The Latin Low-down

Who is the SalsaSage? …How did she come to be a salsa crazed woman… this is invisible thread. Over the next few months Chris will be delighting you with interviews and articles about the best and most talented Salsa Dancers in the World. So here is her first introductory blog for you....... Enjoy!

You see, the thing is this, how come a girl from the town at the bottom of a Welsh valley, with the old factory by the canal, with the Roman ruins on the hill and the remains of the Benedictine Abbey by the river, with the pubs and with the Chapels and the close harmony singing, is so bewitched and captivated by the music and the rhythms and the spirit and the passion of something that seems to come from so far away.

Because some things just get under your skin.

In my family, so legend has it, an Englishman came with the railways who spoke no Welsh. And the Englishman met a Welsh girl who had no English. And they fell in love and they got married, and a couple of hundred years later, here I am.

And that’s how I know, that sometimes you don’t need to speak the same language out loud, you just need to understand underneath, somehow.

So when I go into a room full of salsa dancers, I go into a room full of people who understand underneath the same thing as me. We may all be there for different reasons – for friendship, for exercise, just to be around people; some may want to teach, some may want to perform, some may simply want to dance. We could be 18 or 80, healing wounds, looking for love, following a dream, having a laugh, learning, escaping, just enjoying…but whatever, however, we are all doing the same thing in the same places to the same music…and so different though we most certainly are, deep, deep down we are not.

In a fragmented world, where families and friendships are scattered across the globe, how comforting to walk into a place and pick up an invisible thread to people that have a passion and an understanding for the same thing as you.

This is my first blog – there will be many more – follow me as a weave my way around salsa-land, talking to salsa-people and asking them searching questions – What makes Edie the Salsa Freak tick?. Where do The Swing Guys get their ideas from?, From which particular eternal spring does Johnny Vasquez get his energy. What about Tito and Tamara, Leon Rose, Tamambo?. Want to know more about relative newcomers Neeraj Maskara, Mauro and Eva, Lee and Shelley; and what about those that don’t travel the globe spreading the salsa word, but work hard to bring salsa to your doorstep – Salsa Chillout’s Terry and Yolande, for instance, Absolute Salsa’s Lee Hunter, or Irene Miguel,. And as for the DJ’s – how do they manage to create that party mood so distinctly identifiable to them - well, I’ll ask Julian the Duke, if you like, and DJ Lubi, Jose Luis …..the list is endless. I’ll speak to all of them and report back, and after that, I’ll speak to more movers, shakers, talents and creators, because, lets face it, the more you know, the more you want to know. Well, I do, anyway.

And I may occasionally throw in some sage musings of my own based on my experiences as an ordinary salsera, joe blogs, man on the street, so to speak..
Because we are all in it together, after all.

It’s a wonderful, vibrant, quirky and fascinating alternative universe, planet salsa, and I am so very glad I found it. Even though I was quite old when I did. Or did the invisible thread find me…

In her next edition of The Latin Low Down SalsaSage will meet and talk to a Salsa Star!

Copyright Chris Penhall 2007

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