I interviewed Alex Da Silva at the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio in North Hollywood where he teaches and asked him a few questions about L.A.’s salsa culture. He should know quite a few things about it. He is one of the main people credited for creating the “L.A. Salsa Style” that so many Angeleno salseros and salseras dance today.
Da Silva is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He came to the United States about 20 years ago and has been teaching and choreographing salsa since then. He started in San Francisco and then moved on to Los Angeles.
A 2002 and 2005 World Salsa Champion, Da Silva also instructs and choreographs for celebrities and production companies. If you don’t dance salsa, you might recognize him as one of the choreographers from the television show, “So You Think You Can Dance.”
He currently teaches five nights a week at various clubs and dance studios in the L.A. area. Here’s what he has to say about salsa in L.A. and beyond.
Q: What exactly is “L.A. Style Salsa,” and how is different from other types of salsa dancing?
A: In L.A., the correct way is dancing On 1(1). We do a lot of cross-body leads and tricks, a lot of patterns that when people from other countries say “L.A. Style,” it’s like Hollywood style with all the tricks.
It’s called West Coast style. You could see the difference if you see somebody from New York and see somebody from here.
*(1): “On 1” refers to West Coast style salsa dancing. In this style, leaders step forward on the 1-count and step back on the back on the 5-count.
“On 2” refers to East Coast style salsa, where the leader first steps back on the 2-count and then forward on the 6-count.
Q: What have you specifically contributed to developing the L.A. Salsa Style?
A: Before, I used to live in San Francisco and I was the only one doing the tricks, because I used to do capoiera(2). One of my first teachers, he was Chinese and he was a West Coast swing dancer, and he did a lot of tricks, so he did all these flips and neck-drops and the stuff that people had never seen in salsa.
When I first started doing salsa, I was just doing it regular, and I was like, “Man, I could put a little bit of capoiera into salsa, a little bit of swing into salsa,” and I had the best partners at the time. One of my partners was a ballerina, the other was contortionist, another one was a swing dancer, so we mixed.
And then when I was coming to L.A. at that time, I was winning every competition you could think of because the people here, they were only doing [things] like dips. No tricks.
I think if I was living in San Francisco, it would have been called “San Francisco Style.” I’m one of the first guys that brought all the tricks to L.A. because I used to do swing also. That’s why people call it L.A. Style and a lot of people say I’m one of the first guys that brought L.A. Style to L.A.
*(2): Capoiera is a Brazilian martial art and a form of dance. Dancers usually spar against each other to live music, using moves such as kicks, cartwheels and ground-sweeps and turning them into a dance.
Q: How would you say the L.A. salsa culture has developed over the years?
A: In L.A., there used to be four major groups. These people started traveling and they all moved, so some of the best salsa dancers at one point are from L.A. and they travel everywhere, all over the world, and they put L.A. on the map.
There are a lot of people that have been traveling everywhere, so L.A. is very strong. When they go to another country and they do all these flips and stuff and put it into to salsa, [people are] amazed.
There are enough teachers for everyone [in L.A.] because there are at least 100 teachers now. If you go to Steven’s Steakhouse [also an L.A. club], everyone has a card. My gardener has a card that says he teaches salsa.
Q: Do you think more people are learning salsa today? Is it becoming a trend?
A: Yeah, salsa gets bigger every year. I mean, there’s salsa in Afghanistan. My friends are in the war and they risk their lives once a month to go to a salsa club just because they need to have it. There’s salsa in India, there’s salsa in Japan… In every country, you can go dance salsa.
Q: New York is seen as the place where the salsa culture began. What about L.A.? How does it fare on the worldwide map of salsa?
A: In L.A. there’s bigger clubs than [in] New York. I’ve been to New York a long time ago, and I was there last year. New York is not the same. It’s more like they have socials. They don’t have clubs like L.A. The Mayan is a huge club [in L.A.].
New York is the happening place because on Monday night you could go see Tito Puente, on a Tuesday night you’d go see Celia Cruz… every night of the week, you can go see somebody famous. Here, we only have local bands.
And also, in New York, there’s a lot of Puerto Ricans, in which they sleep salsa, they wake up salsa, they eat salsa. Every day, you listen to salsa music at the liquor store. They were just born with it.
Before, Puerto Ricans, the Columbians and the Cubans were the best in salsa, but now, salsa went to a different level. You don’t have to be Puerto Rican, Columbian or Cuban to be the best in salsa.
One of the best guys is in Australia. He’s an awesome dancer and he’s not even Latin. Another guy, he’s half-black, half-Korean, and he lives in San Francisco. There’s so many great dancers out there that aren’t even Latino. So, that’s how big salsa is now.
Q: What is the most important thing a person needs to know to become a good salsa dancer?
A: If you have a good basic, then everything else is going to fall into place. If your basic sucks, it doesn’t matter if you know a hundred patterns, you’re gonna suck.
But if you have a good basic, a cross-body lead, spot-turn, just know your basics... you’ve got to learn how to do a single turn and a double turn before you start doing triples and quadruples.
Here, before, people in L.A. would learn the basic and then they wanted to learn how to do a flip. So, you’ve got to learn the basics first.
For more information on Alex Da Silva, go to www.alexdasilva.com.
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