News and Comment October 2001

The New National Centre for Dance, run by DanceBase was opened officially by Prince Charle accompanied by Prince William, last Friday. They were entertained by the gumboots show, and tango dancers from the Edinburgh Tango Society. Prince William was pictured in scottish newspaper with local brazilian samba star Lucia. The new centre is a world class dance facility, with 4 fantastic studios, changing rooms, and other facilities. If you want to do a dance class this is the place to go! Full set of new classes start the 1st October, including salsa, samba, tango, capoiera, flamenco, african and many more.

Dancebase have also employed a new tango teacher, Ricardo Oría from Buenos Aires. Ricardo is a young professional dancer who will be working in scotland and elsewhere to introduce argentine tango, and provide professional teaching and to work in performance. He is teaching beginners classes on Mondays at Dance for All, Tuesday at DanceBase, Wednesday and Thursday lunchtimes at Edinburgh University, a free class 5:30 on Sundays at NBs bar, and Saturdays in Dundee.

There is a new salsa/son night in Leith run by Salsa connections, a son and rueda with Nick and Margaret, and DJ Mikyel. It is in Mariachi's Mexican Restaurant at Commercial Quay in Leith (the Water of Leith end of it) Starts Thursday 27th Sept ad every thursday from then on.

Peter and Fiona have a new programme of classes, and still has no replacement for Friday night. Fiona is teaching NY mambo style from this Monday at Southbridge Resource Centre, Infirmary St, two beginners classes: 4-5.30pm and 5.30-7pm. A 10 week course, you can book when you come along to the first or second class. She will also be teaching a mambo footwork class at the Pleasance, University sports centre on Fridays 5.30 - 6.30pm, starting 12th October. Drop in.

There are various salsa workshops this month with Alberto Nunez in Edinburgh on 6th & 7th  October. Contact Carol Ann for more information salsaangel1@yahoo.com and Josie Neglia on the 2nd October

Nick Child and others are trying to set up a network to promote salsa dancing in Edinburgh, from the point of view of providing more information, practicas, and som cordination on dance nights to get more people into dancing, and keeping in dancing. email Nick on <nick.child@virgin.net> Nick also sends out a great update on information every few weeks, so mail him if you want to subscribe.

 

Sept 2001

Not news, apart from Baracoa closing down and a party for Sam leaving again after the summer. everything quiet again after the festival.

Baracoa has been sold to be turned into a resturant - some story of problems with the licence. This is a shame, as venues are now shrinking in number again. The salsa classes from Peter and Fiona will be moving. Their Friday night classes at Why Not restart on the 6th Sept.

There is a new tango teacher lving here from Buenos Aires, Ricardo Oría. If ou want lessons see www.edinburghtango.org.uk, and a new clickable map of tango in scotland

Also the new Edinbugh Spanish Circle programme is out

There is a Glasgow Salsa page from Graeme

 

I keep getting requests from around the world for details of latin dance activities in cities outside Edinburgh. I am happy to pass on info, put people in touch, and publish short lists of clubs etc in different countries. If you mail me, please send me info about what you know of in your home town, and also whether I can pass on your address to others who know things in your area.

Go to the Archive of recent and ancient news and reviews

On-line news June 2001

I've tried to bring some order to the On-line Sources page as people are sending me more things - I hope it is proving useful to someone!

 

• Website on Progressive Latin American Music
• Salsa in CHELTENHAM & GLOUCESTER - SalsaSol
• Graeme Mathieson has set up a new site covering the Glasgow salsa scene Salsaholics.org
• DanceWeb a UK dance event and class listing service
• havana mambo a cuban band based in and promoted from Italy
• Salsatours, a german company running dance holidays
• The Fourth European Salsa Dance festival in Haarlem in June
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• AfroCubanWeb, a great resource, for everything on afrocuban culture with an afroamerican political slant.
• MiMusica, US on-line store selling every concievable sort of Latin music, and Etnomusic, Barcelona based worldmusic shop
• Salsa in Chicago
• Sonido Isleño, a US salsa band
• Salsa in LA with www.LatinDanceForever.com from Maribel
• A dance web page with some latin information is dancestudent
• Salsa and other dance in Australia from Street Dance Australia thanks to Paul
• Tango in Paris and Salsa in Paris, SalsaLovers
• Tango edinburgh and tango-uk e-mail lists now available from egroups.

  Subscribe to the ETS discussion list

 

• A guide to lots of salsa events in Germany and Austria, Chrissies Salsa pages
• "Once again, iCAST.com brings you the footage you want, when you want it. How about two weeks of interviews and tributes hosted by Daisy Fuentes from the Latin Style GRAMMY® Party, with celebs like Shakira, Carlos Santana, and Ricky Martin? Starting Thursday, September 28, iCAST will display a new artist feature everyday for two weeks! Come to http://www.iCAST.com/music to get the latest feature and news about your favorite Latin artists."
• Fiesta Latina Website has been redone by Anna, and it is really smart, and interesting.
• The Latin World, Dutch salsa web site
• Howard sends a site about social dance in Sulfolk including some salsa
• For more general information on Edinburgh try the EdinburghGuide
• Chino Rodriguez a latin music booking agent has links to a number of upcoming salsa stars in the US www.LatinMusicBooking.com
• Elvira, New York editor of justsalsa sent her site. Loads of things about salsa life in the Big Apple, lots of pictures of bands and clubs

Archive

• A New UK wide latin music and dance info service LatinLatest, run from England by Steve Hill. He has done a hug job of bringing together various infomraon sources on most towns and cities in teh UK, including clubs, classes, teachers etc.
• The Dublin Tango Society are now on-line.
• New UK on-line music, instrument and craft store RUANA, with CD imports from latin america and other services an activities. Only just starting out, but could be something big. Hopes to supply music that is difficult to obtain though the mainstream msuci channels.
• Visiting the north of England - look at the 'Northern Salsa pages' http://www.uksalsa.com/ run by Ian Finch, covering Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Wolverhampton and more.
• The Bongo Club has a Web page now
• Visiting the Salsafreak pages, US pages about salsa events and dancing in the US and elsewhere
• Club Cubana is a company and site run buy Cressida Childs, a salsa entrepreneur who runs big weekend events in a hoiliday camp in the southwest of England.

 

• Wilson and Alroy's Record Reviews Great site with reviews of many of Willie Colon and Ruben Blades' recording, and many other of the salsa greats such as Juan Luis Guerra, India, Irakere, Marc Anthony, Daniela Mercury (Brazil), NG La Banda, The New York Band, Orquesta De La Luz, Eddie Palmieri, Silvio Rodríguez and Los Van Van.
• Willie Colon's own web site (looks like he did it himself!)
• Another GREAT site - the All music site, has hundereds of pages on all musics including salsa, danzón, Mexican, Samba, Pachanga, Rhumba etc, and web sites on all the major artists, their discographies, links etc etc. there are some big holes, and spaces for readers to add their own comments, or fill in whole pages if necessary (e.g. not so much on Pedro Maffia!)

 

•  
• Great video clips of tango from the Sally Potter Film, The Tango Lesson and from Saura's Tango are on the Sony web Site. Also Vintage tango images and here, some funny old postcards of tango.
• Buy Salsa Celtica's Album on-line from Musicscotland.com
• Listen to samples of Juan Luis Guerra's Dec 1998 Album on line at CDNOW
• An argentine duo playing tangos and milongas soniadamian
• two dutch tango links: La Escuela (tango-school of Bettie Bolks) andThe Foundation for Tango Argentino in Groningen (STAG)
• A new site: Culture of the Andes, everything on the Andean culture, politicas and music.
• For info on Salsa in Aberdeen go to Peter's site on www.sofisticada.freeserve.co.uk

 

• The Edinburgh Rueda de Casino group have a page on the web with a nice picture of Sam and his crowd. Thanks to Simon.
• 2 new mailing lists. One in Edinburgh run by DJ Hector from Baracoa giving details of some of the salsa events he is involved in.
• The other is Cafe Cubana run by Karen in Toronto, a mailing list about world music and cultural issues
• New edinburgh salsa website www.salsascene.co.uk. Just started, so nothing there yet, but could get more up to date info than from me! Has a bulletin board that could be useful if anyone posts anything.
• A cuban music magazine is on line -REVISTA SALSA CUBAN, and another US based magazine worth looking at - Oasis Salsero
• to buy music try MUNDIAL, an established mail order service in the Netherlands. We get all the tango from here. For salsa, there is the trusted DESCARGA in the US
• Salsa and Tango in Cambridge has a site on salsa and tango in Cambridge
• Nice site for info about salsa music called Salsa Talks
• Salsa world is a UK site that has some really information on salsa, not just lists of links like this site!
• Here's a link to Victor Hugo and La Banda a london based salsa band and show.
• "Beats E-Zine a bi-weekly online magazine for the music industry, is lauching a Special Latin Issue with special interviews, an expanded album review section with the usual Top 25 Latin Hits, features and a List of Top Latin Links."- click the banner to read all about it.
  
• Glasgow Flamenco appreciation group
• Toronto Tango : very good.
• Victor sent me a Chilian link http://www.feriadeldisco.cl
• Charles has a latin site in North Carolina
• Alex has a Latin and Percussion page in Australia
• A new guide to Salsa in London
• Great site in France on Salsa " ME GUSTA LA SALSA !" - guide to the rhythms, and salsa in Paris and France
• Antino's latin music page. Another great new page from a musician with sound files on rhythms of salsa percussion.
• Musica Latina - page with lots of Midi files
• Casa Latina, a latin club in Leeds, UK, has a good set of pages with details of bands playing regularly.
• Joachim Lücking a DJ from Darmstadt who posts his own top 10 to the salsa mailing list has produced a WWW page with the listings for Merengue and Salsa, plus sound clips and promises a bigger home page soon. Great resource.
• An Amsterdam based magazine OYE ¡LISTEN! is producing and international version with some on the NET/
• I got an e-mail from Arjen Gorter in the Netherlands who has just made a CD with Estrella Acosta from Cuba - check out the WWW site for a listen.

Steve Shipway from Bristol has details of dance venues there.

There is a Miami page now

Check out Latin Music - what is it? a great page by Rae Condry explaining the history of some of the different forms of music ( Mariachi, Tango ), and with links to resources and shops in various places. It is part of Latinos Infiltrating CyberSpace with sections on geography, literature, food, history etc.

• I checked Alta Vista for links to my page - there were 40! Not bad so far - there are some excellent new pages around.
• Electric Mercado have started a mailing list to publicise updates to their on-line latin magazine . mail info@mercado.com to get it.
• Sign up for the European Salsa mailing list - see "on-line sources"