Salsa: It’s hot

Timothy Pratt, Las Vegas Sun

Sunday, Dec. 17, 2006 | 8:36 a.m.

Noel Roque, hands waving, was touching all the bases: sex, commerce, "Dancing With the Stars," poor barrios in Puerto Rico and la clave - the beat.

Somehow it all came together in his mind.

The second World Salsa Championship, about to glide across the wooden floor being assembled in the arena below, was not only going to crown new kings and queens of step, it also was poised to bridge cultures and keep the beat alive.

Riding the nationwide wave of popularity that televised dance competitions have created, last week's event at South Point nonetheless differed from the rest.

It had a mission: "to educate the public and promote the cultural and natural heritage of the salsa music and dancing," as well as "to leave behind a legacy for the next generations" and "to create unity (through) salsa music and dancing."

Which raised a question: Can authentic cultural expressions such as salsa, with its historical and geographical underpinnings in 1970s Spanish Harlem and the Caribbean, be translated to audiences everywhere?

Put another way, can a mass-media event such as the salsa championship be a bridge from Latin culture to America's gringos?

Roque's conclusion: Si y no.

He began by outlining how contestants from 20 countries in six continents had come to the Las Vegas event via regional and national qualifying contests, highlighting unexpected images such as salsa classes in Beijing.

This was a sign of salsa's spread across the globe, its currency as a universal language, said Roque, a consultant for the Salsa Seven, the group that organized the three-day event.

What is salsa's appeal to the Chinese and Bulgarians, New Zealanders and Hawaiians?

"It's very sexy," he mused, adding: "But the clave is in your blood."

Someone standing nearby whipped out two sticks from a bag, striking them together in salsa's 3-2 beat. La clave.

"TV helps," he said, pointing to ESPN International's contract to broadcast the competition's finals.

"We're going to take this where we want it to go."

Roque explained how the athletic part of the dance reached America's living rooms, calling the salsa of the event a cross between dance and sport, something everyone can enjoy.

"Salsa is a lifestyle ..." he said, describing the rough-and-tumble origins of the music and the dance, a way to forget your troubles and live for the moment - or something that can't be fully translated from Latinos to blancos.

"The salsa we see on the national ballroom competitions today is not the salsa of the barrio club," said Ramon H. Rivera-Servera, an Arizona State University professor and author of an academic paper titled "Embodied Archives: Dance, Memory, and the Performance of Latinidad."

"The elements of salsa we encounter in competitions - rhythmical proficiency, choreographic showiness, character development and technical ability - all emerge from the Latino cultural worlds of this dance, but have been significantly transformed by dance competition," he concluded.

Sekou McMiller, a black man from Chicago in town to compete, teaches salsa dancing back home, mostly to whites. Many of the dancers from far-flung, non-Latin countries at the event had learned to dance in similar classes.

"When things are taught in a formal setting ... or judged in a formal setting ... their natural spontaneity ceases to exist," he said.

At the same time, he noted that in dance classes and competitions across America, "there's some (cultural) gaps being bridged."

Rob Beiner, producer of the salsa championship, has spent 25 years putting together sporting events for major networks, including seven Olympic Games.

He got roped into salsa when he was in Puerto Rico three years ago producing a boxing match. A friend invited him to see a dance competition.

"I found myself tapping my feet, getting into it," he recalled. "I'm not sure if it matters how much gets across ... I'm the mainstream guy we're trying to reach - (so) tell me about it, why should I watch it?"

Answering his own question, he said, "It's athletic, passionate and sexy. It's appealing, it makes me feel good. And looking at babes - it's a good thing."

And Rivera-Servera says the "fierce, sweaty maneuvers on the dance floor ... result in at times stereotypical and conflicted, but almost always deliciously proficient, approximations of Latino culture and aesthetics."

In other words, let's dance.