Last night I went with Dance Times Square on their holiday party outing to the Latin Quarter, a salsa nightclub in midtown on the east side, near Grand Central.
It was fun — I haven’t social danced in a really long time! Do think I might have hurt my knee though. How, I have no idea. I’ve damaged my meniscus coming out of a fish dive weirdly, trying to force turnout on an arabesque in attitude (back leg up, bent knee), trying to force turnout on rhumba walks, trying to force turnout in samba walks, trying to force turnout in ballet, yadda yadda, but I didn’t know you could really hurt yourself doing basic salsa steps?! Hopefully it’s just a bruise…
Anyway party started at the studio, where we had an hour-lesson in open Salsa taught by Tony and Melanie (who are back from Canada’s So You Think You Can Dance). Picture above, student Elaine (my friend) is in foreground dancing with Tony. After the class, we had food (lots of good munchy things like pate and cheese and meat slices and this enormous cheesecake, and bottles and bottles of wine 🙂 ), then walked several blocks to the club.
The club was nice, but small dance floor … although I have nothing to compare it to since I don’t go out to a lot of social dance clubs. They had a few bars (although, I find it a bit hard to dance drunk) and little areas for sitting around and chatting. We took an area on the second floor, and, when it got too crowded on the main floor, just danced up there. I danced mostly with my friend Steve, but then this guy who was not in with our group kept asking me to dance, which was nice at first, until I realized he was kind of a pelvis-grinder. Just too close for comfort. So, I told him I was tired the next couple times he asked, which of course made it hard to dance with others then. Steve told me I was fun to dance with because I unwind (out of a turn) like no one else, thanks to my “sinuous” body! 😀
Salsa band was fun, but it’s kind of funny; I’ve mainly been to parties at dance studios where they play a variety of music. So, I kept getting ready for a samba or rhumba or swing or something, and it never happened. Also, I really kind of wish people danced more in groups here, like they do in this video (when you get to the salsa club part, around 4:50). How fun would that be? And would seem to cut down on someone’s hogging another person all night. But I guess that kind of group dancing necessitates sharing a culture where you all know the same words and funny little moves, which doesn’t really happen these days … I guess except for the Electric Slide.
Anyway, very fun to see old friends again. I really should start taking a group class again at some point because it’s good for socialization, and, I realized after the night was over what a real workout it had been.
More formal review coming soon on ExploreDance.com.
