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Cyprus Congress
One of the things that fascinates me on my travels is observing what and who influenced different congresses in the way they are run and how they feel. The Cyprus Congress that was held in a lovely four-star hotel in Aiya Napa is in essence modelled on the UK Congress, and it’s interesting to see how it worked here albeit on a smaller scale.
The Congress in Cyprus is held in the South of the Island and run by Christos Shakalis who owns a dance school. It was attending and performing at the UK congress four years ago that inspired Christos to run his own event in Cyprus and he has taken the British blueprint and added his own Cypriot twist, which I believed worked very well.
He’s got an excellent team of people around him and the organisation was very impressive; it was also extremely well attended – there were 400 + in the various selection of workshops and close to1000 people in the parties! Bearing in mind that the Congress is only in its 2nd year it’s got a very bright future.
The atmosphere was great with dancing by the pool in the Hotel with the prices of the rooms very keen reflecting the out of season rates and “weather”. Yes the sun came out but so did the clouds! I really enjoyed the parties where I was privileged to be asked to MC the shows…only one small gripe, Cypriots are surprisingly reserved, perhaps because salsa is quite new to them and they didn’t know how to react. The small contingent from Lebanon seemed to make more noise! LOL. Hopefully next year they’ll be in full throttle and make us much noise as other salseros do all over the world!
And finally, one other thing that I find fascinating as I travel from congress to congress is how the local cultural and political situations do or do not influence the events. It’s very easy to just skim the surface of a country as you pass through, but sometimes you can’t help but find things out about people and localities that bring you right back down to earth and out of the “salsa bubble” so to speak
So, I knew about the history of Cyprus and the division of the Island, but until I visited this particular congress and spoken to one or two people I had no idea how it affected the national psyche 30 years on. To be honest, seeing things, albeit accidentally, from different perspective added a certain and unexpected depth to the experience and has certainly given me food for thought
Having said that, i think that that came out because of what I do and the fact that I am interested in politics and history – it certainly wouldn’t have been apparent to anyone else unless they sought it out
All in all, this was a very enjoyable and surprisingly illuminating congress and I look forward to seeing how it develops in the future
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