Twenty Five years of the Thames Salsa Cruise

My, how time flies!
 

As we approach the Thames Salsa Cruise’s 25th Anniversary on Sunday 21st May 2023, I’d like to offer a few reflections of this very special event that’s been part of the London Salsa scene for quarter of a century.

I’d also like to offer my heartfelt appreciation to everyone who’s come on the cruise over the years. You’ve made it what it is: A beautiful, fun evening of joy.

 

 

How it began:

We were having a good year. I was teaching salsa nights in the West End, City of London and a couple of venues in North and North West London.
I was also editing the Email Salsa News which was a salsa events listing email magazine, that went out weekly.
Fliss, AKA DJ Felicidad and I, decided to celebrate with a salsa picnic by the river in Jubilee Gardens next to Embankment station.

We quickly realised that promoting this free event was taking as much effort as promoting a profit making event with as much reputational risk if things went wrong. (We found out on the day that picnics are banned in Jubilee gardens!) It was time to take a risk and hire a boat as an add-on to the picnic. The idea of the Thames Salsa Cruise was born. Four hours of Sunday afternoon cruising the Thames and back in time to get home ready for Monday.

 

The Party:

I believe dancing should be fun, not some exacting, elitist, performance based art form!
This informs how I teach and the events I run. One time many , many years ago, a couple arrived at the pier, sauntered up and announced they were Latin champions and required VIP status. My response would have failed any customer service exam (including Rian Airs). Needless to say they did not board :)

The Boat:

Although it was the same boat back then, HMV Royalty, a veteran of the first world war, was less well appointed than she is today. She had a cambered i.e. sloping dance floor so that any liquid: spilt drinks, river spray, body fluids etc., would run to the sides. This made dancing interesting! Quickly we adopted the idea that if your partner was shorter than you, they stand in the middle and vice versa!

We also had to hump a PA system from wherever we could park to the boat and back. Back then I mounted two CD Walkmans in a black attaché case with a small mixer. I had many enquiries from other DJs as to where they could buy one.

Mambo Number Five

Given the cost and the dance floor it was vital to remind everyone that the Thames Salsa Cruise was not a club night. There was far less boat traffic back then so after a while everyone got used to the floor and we stopped being special. I had a cunning plan! Fliss put on Mambo Number Five and I would lead an animation (line up) that deliberately rocked the boat by everyone running from side to side. This was discussed with the skipper first to ensure it was perfectly safe. By the way, they test the buoyancy annually by placing tonnes of weight on one side to tilt the boat well beyond its maximum capacity. They also ultrasound the hull for cracks and carry at least double the life saving equipment needed for the capacity.

Anyway Mambo Number FIve was a success and we’ve repeated it on every cruise ever since. Sometimes it's good to be a little silly :)

The River Thames

The Thames has changed so much since we started. It's almost hard to imagine but when we started the London Eye, Millennium Dome, Shard, Headlamp, Walkie Talkie, Emirates Cable Car, Greenwich Meridian Laser and so many more things we're simply not around! It feels as if they've been built just for you to see as you dance the night away.
One of my hack lines is that the Thames Salsa Cruise has been going longer than Shakespeare's Globe Theatre!
“Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep” Henry VI, Part II

Video:

Back in 2009 I spent a week editing a video of the Cruise. It’s still a very good representation of what it’s like. If you recognise yourself in the video, let me assure you that you haven't changed a bit :)

https://youtu.be/V5R_mFFpSbQ

Last night was a bit of an event

Last night was a bit of an event. After my Salsa Rapido 1-Day Intensive course in Soho I went home and got ready to go out again! That in itself is noteworthy!

Somewhere along the line, the inner parental voice of ‘you’re teaching tomorrow so not on a school night’ made a comfy sofa a far too easy option! Motivation is often fickle but there was no way we were going to miss this.

It was Salsateca’s thirtieth anniversary and nearly all the old faces of the salsa scene would be at London’s Porchester Hall all suited and booted (assuming boots are patent leather, sparkly or have suede soles)

Further motivation came from the fact that I would be receiving an award for 'Outstanding contribution to the salsa scene'. Many thanks to Elder and Salsateca for a fabulous event and for bringing so many old faces together.

Elder Sanchez founded Salsateca in 1992 the year Fliss and I started to learn salsa. For many of our generation of dancers, Salsateca’s Wednesday nights at La Finca were an essential part of London's salsa scene. Elder remains one of the few salseros that I’ve never worked with or attended a class. Of the ten or so recipients at the event I had worked with all but two. To me this makes the consideration for an award all the more poignant and I’m sincerely grateful to Elder and his team.

Reflections:


The award says 30th anniversary. Obviously that’s Salsateca’s anniversary but it has special meaning for Fliss and I.

Last August was the 30th anniversary of Fliss and I going to the Notting Hill Carnival where I saw salsa dancing for the first time. I remember reaching down and picking up a flyer for a class/club night. Little did I realise that that would lead to 30 year of dancing salsa and 27year of teaching it!

Muchos gracias :)


It goes on to say “For outstanding contribution to the salsa scene” which I feel sums me up in every way.

My first nickname amongst salseros back in the day was ‘The white guy who could dance’. Back then the men on the scene were mainly Latino and AfroCaribean. I was literally outstanding!

I have always tried to innovate rather than borrow ideas from others. Salsa Rapido method since '95, The Thames Salsa Cruise (celebrating 25 yrs in 2023), Salsa University at Turnmills (weekly multi adv classes '98), the first ever weekly bachata classes at the Cuban Camden '06, The Salsa Instructors forum '02, the 1-Day Intensive format (first of its kind in the world) '03, my Catno mop and chair demo that I took around Europe '02, and not forgetting the Mambalsa project '14 and the Third Way of Dance '22.

There are many other projects to mention and some that failed but they always taught me something, perhaps more than the successful ones.


I never perceived a great camaraderie on the salsa scene amongst professionals. My memory of the nineties is that we all lived in solitary defensive bunkers desperate for students and enough profit to break even. The explosive growth of the salsa scene: from five to over eighty nights inside the M25 within four years '94-98, was matched by an even greater growth in the numbers of salsa teachers! In economics I believe it’s called the pig cycle. It was typical that a beginner student of mine would teach my lesson to their class the same week. Let's say it was more about quantity than quality back then!

Although that actually happened, I think it may be a little unfair to generalize, but events like last night help dispel my fantasy constructed from my own insecurities (ooooeeer look who’s a qualified counsellor).


It is fair to say that the salsa scene was a collection of mavericks who innovated a salsa dance industry out of thin air. In the early nineties ballroom and Latin was virtually non-existent (awaiting Strictly to resuscitate it). Modern jive, Brazilian samba and lambada were bigger scenes than salsa, which consisted of about five classes in central London.

Salsa was never part of the dance establishment. No grants or funding supported salsa. We worked anywhere we could. My first venue was a portacabin out the back of the Old Bull Arts Center in High Barnet. I worked my way up (or down) to a basement in Salsa Soho.

Along the way I’ve clocked up over 55 venues! Some lasted years like Salsa University at Turnmills, The Cuban (13 years) and Downstairs at the Kings Head but others flaked away after a few weeks. The main venue killer was junior venue management trying out their new ideas and senior management trying to turn a Monday night’s bar-take into a Saturday nights!


Back in 1995 when I started teaching (with Fliss). Originally we started as ‘The Red Hot Salsa Co.’ but then found out someone was trading as Red Hot Salsa so we changed to The Streetbeat Salsa Co. We needed an edge, a USP, hence my teaching method: Salsa Rapido, the fast ‘n fun way into salsa. This was always more than a strap line, for me it was an ethos. If people learnt fast they would be out clubbing and spreading the word. If my classes were fun it would bind the group. I had no concept of comedy theory back then but it remains the dominant psychology of comedy theory, that humour is a way to bond people together, effectively an extension of primates grooming each other.


I feel now Fast ‘n Fun has evolved into the The Third Way of Dance TWD, where the triangle of Benefits: fun, friendships and feeling great form an ethos that connects the first way of dance: Social, with the second way: Fitness and physical health to the Third way: A combination of Well-being, social and fitness.


It’s a major part of the Mambalsa Project as well as Salsa Rapido. More on that later :)

Blend Format

Blend Format a new type of salsa evening

Fantastic to participate, engaging to watch.

Salsa Classes have been in the UK since 1987 and it’s fair to say that the way salsa classes are presented hasn’t changed much in that time. Usually it’s a couple of classes followed by some free dance.

Over the last two weeks I’ve been gradually integrating the new Blend Format at Salsa Camden. Blend a new way of operating an early week evening that literally ‘blends’ the party and the classes creating an atmosphere of buzz.

It’s taken a long time to create and I’ve waited until we’re back in Gabeto (formerly The Cuban) before I’ve fully committed to it.

"Resistance is Futile"

The truth is there’s always a resistance to change, the safety of old familiar ways that drag at the heels of innovation.  I view my innovations as experiments that either work well or not so well. Hopefully Blend will live up to its strap-line ‘Fantastic to participate, engaging to watch.’

I’m prepared for the resistance to release ‘Generation Troll’ in a chorus of ‘It won't work!’ because I’ve got experience of things that ‘won’t work’.

There was my Move Machine format back in the nineties which was salsa meets circuit training, that ‘didn’t work’ at our Rayners Lane venue for a year until the  venue was sold. At Salsa University at the iconic Turnmills nightclub we had up to six advanced classes in every style with different teachers every week. That ‘didn’t work’ for eight years ... until Turnmills was sold.

Then there’s the Salsa Rapido 1-Day Intensive Salsa courses at bar Salsa that now seems such a familiar part of the salsa scene. Back then the idea of a full day Intensive course was unthinkable. Until I did in 2003 see www.streetbeat.co.uk/1-Day, and fingers crossed the venue hasn’t been sold, yet! 

So here goes....

So what’s Blend Format all about?

Within an evening of two and a half hours e.g. 7.30pm - 10pm there’s 105 minutes of tuition fulfilling the needs of beginners through to advanced. This is  presented in 15 or 30 minute sessions, Whole group active interspaced with Free Dance time.

There’s constant music and a buzzy mixing and mingling as groups come and go.

Come for the evening, stay for the evening, dance for the evening, socialise for the evening.

Inspiration?

The inspiration for Blend came out of my Mambalsa project in 2014. Mambalsa is a new partner dance I created that worked to any 4:4 time music. It seemed only right to take a look at a typical evening dance class and see what worked and what didn't. As a salsa teacher who specializes in beginners and improvers, I was disappointed at how poor the traditional salsa UX is. UX or user experience comes from web development and is simply looking at something from the perspective of the user.

The typical absolute beginner, arrives, pays and is left alone until the class starts. They then have to cope with a warm up of footwork that they haven’t been shown. The class is often of mixed ability where they’re the worst, and is led by the least experienced member of the teaching team in the worst location in the room. After the class it’s a quick bye bye as another (more important) class is about to start.

Sound familiar?

Why Blend?

The world has changed!

Our classes are aimed at intelligent career minded people who want to wake up fresh the next day. More and more people respect the ‘not on a school night’ lifestyle. Blend means that dancers don’t have to sacrifice their free dance after the classes for an early finish, as there’s a significant amount of free dance opportunity during the evening. More importantly everyone can stay to the end and is made to feel part of the group rather that the uncommitted one who leaves early.

Blend is our chance to radically value and improve the UX of everyone who attends especially beginners. Effort spent here will retain clients and swell the upper levels.

I’ve spent over twenty years developing salsa teaching so people can learn more quickly and better, so Blend has to offer real advantages for tuition.

The free dance sections allow techniques to be discussed, digested and practiced before another load of info arrives. After the free dance you’ll return to the session refreshed in mind and body :-) Finally, Spoiler Alert, the best way to learn salsa is to dance salsa! Freestyle salsa is where you find out if you know something or not. It’s early days but I’ve now got beginners free style dancing within fifteen minutes!

There’s no doubt that Blend is a long way from the traditional evening class format but I think it will be a rewarding learning experience, more fun and more social.

Whenever people try something new there’s always a little resistance between the familiar and unfamiliar.

If it ain’t broke why change it?

Fair question and for those venues that operate the traditional format successfully well done, but does that mean there shouldn’t be an alternative format?

There’s a huge opportunity out there. Ask around in any salsa club and most people like things as they are. ‘It works for me.’ Of course the one’s that it doesn’t work for aren't there! They got filtered out a long time ago.

Five percent of the UK population dance even if not that regularly. Some can’t or won’t, but many could and would if the format appealed to them. By appealed, I mean: educated, entertained and respected their lifestyles.

Apart from opportunity, I suggest that the current system is simply ‘broke!’

There are issues in the salsa business that don’t make comfortable reading for salsa teachers:

• Why are there now less venues than before?

In London there’s used to be several nights for every area, now there's far less. Has the teaching changed? Are we more fussy about venues? Have we become ‘event orientated? Perhaps the venues don’t want salsa or salsa nights are just harder to promote? One thing’s certain, we haven’t overpriced ourselves. In 1995 I charged £5 for one hour. Most classes now work out the same per hour or less with discounts.

• Why is the dropout rate, so big at beginners level?

I estimate it to be over half within the first few weeks. Whatever the actual number is, it’s huge. Salsa nights simply aren’t compelling.

• Why is it so difficult to get venues to host salsa nights?

Salsa is stylish, well behaved, and can fill an empty venue on a quiet night but the proposition for bars without a separate function room is daunting.

Stop being a bar while we teach, often in silence. Then everyone will want serving at the same time, and that’s if they want to by any drinks at all!

Blend isn’t going to change the world or even the salsa scene. But it might offer a little more choice that will suit some. It will stretch us teachers which is never a bad thing and I hope it will open up new opportunities for salsa.

I’m not seeking to protect Blend in any way from my competitors. All I ask is credit me for Blend and  I invite you to help improve it together :-)
Happy birthday Salsa :-)