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I
was absolutely fascinated by Juliet McMains lecture on the
history of salsa dance and music that she delivered at the
Seattle Salsa Congress in November, 2008. First of all –
who ever heard of a 'lecture' workshop at a Salsa Congress!
We, salsa addicts, are crazy about learning new moves and
styling and devour classes from famous instructors, but how
many of us know where the dance came from, how it has evolved,
or even who the musicians are that create those soulful rhythms?
Juliet, a champion dancer, instructor,
and dance scholar, brings some light to these questions and
more. She explains the blending of culture and politics that
created Salsa music and dance and how Salsa dancing has moved
from its roots as a street dance into a commercialized product.
Juliet argues that our modern obsession with turns and patterns
has disconnected us from the music itself. |
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| Biography
Juliet is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the
University of Washington. She has over twenty
years of experience in multiple dance disciplines
– including ballroom, salsa, swing, ballet,
jazz, modern, yoga, and dance history. As a DanceSport
professional, she has taught at studios and universities
in Boston, California, and Florida, traveled internationally
to perform and compete. Juliet has won championships
in the U.S. and Canada and twice been named a
U.S. National Rising Star finalist. Juliet has
a Ph.D. is Dance History and Theory from the University
of California at Riverside and a B.A. in Women's
Studies from Harvard University.
Juliet's academic specializations include dance
ethnography, social dance history, post-structural
theory, cultural studies, and feminist theory.
She has written a book titled Glamour Addiction:
Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry. |
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Juliet McMains and Sonny Perry |
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Nadaa: Tell us a little
bit about the difference between salsa and mambo and how the
dances have evolved over time.
Juliet: Salsa music was a political movement in the late
sixties and early seventies, coming out of New York and extending
all across Latin America. Salsa was based on Mambo music,
but it changed it in many significant ways. Salsa opened up
the structure of Mambo music so that it became more fluid
and incorporated elements from rock and roll, R&B, other
kinds of Latin Music. Mambo is a blending of Cuban Son with
American Jazz. It was developed in Cuba, but also in Mexico
and New York, with groups like Machito and his Afro-Cubans.
Without the connection to New York there would be no such
thing as the Mambo. Mambo is a blending of cultures. |
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A lot of the Mambo music
is about - let's have a good time, there is a pretty
girl. The Salsa music of the seventies is about violence,
poverty, about creating a voice for Latino people and
bringing them together. That's a really important change
in the music. A lot of the musicians and singers are
not classically trained so there is that rawness about
it – like this is the voice of the street and
the people. Salsa developed into so many different styles
and people started making salsa music all over Latin
America.
The music started to change and eventually the dance
changed too. In the 1970s, it was much more closely
connected to the musical movement. In the 1990s, salsa
dance became separate from the music and the musical
movement. This led to all sorts of changes that I think
are tragic – losses rather than gained. Salsa
started to become very commercialized in the 1990s. |
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I think we have lost the connection
to the music. Musicians can't get work and they are not respected.
The dancers and the musicians are not creating the thing together.
I think this is tragic because the music is going to die.
The dance movement will die to if we keep dancing to old music.
The music is now divorced from the politics.
What do you mean by the commercialization of salsa?
Turning it into something you sell. Before, the dance wasn't
something you could sell. In the 1950s there was a commercial
aspect of course. The professional dancers got gigs performing
in the Catskills and comedy clubs. If they were lucky they
could get big gigs in New York and Las Vegas performing. So,
there was always that aspect. But in terms of teaching and
the congresses, where you can buy a whole weekend and whole
vacation, where the product is focused around Salsa dance
– that's a really recent phenomenon since the 1990s.
That can be almost entirely separated from the music.
In the 70s and 80s there were huge concerts and tons of concerts
of salsa music and people would dance. But what you were buying
was a ticket to see musicians. It wasn't about going to dance
and to buy classes and congresses. People who are making money
now are the people who are teaching salsa dancing and not
the people who make the music they are dancing to.
What are some of the aspects of Salsa that have been
commercialized today?
I'll just tell you about one aspect that was commercialized.
One product is lessons and classes. You used to learn by watching
or just dancing or a friend told you how to do something.
In classes, teachers came up with a system for counting the
rhythm so it became more standardized. People had to come
up with standardized steps because students wouldn't just
pay money for a teacher to say okay here is some music - just
dance. So they came up with step names and had everyone doing
the same thing like carbon copies of each other. Now there
are thousands of teachers so they must come up with more and
more complex turn patterns so that people will keep on coming. |
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Juliet McMains and Sean Wilson
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Why did this
start in the early 1990s? What shifted the focus from
selling the music to the dance?
There has been a growing revival and
interest in partner dancing in 1990s general in the
US. It's linked to a large number of things, not specific
to Salsa. It is a reaction to technology - people want
to do something physical. They are isolated in their
own computer world, so they need active physical touch.
Salsa provides that. With the AIDS crisis, people wanted
a way to connect with other people in a way that wasn't
physical sex. You can get satisfaction with dancing
that you might get from a one night stand! It is also
a reaction to confusion over gender roles. People are
comforted by the clarity of lead / follow gender roles.
The popularity of Salsa has a lot to
do with increasing number of Latinos in the US and greater
interest in Latino culture, which became hip and cool
in America. A lot of Latin artists became cross over
musicians, like Marc Anthony. People that didn't speak
Spanish would listen to their music and were interested
in it. This opened the door to other Latin artists.
Tell us a bit about the research you are doing
for your upcoming book.
I am writing a book on the history of salsa and mambo
dancing. A lot has been written on the history and evolution
of the music, but very little on the dancing. A lot
of my research involves interviews with people that
have been involved in the dancing. I have interviewed
80-85 people so far. Everybody has their own perspective
on what happened. I can try to write a bigger story
that makes sense out of them all. |
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| I also do a lot of dancing,
especially with the older dancers I interviewed. Many people
who danced in the 1950s are still alive in NY and South Florida.
I dance with them and observe them with my body. I have been
able to discern differences in dance styles. They may dance
a bit differently, maybe slower, because they are older, but
their priorities are still the same.
What do old style dancers think of the new style
of dancing?
They all think the kids are obsessed with turns and think
that they are doing it all wrong. They all think the younger
generation has messed up their dance.
What has changed?
One of the biggest differences is the increased number of
partner turns. A lot of those turns and the ideas of the turns
came to Latin dance through hustle, in the disco craze of
the late 1970s. |
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| The old style of dancing
was richer in its relationship to the music. People
weren't as obsessed with doing so many complicated turns.
They [turns] are beautiful and fun to do and they are
great, but… before, they were more focused on
listening to the music and creating individual improvisational
movements, idiosyncratic body movements. I don't think
they were called shines so much. The term shines came
from swing dancing and I don't think it was applied
broadly to Latin dancing until it got commercialized.
When I dance with older Palladium style dancers, they
frequently let you play, even if you just have one hand
connected to them for one measure or two measures. It
could be totally separate or just holding with one hand
and then some simple turn patterns. Now it tends to
be lots of complicated turns and then you separate and
do a long sequence of shines. Before it was a few turns,
then play with it, then a few turns.
What does the younger generation think?
I don't think the younger generation pays that much
attention to the older generation. Most people don't
know they even exist. There's a few of them at congresses
like Mike Ramos and Freddie Rios that call themselves
Palladium Mambo Legends and people enjoy their shows
and go to their workshop, but that's just two people.
There were thousands of them.
Are there any teachers that are trying to revive
that old style?
Not that I know of. There are people that have done
shows with tributes to Palladium style. In terms of
teaching – I don't know of any.
Do you feel that salsa is becoming a bit separated
from Latino culture. Most people don't speak Spanish,
they just like the sound and the beat and how it makes
them feel?
There's another chapter in my book which is about the
difference between dancing you learn in the kitchen,
dance as part of culture, versus this activity where
you pay money, study, and practice. There are still
people that dance salsa as part of culture and learn
in the kitchen. Mothers teach their kids.
What do people that have grown up in Latin
America think about the way people dance here?
There is a variety of reactions. They can think it's
silly or think it is beautiful and want to get involved.
For example, Orlando has a huge Puerto Rican population.
In 2001, Salsa was considered a part of Puerto Rican
heritage. To show up in the club, even with my friend
who was Mexican, people would ask what are you doing
here? This is ours. But then the attitude gradually
shifted and it had a lot to do with this huge successful
studio where the people teaching were Puerto Rican.
It got a lot of Puerto Rican kids 'studying' their culture.
Even in Puerto Rico, there is a division between people
that study salsa and those that do the old style.
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Mike and Elita Terrace, Palladium Ballroom dancers,
circa 1961 (top) and still dancing today (2007,
bottom). They worked with legends such as Tito Puente,
Machito, and many other stars of the 1950s and 1960s.
Mike's stage and dance career spans a total of sixty
years, during which he's made innumerable contributions
to ballroom dancing. He is particularly associated
with the 1987 film Dirty Dancing. Terrace's
stories of the formative years of the Mambo in the
Catskills inspired Eleanor Bergstein's vision of
lead character Johnny Castle played by Patrick Swayze. |
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What's the Puerto Rican
'old style' of dancing like?
It is very similar to old Cuban style dancing. It is very
circular and not this slotted congress style. They dance on
1 or 3, not on 2. It has simpler moves and not all the fancy
turns.
What's your favorite style of salsa?
I like the old time style and the modern contemporary New
York style. I like people who can take the modern techniques
and turns and infuse them with the old time sensibilities
like attention to music and playfulness. I think that's super
important. The modern scene is really competitive so people
are showing off – trying to sell themselves and prove
something rather than just trying to enjoy the music.
How did you get into dance?
For most people who devote their lives to it
- dance chooses them, people don't choose it. I have been
dancing since I was very little. I didn't start formal training
in ballet till I was ten, which is very late for a dancer.
I was a traditional performing arts dancer, until I got involved
in ballroom dance in college. |
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Juliet McMains and Radim Lanik
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I wanted to study dance
from an academic perspective as well, but there weren't
courses offered or a model for how to do that. I majored
in women's studies and wrote my thesis on gender roles
and ballroom dancing. I was exploring traditional gender
roles in ballroom dance and how they were being challenged.
How people's beliefs about gender interacted with the
gender roles that were being performed on the dance
floor.
How did you go from Dance Sport
to Salsa?
I first started into salsa in 1997, when
I moved to LA, which had a huge salsa scene. The dance
wasn't nearly as complicated back then. The popular
vocabulary in LA at that time was twenty steps and that's
what everyone did – those twenty steps and some
variations. People weren't doing shines, but they were
into tricks. Flips and neckdrops were huge back then.
Those tricks come from ballet and ballroom, swing and
gymnastics. Dancers in LA were already borrowing from
ballroom. The steps are now more complex. LA still has
the emphasis on speed, aggression and attack that make
it LA style. It's still LA. It's showy. |
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| You wrote
in your book Glamour Addiction that you felt that
the chauvinism in the dance also translated into the dance
culture and that you experienced a lot of sexism and difficulties
as a teacher because you are a woman.
I think that society is still quite sexist, but since
all partnered dance is so gendered, I think it is particularly
so. The person with the power in the partnership is the person
who is leading and that is the man. That causes a lot of problems
off the dance floor.
Do you see an evolution in social dance where both
men and women take turns leading?
There has been evolution already. There is a lot more room
in New York style salsa where the women have a lot more to
say. Cuban style salsa in Cuba has a lot more freestyle, but
it is not taught that way in the US. Even within those traditional
forms the opportunities for shines or for women having more
of a voice and doing more teaching is becoming greater. |
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I don't know if you have
a Blues scene in Canada. It is an offshoot of the Lindy
Hop community. Blues is very popular in Seattle. It
is almost the dance form I wanted to invent twenty years
ago. It is way more improvisational. It uses the techniques
of lead and follow but it is more fluid as to who leads
and follows.
Blues is much freer and there is not so much structure,
so people improvise a lot more. When I dance blues,
I will do what I want and people will just follow me,
but I don't hold the man like I would a woman…its
just different.
When I moved to Seattle – I noticed everyone
says leader and follower instead of man and woman when
talking about the roles – and I thought wow that's
really progressive. It gives the opportunity for anyone
to take those roles. There is an open gay community
so there are some women that lead and some men that
follow. |
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However, just changing that
vocabulary does not change the roles. Whoever is leading is
supposed to be dominant and macho, whoever is following is
supposed to be sexy, pretty, and submissive. Changing the
vocabulary didn't change a thing.
How do you think that salsa could be more fluid in
terms of gender roles or be more open to women having more
of a say on the dance floor? It would be really strange to
lead a man in dance. When I try it is difficult and un-natural,
especially because of the size difference.
Blues is in between. He embraces her –
so you don't change the physical position. Because it is more
open, there are not all these moves you have to get through.
You don't change the physical position of him embracing her.
But if it is less obsessive with getting through spins and
turns. You chill out and listen to the music and improvise.
When the lady starts to do something, the man can catch on.
There is more space for shines. I think the New York style
also has more room for improvisation, particularly when I
dance with the old guys. I feel I have so much more space
with them to interpret the music.
What do you recommend to dancers today?
I would tell dancers to learn about the music. I teach my
students about the music and the musicians. I don't know why
others don't do that. Steps and patterns are part of it –
but really it's about the music.
How can people reading this interview learn more
about the music?
There are many great books. Learn about that artists. Look
at Salsa
Talks, which has interviews with lots of salsa musicians
and has photographs of them. Learn about a new musician each
week or month. The best way to learn is to get your friends
interested too. Get a community of people that are interested
in the music. Argue about who the best musician is. Get some
great music and dance to it. Ask the DJs when you hear a cool
song – share it with your friends for the different
qualities in the music and think about how your body and dancing
is linked. You can learn the music. I am taking a percussion
class…
For people that are just learning to dance, how can
they think about just allowing their bodies to react to the
music?
We count the music as a tool to understand the music –
but your body is not a metronome. Your body is not always
going to be consistent. You are actually allowed to play with
it. It's not just your feet that dance.
Who is your favorite musician?
I like the Fania musicians. I like the Puerto Rican stuff
and I like some of the older stuff. Salsa would be less rich
without the music of Tito Puente or the voice of Celia Cruz.
There are so many musicians I could name. |
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| View Juliet's favourite
musicians and additional resources (websites and related books)
in a separate pop-up window: click here |
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To
find out more about Juliet McMains, visit her website
DanceAddiction.com
Her book Glamour
Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry
is available from Amazon.ca
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