Tag: reggaeton

Categories
salsa videos youtube

Belatedly, Oscar D’Leon

oscar-deleon.JPG
Around six weeks ago we went to see Oscar D’Leon at the Roundhouse in London. Aged 65, he’s one of the top salsa stars in the world. Which means that despite living in Oxford UK, hardly the home of salsa, I have now seen:

Oscar D’Leon (London)
Charanga Habanera (London)
Manolito y Su Trabuco (London)
Maikel Blanco (Havana)
Pupy y los que Son Son (Havana)
Septeto Santiaguero (Santiago de Cuba)
Los Van Van (London)
Buena Vista Social Club (London)
Afro-Cuban All-Stars (London)
Celia Cruz (London)
Jose Alberto (London)

If you’re not a salsa fan this won’t mean anything to you. But it’s roughly equivalent for an indie-rock/pop fan to have seen the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Blur, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Green Day and whatnot.

Damn I feel lucky. Oscar D’Leon, what can I say? He’s an amazing performer, a formidable dancer and bass player; he sang and elegantly danced his way through a two-hour set without a break, almost without pausing between songs. He can improvise in the most amazing way (but so can all the best soneros I’ve seen).

And he can do reggaeton. Maybe not like a young hipster. But man, he gives it a go.

Here’s a video I recorded that evening – quickly risen to be my Youtube channel’s most popular video. It’s distant – we were far away, but you can sense the energy in the audience. The camera work is a bit shaky for the first 30 seconds because I literally couldn’t stand still, I was so excited.

I mean. OSCAR D’LEON!!!! Jess – espero que te gusta pero MUCHO!

Categories
cuba salsa

That’s what I’M talking about…

Just came across this Youtube video entitled, Reggaeton in Cuba, 3 hot girls dancing in a disco.

The first two girls dance about as well as I might hope to dance one day if I keep practicing 30 mins a day. (Oh let’s face it, I’m dreaming.)

The third girl, especially when she gets going, looks to me like a professional dancer. She is awesome!

The band is Charanga Habanera, timba geniuses, and according to the debate on Youtube, the dance is known as reparto. But it looks like what we in the UK refer to as reggaeton.

Dale reggaeton!

Categories
cuba other books salsa

Orishas Dancing at Buena Vista Club in Oxford

Not the Buena Vista Social Club of massive Cuban-band-fame, but a monthly Oxford Cuban salsa event organised by local Cuban dance fans who arranged for us to have our very own locally-based professional Cuban dance teacher, Ariel.

I’ve been chatting to Ariel quite a bit since we happened to coincide in Havana when we were over there. I’d mentioned to him about seeing Yoannis and partner doing an improvised Afro-cuban dance in Santiago de Cuba. Maybe he remembered that, because at the end of the afternoon workshop in which he taught us the dance of Eleggua, one of the orishas, or Santeria deities, Ariel offered to dance to the song “Y Que Tu Quiere Que Te Den?” (And What Do You Want Them To Give You?) and show us the dances of all the orishas who are sung to in that song.

Which was a major bonus for me, because of something I’m planning for an important scene in my latest project codenamed ‘Jaguar’. No more info for fear of spoilers… Perry, one of the organisers of Buena Vista in Oxford, is going to put up a video on Youtube.

Another one of those weird coincidences – I saw a British woman dancing reggaeton and recognised her from the world-famous dance hall, Casa de La Musica, Havana, a few weeks ago. She was pretty unmistakeable – I’ve rarely seen a white woman, let alone British, move like that! When my daughter and I went to Casa de La Musica, the Cuban guys we were with were amazed and said about this woman – “She moves like a Cuban.” I went over to talk to her and her friend, and they were indeed the two women we’d watched dancing with two quite well-known dance teachers from Havana.

She told me that just over a year ago she went to Cuba to learn to dance for the first time – as a beginner! I was staggered!

That does it. I must practice reggaeton at least half an hour a day from now on.