Tasleem: My understanding is that your dancing experience did not start with salsa. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Shani: Yeah, I started from a totally different background. I started in ballet and jazz when I was nine. I tried it when I was five or six, but at that time, I didn’t really want to do it. I wanted to do something else, but then around the age of nine, I really got into it. I did jazz and ballet and modern. But at the age of eighteen I stopped, because in Israel, you have to go to the army when you’re eighteen. I was in the army for a year and eight months. So I stopped jazz and ballet. Also, the studio I was at was for younger people. So when you reach eighteen, you have to go to another studio.

How did you get into salsa dancing?

I was at the beach one day, and I saw people salsa dancing and I remember looking at them and thinking, “Oh, I really like it!” So me and the girls I used to practise with, we started dancing salsa. And very quickly, I started dancing in Latino del Mundo - The Israeli Salsa Academy.

There were two guys that managed it back then - Lior Petel and Ronen Paco Biran. They took me under their wings and they trained me. They have an instructor course there - how to become an instructor of dance. I became an instructor of salsa and we started teaching Salsa Cubana - Cuban salsa - or Rueda.

I was really into it, I LOVED it. I would dance a lot. And then we started dancing LA style, On1, in Israel. Me and my friends, we were all instructors, and we just got hooked on it. So we would watch videos and order DVD’s, and we were always trying to invent new moves. And then we started going to congresses. But since Israel is far from the United States, we always went to Europe. We ended up going to some congresses in the UK.

Can you tell us about your experience dancing with Johnny Vasquez?

I met Johnny in 2003 in the UK. We danced and we had really good chemistry. And he asked me, “Would you like to move to Spain and dance with me?” And I just said, “Yeah, I would.” But I thought it was just a joke. I thought he was just kidding.

And so I went back to Israel, back into my life. And then two months later, he called me. He said, “Hi, this is Johnny. Remember me?” I thought, “Oh my god!” because I really had thought he was kidding.
So a few months later, I ended up moving to Spain, all by myself. I didn’t speak Spanish at all. It was REALLY hard.

What kind of influence did Johnny have on your dancing?

He trained me. I already knew how to dance, of course, and I was a teacher and I put on ladies’ styling classes and I already kind of established myself in Israel, as an instructor. But he trained me to be at a different level - to be a performer. He taught me how to spin and how to style and how to dance faster. He brought me to another level. He also gave me a lot of tools on how to manage and handle a group. I became his dance partner, and I learned a lot from him. I can really say that he’s my mentor in that he helped me become who I am today.

How long did you dance with him?

I danced with him for three years. We moved to Italy after two years. Dancing with Johnny was really nice. It was beautiful. He taught me a lot, and I traveled all over the place. And everyone knew us. In Europe, everyone knew us. I thought it was always about Johnny back then, so I never knew how much we (us girls in his group) also affected people. But now that I’m really out of there, it’s nice to see that we did have an influence. I get a lot of emails, even now, from people I met during that time.

What made you come to New York?

Like I said, it was great learning from Johnny. But it really meant that we were always doing HIS style. I mean, you could incorporate your own style a little in the dancing, but in his shows, it had to be “typical LA Johnny style”. So after a few years, I felt like I wanted to explore more, I wanted to do more. And I wanted to move to New York. That was ALWAYS my dream - to move to New York (smiles).

And I feel like over the past two years since I got here, I developed myself as a dancer a little bit more, because I was able to explore. I’ve been able to ask, “Okay, what IS my style because I’m not only an LA style dancer, so what am I?”

You had mentioned before the interview that you are going to a ballet class today. How do you further develop your dancing? Do you still develop that ballet and jazz background with classes?

After I got into salsa, I kind of stopped dancing ballet and jazz as far as taking classes. I went once in a blue moon. And when you dance ballet or jazz, you really have to go all the time. With salsa, you can take one class, and then maybe skip the next one, and then go social dancing. I mean, you can do that when you get to a certain level, not in the beginning. But in ballet, no matter what level you are at, you always have to keep going. You never stop, and if you don’t keep going, then you kind of lose it. And then you have to start it over again - to build back your strength and flexibility.

So I stopped going to classes for about six years, and I just got back into it again in the past year. Now I go at least two or three times a week. I feel like I developed a lot more since I got back into it because I feel a lot more flexible and I’m a lot stronger in my technique. I understand technique a lot better, so I can incorporate it into salsa, and also when I teach. I teach the girls how to hold their body, how to hold their weight, how to spin, how to stop. And a lot of that knowledge comes from the classes I take myself - the jazz and ballet classes.

Are there other areas of your dancing that you’d like to develop further?

I want to develop myself as a WHOLE dancer, and not to be categorized only as a salsa dancer. Because that’s not what I am, I’m more than that. And I think you can tell, also, when you see a dancer on stage. You can tell that he or she has a background in something else - whether it’s ballroom, jazz, ballet, or Afro Cuban, or any other type of dance. You can see it. And I think it adds a lot to a dancer when you have this knowledge and experience in other dances.

I also would like to, in the future, be a jazz and ballet teacher. You have to train yourself to the level where you’re very good, so you can go and study it and go into college for it. At the colleges, they have auditions. So going to college and having that degree would mean I could go into studios and teach jazz and ballet to other people.

There are a few people in Vancouver, who I really enjoy dancing with, who happen to be from Israel. From what they say, and from what I’ve heard from others, it sounds like Israel has a great salsa scene. Can you tell us a little about it?

I love the salsa scene in Israel. It’s HUGE! The people in the scene are like a big huge family. Israelis are super nice, extremely friendly and very into family. So they always do things together. So if they go to a congress, they’ll be a BIG group that goes together. And they all go to different classes and they get a lot of experience. And then they all get together and they practise. That’s how I started. And that’s how salsa really developed there, because every time we instructors went to another congress, we’d bring back what we’d learn and we’d figure out how we could develop it further.

I go back to Israel every six months or so, so I do keep up with the scene. And the Israeli Congress is one of the best congresses in the world. If you ask people who have been there, they will tell you the same. I’m not saying this because I’m from Israel (laughs). It’s REALLY one of the best. It’s so much fun, and the energy is so high. It’s just very unique. The scene there is just unique.

Every other country has at least one main instructor that is really well known, or it’s really easy to travel to that place. But Israel is really isolated. So a lot of people are thinking, how is the level there so high? But the people there continue to study and travel to learn more about the dance.

Earlier in the interview, you mentioned taking a dance instructor course in Israel?

Yes, there is an instructor course for dancers who want to teach in Israel. So every student that thinks, “Oh, I can teach,” cannot just go ahead and open a class. If you want to teach in the main clubs, you have to go through an instructor course that is three months long. You learn how to teach all the levels, how to talk to people, and much more.

And they test you. And if you pass those tests, THEN you can go and teach. So the teaching system there is very good. Therefore, the students are good, because the teachers really know how to teach. And all of the Israeli dancers are in the same level growing up, not because there is no progression, but because nobody is really left behind.

I think that’s a really good system because everyone gets to learn in the right way. And when people from Israel travel, they already have a good lead or base, and they know how to dance. For example, Israelis who come to the United States, FIT right into the dancing here. And you don’t feel like they come from other countries or don’t know what they’re doing.

What style of salsa dance is popular there?

In Israel, they dance many different styles. Like I said, the scene there is huge and it’s been there for years. It started way back. And with so many Colombians there, the Colombian style used to ROCK. Everywhere you’d go, it was Colombian style there. And then it changed to Cuban, and then the LA style came in. So in Israel, they dance many styles of salsa. They have a lot of knowledge of the dance too.

What do you think makes a good dance teacher?

1) A teacher, especially in salsa, should read his students well, because not everybody is the same. For example, I might explain something to you in a way that you would understand, but another person might not understand. You should have many ways ready to explain ONE thing. And to say, okay, he didn’t understand it like that, so let me try to explain it like this. Also, there are so many students who I can be so down to earth with, and there are some students that I have to be more formal or official with. So you always have to know who is in front of you.

2) I think a teacher should really have knowledge of the background of the dance, not just know the steps. That way, he can answer any questions that are thrown at him and it is obvious that he really knows what he’s talking about.

3) I think it’s very important for a teacher to be patient, because there are teachers out there that aren’t. They just want to teach and go home. It’s not really important to them if the student gets it or not. They just want to throw a lot of material at the student, so that he thinks they’re learning a lot. The student will think, “Oh, I learned so many steps, I’ll keep coming.”

That kind of teacher is only thinking about making money. But to me, it’s more important that the students learn one to two steps, and they do those steps really, really well. And if you explain that to the students from the get-go, the students are going to start understanding the difference between just THINKING they are learning to dance, and REALLY learning to dance. If they just learn a bunch of steps, they’re probably not even going to remember most of them by the end of it. If the teacher is not patient, then he will never be able to create good dancers.

4) Also, a teacher should always be creative, because you never want a student to be bored. Keep the lesson fun and find and make use of things that the student can connect to.

5) I’ve seen people just copy and paste steps because that’s how they were taught. There’s no understanding behind it. I think it’s really important for teachers to help the students really understand what they are doing. Also, you, as a teacher, should encourage the student to be who THEY are, and not who YOU are. Teach them one way, but keep them creating themselves. That’s why YOU as a teacher, always have to keep creating yourself too. Give your students a lot of options so that they can choose. Because I don’t like that massive wave where everyone sticks to one style and everybody looks the same. No. You can learn from who you learn from, but still be you. And that’s something that a lot of teachers don’t do for their students. They want their students to be just like THEM! But as a teacher, you don’t want to create robots.

You’ve been teaching ladies’ styling for awhile. Do you have some tips for girls, especially when it comes to styling?

I think that any styling, especially ladies’ styling, should be a nice WRAP to the technique. So if a girl, or a dancer, has really good technique, the styling doesn’t have to be over the top. The amount of styling will be different depending on what you’re dancing for - you may be social dancing, you may be dancing professionally in a performance, or you may just be doing it for fun.

But Griselle (Ponce), or Yesenia (Peralta), for example are much more raw. They have a lot of flavour in their dancing. Another dancer might have a more hip hop style, or ballroom style. Each style has its own look and movement. And I think you should stick to your style if it feels good for you. And you WILL be able to develop that further if you have strong technique. I don’t think it’s necessary for girls to go and ask for a lot of styling moves. If you develop your spins, your movement, your isolations and your own style, and just keep moving to the music, then your dancing, and styling, just falls into place. It just falls into place.

You look very comfortable being on stage and performing. Are you aware of the audience during a performance?

I’m VERY aware of the audience. That’s something actually that Johnny taught me. I used to go out there and I was so scared, especially in Johnny’s group. There’s so much pressure. And I used to get so tense. And then when I got tense, I tried to relax and when I tried to relax, I couldn’t really just dance because I was thinking too much.

So he would tell me, “When you go out there, go from one side of the stage to the other. Just look at everybody. Just make eye contact with the people.” He taught me how to come out on the stage and just look at everybody with confidence. And the funny thing is, doing that DOES give you confidence. So you always have to look for somebody and have eye contact, and smile. Don’t close yourself off. The more you open yourself to the audience, the more the people respond to you. And then YOU get more hyper. You have to connect with the audience. You can’t dance flat. Yeah. I very much connect to the audience, especially in shows that are in clubs because the audience is so close.

In your performances, your passion for the dance is very evident. It can be seen not just in your feet or your body, but it’s also in your facial expression. And it allows the audience to feel it too.

It’s really funny. When I perform, I don’t think, “Oh, let me do the faces, I want to look like this or like that.” And sometimes, it doesn’t help me NOT to think about it, because if I’m sad or I’m having a bad day, or I’m totally upset or whatever, it’s hard for me to hide what I’m feeling. Even if I think I forgot a step, you can usually tell on my face. So I’m learning how to control that so I don’t let it show so much.

But when I’m performing, I just PUSH it because I LOVE performing and I enjoy the energy of the people. A good dancer always has to do a good performance, even if the crowd does not have that much energy. You always have to put yourself out there. What do I do? I don’t think about the crowd, who is there, or who is watching me, or how the floor feels. I’m aware of the audience, but I don’t think about everything around me, At least, I TRY not to. I try to just be with myself and just to dance (smiles), and do what I LOVE to do. That’s why it comes out the way it does. And that’s why you see that expression in my face, because I DON’T THINK. I just don’t think. If I go off stage and somebody asks me how this move or that move went, or they say, “Did you do this, or did you do that in your performance?” I don’t really know (laughs). I don’t remember. I was just flowing. Whatever happens, happens. I just throw myself out there, because I feel it and I love it so much (smiles).

After the interview, Shani and I waited outside for the bus that would take her to her ballet class in Manhattan. Shani would pop her head out down the street every now and again, to see if she could get sight of the bus. I was ready to give up after being out there for awhile, but Shani, determined to get to her class, persisted to wait. I can’t help but to recall what she said just moments before the bus finally arrived:

“You know, it depresses me when I don’t dance (laughs). I don’t know what I would do without it. Dancing is just a part of me,” she said smiling. “I think it will always be a part of who I am.”

Find out more about Shani Talmor at the Caribbean Soul Dance Co website: www.ismaelotero.com

And for info about the Salsa Congress in Israel, visit: www.medsalsacongress.com