This weekend marked the 10th annual Los Angeles Salsa Congress. For those of you who don't know what that means, let me translate--4 days of nonstop salsa.
The event is held at the Radisson Hotel near LAX and consists of classes by professionals during the day, salsa music and dancing by the pool in the afternoon, performances at night and live music and dancing until 4 in the morning.
It's an entire weekend of being surrounded by people with the same crazed salsa obsession. You're sure to find people randomly dancing in the lobby, the parking lot, maybe even the bathroom.
Besides the great shared salsa vibe, a large part of the appeal is that you get to dance with people form all over the world. According to the L.A. Congress coordinator and a well-known L.A. salsa promoter, Albert Torres, teams from 47 different countries participated in this year's Congress.
I went to Congress Friday night and heard Cheo Feliciano and the New Swing Sextet perform live. I danced with people from Montreal, Mexico City and probably a lot of other countries I would have known about had I asked each person I encountered.
It's a great way to step out of your usual salsa circle, but you have to make sure you do just that. Since the event is held in L.A., it's still easy to get trapped in your usual routine, dancing with people you recognize from Steven's Steakhouse, the Granada, the Mayan or wherever you dance. If you dance a lot in L.A., you'll probably see a lot of familiar faces.
But for those of you going tonight and next year, here's my advice--take advantage of the diversity and dance with someone you don't know. Salsa with someone from Japan or Argentina or Puerto Rico. I'm sure it's not something you get to do every time you throw on your dance shoes.
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I tried dancing with all new people and everyone that I met was from LA. I was trying so hard to find people from out of state. Oh well, I still had a ton of fun and I danced my butt-off three days in a row. One thing is for certain. All the DJ's have good music. But, they do not play it until congress time. The music was unbelievable simply put and these are the people I see spin every week and they were playing stuff I still to this day have never heard of. I would never go home if this was the kind of music they played all the time.
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