Review – Hurricane Tumbao Debut Performance, salsa dance Portland, Portland salsa news

Hurricane Tumbao Debut Performance-Review

I came into Aztec Willie’s about 10 p.m. on Saturday, April 28, 2007. The free beginning Salsa class was still going strong, and the floor was crowded. I had never seen so many people in the classes! This represented a lot of newcomers to the Salsa world. That is a good thing! “Welcome, for you are our next generation!”

By 10:30 the floor was busy, but mostly with the newcomers. Not many of the longer-term crowd was there. At one point a cha-cha-cha piece came on and it was interesting to see how few couples knew the dance. One pair of women danced Tango to it. That was a new take on the dance!

By 11 the floor was nicely crowded. Not heavily, in that choked up sense that it can get during a live band. I asked a few how they liked the new wood-base floors. Everybody I asked loved them.

Todd and Shin, one of five performance groups for this evening’s event, came into the corner where I was typing and practiced a spin. In this spin, Shin squats down to the floor, and then Todd starts her spinning. After several spins on the floor in a squatting position, she slowly rises to a standing position, still spinning all the while. Wow! That is hard to do and she did it without a wobble!

The raffle started a little after 11. The first few tickets went by unclaimed. Suddenly people started claiming them, and the pace picked up. I saw a man approach a woman he didn’t know and give her his winning ticket to the Gemini Competition. That was an incredibly nice gesture; she said she would not have been able to afford it otherwise.

The first performance was at 11:15. Edgar Martinez and La Luz did a Bachata piece. It is a sexy music and they brought out that aspect of it. The performance started strong with a lift, but unfortunately it quickly devolved into a series of mostly crotch-grinds against the lead’s leg. There was very little shine to it, and they were sloppy in their execution. Overall the crowd was not particularly impressed.

Next was Todd and Shin, 4th-place winners of the 2006 Gemini Competition. They danced to Indestructible, a piece by the late, great Ray Barretto. They started out strong, with that “floor to standing spin” technical move mentioned earlier in the article. They did extremely well. They had a few good tricks, they showed good musicality, and they stayed tight and synced. They had a strong ending. It was a little shaky on the last traveling turn, but overall it was a good performance, and the crowd loved them. I asked Todd about it after they finished, and while it is the same performance they competed with last year, it is about 50% new material. He was beaming, and rightfully so; it is a difficult performance, and they pulled it off well.

The DJ music started again, and by now the crowd was warmed up and the floor was crowded. The club looked filled to capacity… about 250 people. Some of the “old-timers” showed up and started to add some pop and flare to the floor. It was shaping up to be a fun night.

About 11:40 the music stopped again, and Ricardo presented certificates of appreciation to several in the Salsa scene whom have been instrumental in his success. He continued the earlier raffle, and then Sabor Latino performed their newest routine. This was the strongest routine I have ever seen from them. Two of the follows were missing, so the leads modified their routine to accommodate the gap. The crowd was wild at the conclusion. This is a strong choreography and performance, and I can’t wait to see it again.

Salsa Salvaje performed next. This is a pair of women from Seattle, and they are hot. Very sharp, very tight, and very musical. Their song starts with “tin pan” percussion for several moments. They are rock-solid in their musicality to that percussion. When the melody took over, they produced a clean, strong performance. The crowd was enthusiastic. I wanted to see them perform again!

Hurricane Tumbao performed last. Their performance was strong as well. They made a really good first impression. Their routine is a very clean, partner dance-oriented piece. They are two couples, and they use all of the floor space. They are tight, and their work is clean. In this performance they shied away from fancy lifts and tricks, preferring instead to showcase their excellent technical proficiency, and their musicality. In this performance they have some splashy hits, but they also embed a lot of little, tiny hits that you might miss the first time you see them. But those little hits are the real sabor… the spice, if you will… of the performance. They were the outstanding performance of the night, followed by Todd and Shin. They were two new performance groups, but it was obvious that they had worked long and hard with attention to detail in their technical skills, their musicality/choreography, and their presentation.

The music picked up again, the lights dimmed, and the crowd went back to dancing. The evening had a good feel to it, and it was infectious. The crowd was an invigorated crowd. The floor stayed packed, and everyone had big smiles on their faces.

This night went strong all the way to the very end. I left about a 1:40, and the floor was still too crowded to really play. Usually by that time of night the crowd has thinned to a very few hard core Salseros and Salseras. But this night was an exception.

In fact, it would be fair to say that this was an exceptional night all around. The performances were good, the energy was good, the crowd was happy, and the music was good. Ricardo put on a good party. I was glad I had made it.

by Meryl Logue From www.portlandsalsa.com