I always said that if I ever ran my own salsa venue, I would list the people who have influenced me the most in salsa. Just to give a little back to the people who have shaped the way I dance. Ultimately we are all individuals and we all move in our own unique way. Developing your own style, that you feel comfortable with, is part of the salsa learning experience. Maybe this re-cap of how my salsa dancing developed will influence you ;-)
Part1: Salsa Beginnings
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I started learning salsa in the late 90's at Bar Mambo in Guildford. Carlos Paz ran the venue and the advanced class was taught by William Dash. Everybody danced Cuban style salsa in those days and William was an incredibly smooth dancer. I loved the way the guy never looked rushed. He was great to watch and a nice guy too.
Then I went to Cuba with Kerry Ribchester. She introduced the idea of dancing from the heart, feeling the music, connecting with your partner and Afro-Cuban movement (something I still struggle with). Kerry's a fantastic person, great fun, and well respected in the salsa scene and beyond. She appeared on a TV program called 'Confidence lab' using music combined with afro-cuban body movement to help people regain confidence and improve their lives.The next big
thing on the salsa scene was 'Cross Body Lead' (XBL) style salsa. Imported from the USA, suddenly everybody was dancing lots of complicated moves. I attended various salsa classes Robert Charlamagne, Chandy David, Super Mario, Susanna Montero, but of all these XBL teachers Leon Rose had the biggest influence. I loved his classes because he not only danced this style superbly well, he also danced it with a huge amount of style and grace. A special mention to Super Mario here, as although I didn't attend many of his classes. The moves he taught, spread from his classes and everybody danced them. They didn't call him the 'million moves man' for nothing.
