SPICY SALSA

Dance benefit at Veteran's Hall aids Afghan refugees

by Julia Charland


	THE DANCE OF LOVE Aleksandra Kuswik (left) and Aaron Lieben have got the moves.

Almost everyone who swings their hips through the Veteran's Hall on Tuesday nights tosses around excuses for why they can't dance. Some claim they have two left feet, they're too "white," or they don't have rhythm. Aaron Lieben has heard it all over the last four years of teaching salsa dance. But on Saturday, Nov. 3, he's not accepting any excuses. He's offering some answers - to Afghan refugees. He and Aleksandra Kuswik are hosting a benefit salsa dance with lessons at the Veteran's Hall. Proceeds will be donated to RAWA, a refugee fund that provides financial support to Afghan women and children.

"This could be the largest humanitarian crisis of our time," Lieben says, of the current world situation. "Seventy percent of the refugees are women and children, and they aren't getting close to the amount of support they need."

The lesson begins at 8pm and the 10-piece salsa band Orquesta Gitano will begin playing at 9pm. Exquisite Afghan crafts will be for sale in a silent auction.

Salsa has seemingly become a more popular dance form. At a recent salsa convention in Los Angeles, Lieben and Kuswik saw more than 50 different countries represented. Lieben says anyone can learn it.

"When I started, I had no natural talent," he explains. "I didn't pay attention to the rhythm and I led so forcefully that I developed tendonitis."

Watching him now on the dance floor, teaching others and creating his own steps with his fiancé, Kuswik, one would presume that his rocky beginning was back in the funky chicken dance era.

But it was in 1993 that Lieben began taking dance classes to meet new people in San Jose, because the Santa Cruz dance community was quite small at the time. A few years into it and he discovered a passionate new hobby. He also discovered his future wife, Kuswik. At one of their first dates they together taught a dance lesson at a college dorm party. They're still dance partners, now with a wedding only a few steps away.

The pair decided to bring salsa lessons to Santa Cruz in 1998, and rented space in the Louden Nelson Center. But the drop-in classes were soon so packed that they moved to the sizeable Veteran's Hall, where the classes are currently held on Tuesday nights. People aren't turned away if they can't afford the class. Mints are provided, and an etiquette list suggests that everyone wear deodorant. The dancing draws about 50 to 100 people per week. Crowds flock to the class for instruction, but also for the community experience.

"The salsa classes bring a diverse group together," says Lieben. "People of all different ages and ethnicities are united in dance ... I don't know how many relationships have been born though the class."

At the benefit dance this Saturday night, the couple will also celebrate the release of their interactive salsa CD-Rom, Learn to Salsa Now. The software will revolutionize the way people learn to salsa. Over 50 dancing moves can be played individually or combined seamlessly to create a unique salsa dance. The speed and camera angles can be changed, and tracks from Orquesta Gitano show how the rhythms of traditional salsa music interact. This project was initiated when Kuswik was assigned to produce software for a computer class; she found the suggested ideas dry and boring. Combining the project with something she loved, Kuswik began creating the interactive salsa lessons. Finally, after three years of refining the program, Learn to Salsa Now is ready to kick up its heels.