November 1, 2001
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Aleksandra Kuswik and Aaron Lieben salsa the night away at the Vets Hall in Santa Cruz.
Sentinel Photo by Shmuel Thaler
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Step right up to that sensuous salsa beat
By NANCY REDWINE
Sentinel staff writer
All eyes are on Aleksandra Kuswik’s legs.
On the stage at the Vets Hall, she demonstrates the basic salsa step. She’s wearing a short skirt and tight-fitting tank top, so it’s impossible to miss any of the serpentine rib and hip gyrations that are the foundation to salsa
dancing.
Hypnotized, nearly 50 of us make our hips sway like Kuswik’s.
You can bring your hips to the Vets Hall this Saturday night and get them moving again when Kuswik and her partner Aaron Lieben (along with Orquesta Gitano) throw a benefit salsa dance.
The event also celebrates the release of Kuswik and Lieben’s "Learn to Salsa Now" instructional CD.
All proceeds from the dance will go to the anti-fundamentalist organization, RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan), a group that has since 1974 aided Afghani women.
"We wanted to help the Afghani people since those are our bombs flying in their back yards," Lieben said.
Three years in the making, the CD "Learn to Salsa Now" was a collaborative effort, though Lieben gives Kuswik most of the credit. The CD-ROM is an instructional tool for beginning to advanced dancers.
"There are 59 different moves demonstrated, and each is part of an alphabet that can be mixed and matched," Kuswik said. "You can slow the music down or speed it up."
While the CD can be used by a beginner to learn to salsa, it works best as a supplement to classes.
Seriously sensuous
These days it seems like everyone wants to salsa.
The music is wildly infectious. The dance is seriously sensuous. The roles — leader and follower — are clearly defined, and, in general, gender-based: men lead and women follow.
Originally, Lieben wanted to teach what he called reversible salsa. But teaching salsa so that the leader and the follower could exchange roles proved overwhelming for students.
"Basically, we also found that the women wanted to be sexy and the men wanted to be masculine," Lieben said. "But we do have some students who learn both roles."
Kuswik and Lieben have been teaching salsa dance in Santa Cruz for four years. Their weekly drop-in classes at the Vets Hall are the largest in town.
Most nights there are 50 to 80 dancers, which inspired the teachers to set certain guidelines: It is requested that everyone wear deodorant. Breath mints are provided and encouraged.
Classes are "pay what you can," and payment is on the honor system.
"What we do is more of a community approach to dance," Kuswik said. "It’s more about connecting at a kinesthetic level, and becoming comfortable with the movement."
The Swinging Slugs
Lieben and Kuswik met through the Swinging Slugs, a UC Santa Cruz swing dance club. Lieben had been studying salsa since it was first offered by Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation in the early ’90s. Then he took what he knew
to salsa clubs over the hill.
"When I took my first salsa class, it was not popular yet," Lieben said. "I thought it was an odd dance, and I couldn’t make sense of the music. It was not like anything I’d ever heard."
The first salsa class that the two taught together was for a party at the university. Lieben taught Kuswik to dance salsa for the first time that night, then she turned around and helped him teach the class.
"Nobody noticed," she said.
Victor Valero, a bus boy and groundskeeper in Santa Cruz had watched other people salsa but never danced.
"I didn’t join in," he said, "because everyone was more experienced and had more moves than I did."
Then he started coming to the Tuesday night salsa class — and started dancing.
"I keep coming back because the dance is elegant and sexy," he said.
The crowd at the Vets Hall is surprisingly diverse — racially, economically and generationally — for Santa Cruz.
"Salsa pulls together different communities and ethnicities," Lieben said. "We went to the West Coast Salsa Congress this year, and we were definitely in the minority as Caucasians."
Pointing to the history of early swing dance bringing blacks and whites together, Lieben sees salsa as a force that acknowledges the increasing influence of Latinos, and brings people of all races together.
"Since day one, salsa has attracted people from all religions and cultures," said Bosco Gitano, founder of Orquesta Gitano.
"There’s something about the rhythmic aspect of the music that entrances people."
Putting it all together
Ferdouse Khaleque, the developer of an on-line dating service, has been coming to the Vets Hall for three months and he’s strong in the basics.
"By learning the fundamentals and looking at the smaller moves, you can put together a masterpiece," Khaleque said.
"Salsa is a great way of keeping fit. There are people here of all races, all classes. There are no barriers."
Not everyone is as confident of their ability to salsa. Karen Peterson, a mother of two teenagers, was at her first class Tuesday night.
"I’m a total novice," Peterson said. "And I lack a sense of rhythm."
But Kuswik believes that anyone can learn to salsa if they keep coming to classes and practice at home.
"It usually takes one to three months to get an understanding of the rhythm," she said. "One day when you stop thinking so much, it’ll click."
According to Lieben, a big part of learning salsa is training the ear to a different sound.
"Salsa bands play many rhythms simultaneously, some together, some separate," he said. "Where the rhythms collide is the clave."
The clave is both a musical instrument and the guiding beat in salsa music.
"Basically, the clave is two sticks hit together or a stick on a woodblock," said Kevin Moore of Orquesta Gitano.
"All other rhythms and instrument parts refer to the clave. Even if no one is playing the clave, the other parts imply it. For dancers it eventually becomes intuitive."
A chain of small steps
Salsa came to Santa Cruz in the early 1970s with Raul Rivera, a Puerto Rican from New York. His band Sofrito had a huge impact on local musicians like Bosco Gitano and Phil Retamoza, the founders of Orquesta Gitano.
There have been many changes since the band formed in 1981, but the line-up is now: Bosco Gitano, leader and timbalero; Mario Pérez, lead vocals (from Cuba to Watsonville); Phil Retamoza, guitar, bass and vocals; Kevin Miller, violinist
and arranger; Dan Phillips, piano; Alicia Rodriguez, trombone, vocals, writing and arranging; Francisco Andrede, percussionist; Jose Reyes, percussionist; David Kingsley and Ken Woodward, trumpets.
Orquesta Gitano is known for an original sound they call Salsa Fusion: a blend of Puerto Rican and Cuban salsa with jazz, funk and classical music.
When talking about the origins of salsa, it is impossible to separate the dance from the music.
"Salsa comes from Africa," said Gene Rojas, who plans to start a salsa class in Watsonville. "The French and the Spanish came to the Caribbean islands, and the native people copied their moves and made them their own.
"The slaves, who were brought to the islands, had to take those small steps you see in salsa because their ankles were chained. The Spanish and French aristocracy added the arrogance, the attitude. Then you have the pride of Africa.
"All those mixed together — that’s where salsa’s from."
Brenda Barcelo teaches Spanish at UC Santa Cruz. She started taking salsa classes at the Vets Hall during the summer.
"I’ve been dancing for 20 years," Barcelo said. "And these are the best dance teachers I’ve had.
"Since I’ve started, I’ve never missed a class. Everyone is so friendly. This is the dance class I always wanted to do, but my parents wouldn’t let me."
Go to www.salsastudent.com for more information about salsa classes and the CD-ROM.
