Category: travel

Always exotic

Categories
cuba

Oh-oh, La Habana!

So this is the city they sing about in all those salsa songs which cry out – ‘Oh-oh, La Habana’.

We’re on the sixth floor of the Hotel Sevilla with a view towards the sea and the Malecon, with the National School of Ballet next door. In the morning we can hear Chopin tunes being bashed out on a piano as the students are put through the paces. It’s the only time of the day you don’t hear the sound of salsa, rumba, conga or son.

Being here is something like living out a fantasy of being in Cuba. Here’s me looking out over the skyline of Havana – the same skyline that appears at the beginning of the Carol Reid film of ‘Our Man in Havana’. Here’s me leaning out of a window and watching a salsa disco on the rooftop of a lower building. And now here we are walking along the Malecon being serenaded/ripped off by some charming old soneros who incorporate our names into an old song…here we are sipping mojitos in La Bodeguito del Medio, where Hemingway enjoyed his afternoon tipple (after the morning’s daiquiri in La Floridita)…singing along to ‘Son De La Loma’ as we’re serenaded over fish, beans and rice.

As Larry David might say, prett-eh, prett-eh, pretty good. After all, how often do you get to live out your fantasies?

Categories
cuba salsa

Because I’m in the mood for salsa…

More terrific Youtube clips:

The best salsa dancers in the world – salsa champions Rafael and Janet.

(who are mesmerizing to watch in real life)

Rafael and Osbanis in Russia with 2 lucky girls.

Cubamemucho potpourri of Cuban salsa dancing…wow. Includes casino style, rumba and rueda de casino. Really good camerawork for a hand-held, single track shot.

Que no hay nada mas rico que el son cubano…

Rumberos in Havana

Rafael and Janet rumba basics lesson – learn from the best!

A team of scientists and engineers from Cuba dance Rueda de Casino (to Ven, Ven, Ven by Los Van Van). Sigh. I wish any rueda team I’d ever danced with could look that good!

Categories
cuba salsa

Los Van Van in London 2007

Concert Review from This Is London.

Familiar faces from the London salsa scene crowded the dance floor at the Hammersmith Palais, mojitos in hand, to bask in the seething energy, timba and songo rhythms of the best dance band in the world – Los Van Van!

It was the same lineup of vocalists that we’d seen two years ago – Mayito, Lele, Yeni and Roberto. It’s a terrific setup which allows them to spend over ten minutes on each song, with each singer taking turns to solo, and captivate the audience during the improvised montuno section. Without dropping of exhaustion that is!

Roberto opened the set with a sizzling version of Chapeando, using the montuno to ask the audience – who here speaks Spanish? (massive cheer), and the usual shouts out to the various latino populations.

I cheered for the Mexicans but as usual we’re hardly present…:-(

Los Van Van are the only dance band I’ve seen who command a performance like a rock band, with all the hand-waving and the audience participation on the popular songs. Some very hot Cuban girls stage-jumped to dance with Mayito and Roberto. During Somos Cubanos Mayito invited a rumbero (rumba dancer) to join him for an impromptu performance of guaguanco.

Anyway…

We were close to the front, right in the throng of shaking shoulders. It was terrific to see the performers up close. I’d never noticed how cute and sweet Yeni is (their female vocalist) – and what an incredible sonera. In live performance her singing has a breath-taking confidence and especially in the improvised section where she asked all the girls – Ain’t it true that all men are a pain? And what do you do with a rubbishy one? Hey, I told mine to get out…I did! Wrecked his bike, yeh! And told that loser to catch the bus. Well what was I going to do? Jeez. What idiots men can be. (that’s a somewhat cleaned up, free translation). Yeni has this really cheeky way of grinning and shimmying her shoulders. She’s cool.

Lele is also cute and cheeky, joking with the audience as he sings. Mayito and Roberto have total control of an audience when they take the solo. Well, they do get all the best tunes.

Awesome night. Too bad we have to wait two more years to see them again!

Set includes solid favourites – Chapeando, Soy Todo, Tim Pop Con Birdland, Te Pone La Cabeza Mala, Somos Cubanos.

They are still on tour in Europe. Looks like an exhausting schedule!

Los Van Van website

Agua live performance (professional video)

Youtube fan video of Los Van Van live in EuroDisney 200, performing Soy Todo (Ay Dios Amparame).

Chapeando video

Thank you for coming to London, Van Van! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

Categories
cuba salsa

Van Van viene ahora, el sol natural…

I am so excited about the Cuban dance band, Los Van Van concert this at the Hammersmith Palais this Friday!

Two years ago we went to see them in the Coronet. It was my first proper outing since breaking my leg. Our seats were up in the gods, and I was still on crutches. Something about the music and energy that night broke through to me on a whole different level. It was like a narcotic high – and I actually knew what one of those was by then, having spent two days on opiates whilst in hospital.

Except it was even better. The talent and energy couldn’t be confined to the stage. It rippled through the largely latino audience. It charged the atmosphere with complex rhythms that interweaved between heartbeats and brain waves.

This time, the tickets are standing room only.

That’s fine. Who needs a seat when you can dance?

Categories
switzerland

Bizarro Coincidence

As I lay in hospital, as coincidence would have it, the patient who joined me in the small, immaculately clean and tidy Swiss hospital ward, was from Mexico.

An Olympic standard beach volleyball player, poor girl, she’d broken her wrist. Not skiing, either, but falling off a bar stool or something.

So, out of all the Mexicans in the valley, we ended up in adjacent hospital beds. Klutzes or what?

We started to chat. The young woman’s mind was, not surprisingly, turning to thoughts of a post-volleyball career. I asked her what she’d studied and where. Personnel administration, at the UNAM. Well then, I offered, maybe you’ve read my grandfather’s book. He’s Agustin Reyes Ponce.

And that was the strangest part of all. That two crumbly-boned Mexicans should meet at the base of a wintry ski slope, I buy. That one should be in awe of the other for being an Olympic athlete…okay. That the other should be silenced in respectful memory of a deceased guru of the Mexican business schools, was taking it all too far.

How big is this world, anyway?