popular around here yet is because the people who are capable of doing it don't (for whatever reason). I'm convinced that if people saw it and were extended an opportunity to learn it -- they'd do it readily."
I asked him if the music for Rueda is different from what I normally dance to, and he immediately took Cristina onto the dance floor to show me they could dance Rueda to the same songs. In fact, Art incorporates some Rueda movements into his normal partner dancing.
Acting on a tip from Salsa Eddy, Art visited Austin to learn Rueda from one of the leading teachers in the U.S. "Unbelievable. Totally engrossing," he recalls.
"Just a non-stop ball of excitment. Rene Gueits was the teacher. He's, I think, acknowledged to be the top Rueda teacher in the U.S. and I know that he travels worldwide to teach Rueda, too."
Gueits is based in Miami, and he has reportedly taught hundreds of people to dance Rueda in the same class. He is reputed to have orchestrated the largest Casino Rueda in the world, and has taught the dance style to nearly 50,000 students across the globe.
Art cannot say enough good things about the workshop he attended: "[Gueits'] teaching style is really fast paced. I wasn't picking it all up but I didn't have time to be frustrated 'cause I was having so much fun. Rueda is a 'team' sport that everybody can be successful in without worrying about be outshown by a superstar (who gets all the girls)...because all the girls dance with all the guys. It really, instantly, appealed to me. Plus, I think the music tends to be somehow a little different (different in the sense that you don't get a lot of descargas, hot percussion, fast tempos). It's more regular in its pace -- sorta like 'toe-tapping' in salsa style."
|
The toe-tapping came up when we talked about Rueda at Elvia's. You might have to regard Art as a Rueda purist, because he complained that some people in Houston who do dance Rueda don't include the characteristic toe-tap that the dance style calls for.
But though he describes the Rueda music as "more even" than regular Salsa, the two dance styles still share many similarities. I asked him how many people, at a minimum, he thought would be good for learning Casino Rueda with a true circle (where the partners change periodically).
"Four couples really would be perfect, but two couples is adequate," Art concedes. "'Two' for the reason that you can still practice the patterns and the transfers (i.e. the 'dame'). The only limitation with a two-couple scenario is that you don't really get the imagegeometry of the full 'rueda' (i.e. circle)."
Switching back to Salsa in general, I inquired about which bands Art prefers. He declined any special knowledge of the bands yet, but mentioned Ricardo Lemvo. In fact, the Wandering Salsero doesn't claim to be or act like an expert on anything in particular. He presents himself as opinionated.
He described his blogging as "mostly just my perspective on salsa stuff. Could be almost anything. Like my blog says, it's 'opinions, observations, commentary and...?' ...I've realized it would be very pretentious for me, just one person, to say that I'm a source of news because there's no way in Hades that me, just one person, could cover even a fraction of the real 'news'. So I'm honest enough to admit that I'm just talking about what I see. Recently I invited, and she accepted, Amy Cortez to be an associate salsa journalist with me and she has done a most excellent job. She seems to have exceptional skills as a photographer too."
I couldn't help but ask his opinion on which 2 or 3 clubs he would recommend to someone new to Houston. "Tropicana and El Chibcha," he replied quickly. "I most prefer El Chibcha, IF I know I'll have someone to dance with. I like the music they play better than anywhere else. If I'm going out but don't have a date, I'll go to Tropicana because there's always dance-willing ladies there -- and because I think the manager, Alfred, is a class guy."
###
|
