Would you be interested in going to a salsa festival?

Many salsa festivals and congresses are weekend events that start already on
Thursday and end on Monday. The classes of the most popular teachers and the
best parties are held on the main days; Saturday and Sunday. If you arrive
at 8 p.m. on Friday and leave back home at 8 p.m. on the following Sunday,
for example, and if your stamina and feet can take it, you will have time to
participate in two parties and eight salsa classes with the boost of seven
hours' sleep by night and an afternoon nap. This is to say, you might easily
dance 1/3 of your total time on the trip with old and new dancers, on and
above your level, from different countries. On my last weekend trip to
Tallinn (Tallinn Salsa Festival 2007), I danced 18 hours within 48 hours.

1. Where to begin?

This German site manages an updated list of salsa festivals. Usually the
schedules and teacher rosters are tentative and they will be confirmed later
by a certain deadline. The dates remain the same, though.
http://www.salsa-forum.de/congresos/

For starters, choose some festival nearby (Riga or Tallinn, for example) where the level of the dancers won't be simply overwhelming. Even though
most of the festivals arrange teaching for beginners, seeing about a hundred
professional or semi-professional dancers doing their thing at the parties
might make you want to go home back to mama because jumping right in won't be
emotionally very easy for a beginner. It's good to take your own partner
along or go in a group so that you're guaranteed to get on the dance
floor and other festival quests will see what you can do. This way you have
better chances to get to dance with other people on your level. Later you
might want to pick Prague in spring, a summery Berlin or Frankfurt in winter.

2. Workshops and parties

Workshops are usually divided into different levels: beginner, improver,
intermediate and advanced. When registering for a festival, you're often
asked to mention the level in which you want to participate. The levels
aren't followed very precisely, though. Instead, workshops are chosen according to whatever interests you the most. On the advanced classes, at least half of the participants are dancers who should actually be on the improver level. I have myself taken one beginner class, too (in order to learn following). At many festivals, the classes of different levels are held at different venues and similarly, the activities for the evenings are held at some other place than the lessons.

The teaching language at the festivals is generally English, not Spanish or any native language.

Remember that what's more important than the combinations is to pay attention to the style that the teachers and other skilled dancers dance in and try to grab influences.

The teachers at the festivals are like bagmen who journey around Europe, for instance, from a festival to another. Sometimes they travel as teaching couples and sometimes in order to cut down the costs (it's cheaper for the festivals to cover the expenses of just one teacher), they travel without their partner in which case the teaching will be arranged in cooperation with some other teacher there or with the help of some skilled local dancer.

At the parties, the music that is played is aimed to cater to the taste of visiting teachers and the audience. As well as the teachers, the DJs play at several festivals, i.e. circulate like traveling salesmen from a congress to another. Quite seldom, but at times, nonetheless, a salsa teacher may act as a DJ as well.

3. Dance styles

The main categories of the dance styles are:
On1: This is also called LA-style although in reality it is a wider concept.
On2: This is also called NY-style although again, it is actually a wider concept.
Others: This includes Cuban casino pair dancing as well as dance styles like afro, reggaeton, bachata, merengue, cabaret, etc.
On1 and on2 classes can be themed as partnerwork or footwork/styling type of solo dancing lessons.

Even if you had 20 years' experience of dancing Cuban salsa, you shouldn't assume that you belong to the advanced level in on1 and on2 classes although that's what many people do (probably works the other way around, too). Instead, take it as though you were starting to learn a whole new dance. You should also prepare for the fact that there won't be all that many people at the parties who dance Cuban salsa (except in Tallinn and Riga where Cuban teachers from Finland have paid visits).

4. Festival passes

Different kinds of passes are sold for the festivals that entitle you to get different amounts of teaching. Oftentimes, beginner passes are being offered which are cheaper than so called full passes. Beginner passes give you the right to participate only in beginner level teaching and parties whereas a full pass entitles you to all teaching and parties. The earlier you buy the passes the cheaper they are.

5. Accommodation

Festival organisers often have some hotel recommendations and they might have negotiated offers for rooms. A fine strategy is to locate all the venues of the festival on a map and book some nearby hotel/hostel from booking.com, for example. It's hardly worth it to take any luxurious hotel since you won't be spending there much time, anyway. Basic things (an own shower, breakfast etc.) are naturally nice to have there. It's good to do the reservations already when registering when the rooms are cheaper. Cancellation is usually possible at booking.com still a few days before the trip. Also the flights are the cheaper the earlier you buy them.

A majority of the festival arrangers compile a few pages long information packet for every participant which is handed out at arrival. It contains the final program of the festival with addresses, a map and a list of recommendable restaurants and other useful things. Sometimes the program might change a little during the festival.

6. What to pack for the trip (along with the normal stuff)?

- A video camera. At the end of the lessons, teachers will revive the things they taught during the class and let you record this. Come next lesson, you will forget what the previous class was about, anyway.

- At least two pairs of shoes; one pair for workshops, the other for parties.

- A spoon. It's a good idea to buy some snacks from a local grocery store to the hotel. You might fancy a banana, yoghurt or something like that at night before going to sleep after some serious partying.

- A half-litre water bottle that you can refill and carry with you to the classes.

- During daytime, people at the festivals dress up casually, but not in gym clothes because changing rooms are seldom provided and you will often go to grab lunch or even sightseeing in the same clothes.

- For the parties people dress up like they normally dress for clubs.

Tallinn Salsa Festival 2007 - resume

The Tallinn salsa festival has passed again. For me it was the third time, but for my dance partner Henni, it was the first. The "day after" feeling is a little wistful now that we need to adjust again to these rueda-go-round circles of ours.

The outward journey went quickly by Tallink Star amongst returning Estonian construction workers until there at the passport examination things jammed completely, mainly because there were only 3 counters open out of approximately ten for handling the queue (nothing has been learned during last 10 years, then...).

For the quarters we had a room at a hostelry called City Guesthouse where the heating was rather so-so, but the location was splendid: only a five-minute walk to the hot spot. We just had the time to take a little nap and then head for the kick off party.

Friday's opening party was held at the dance school Casa de Baile as well as the workshops, and it suffered from poor acoustics and dull monotonic songs. Almost the only ray of light was the fundamental song of all festivals, the panther mambo (LA33: La Pantera Mambo).

Saturday's main party, however, was arranged at the traditional and grand Teacher's House at the centre of Medieval Old Town where there was atmosphere in a whole another way. In the main hall, classic salsa music was played (this time a proper kind of) and in a small hall they played Cuban salsa. The only downside of the place was a sticky floor that put an end to my own partying at some point when the shoe soles got pasted to the floor. Cuban salsa would of course have been possible like that, too, but that would have led to total boredom, so it was better to stop at the top rather than as a vexed wreck.

The quality of the performances had clearly improved since last years. It was apparent that people had prepared and rehearsed for the numbers a long time. The performers were happy, charismatic and skilful. On top of that, the amount of the performances was small enough so that the party feeling didn't fade.

A lot of new combinations were learned and dances danced with many old and new acquaintances. What was new compared to previous years was the abundance of on2 lessons which of course made us mambo freaks happy. Thus our days passed at the classes of this style. Sadly, there were barely any women dancing on2 at the night parties, finding on2-dancing men would apparently have been possible.

A fun twist in the course supply was Salsatango fusion which will probably take a bit more practising than usual to be able to put it to use on the club floors. The show performance of the teachers of this class was the very highest quality. This was the first time I saw a salsa and tango mixing performance live. It is just the kind of a thing I've been dreaming of doing already for years, but presumably, it will remain a dream, too..

For quite a few people it came as a surprise that LA/NY salsa is actually danced in Finland. The Festivals in Helsinki and Tampere have apparently created our country a reputation as a haven of Cuban culture. This is something the festival organisers could take a little better into consideration - as there are LA/NY lessons in the program, appropriate music for this style could be played even a little at the parties, too. This way those who have wandered here from other parts of Europe would feel welcome as well.

At the last lessons of Sunday, my dear partner's battle endurance didn't quite last anymore (kids these days..), but luckily the content of the classes wasn't directly suitable material for club floors either.

A few facts to conclude:

- Lessons were held on three days: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We arrived on Friday night, so we missed the classes of that day. On Sunday we had to skip one class when we had to go back to the ship.

- Two nights totalled to about nine hours of partying, all this on top of the workshops during day, that is. Therefore we ended up dancing Salsa about 10 hours a day. Taking a nap between the classes and parties was truly necessary. It's worthwhile to eat well at breakfast and on a lunch break between the classes so that you will have time to sleep before the parties.