Cuban salsa? Tantamount to passion

Photo: Szabolcs Csortos, UnivPécs

Both of you have tried several kinds of sport. Why did the Cuban salsa become the trigger to a passion for you?

Barbara: The Cuban salsa is not a showdance but a partydance: a boy asks a girl to dance at a party and they do the salsa together. It has no strict rules, knowing the basic steps and technique everyone can express his/her own personality with salsa.

Balázs: As soon as they have learnt the basic steps the girl and the boy speak a common language, and any of them learn or invent a completely new step, her/his partner can understand it immediately. This kind of improvisation is not unique among the dance styles but the Cuban salsa is still developing constantly.

You have been to Cuba twice. Have you been influenced by your experience?

Barbara: We traveled to Havana for 3 weeks to study Afro-Cuban dances from the Cuban National Dance Group. We have joined workshops in Europe, but we understood these dance stlyes as a whole by our Cuban teacher in Havana. He explained everything so well! It was quite useful because now we can teach it to our students in an easy way. During our second trip we visited all the major cities of the country.

Is it difficult to find the proper musical background for salsa in Hungary?

Balázs: Some of the famous bands have been to Hungary, the Buena Vista Social Club and the Sierra Maestra have been here in Pécs as well. But there is an orchestra whose musical development embraces the whole of Cuban music. It is the Los Van Van – they are the Beatles of South-America. Otherwise Hungarian musicians are rarely interested in salsa music, some of them play salsa as a hobby.

Barbara:  We started a fresh initiative last autumn: playing salsa music. SalsÚngara is the temporary name of this project, and we play with South-American and Hungarian musicians who live in Pécs. We’ve had our third concert at the Ördögkatlan Festival. Our leader is Cristóbal Campero who is Venezuelan.

How difficult is changing from a certain style of salsa to another one?

Barbara: There are quite big differences but all salsa music has the same origin and the steps are easier to learn if you have learnt a style already. The North-American styles are fashionable in Europe, people prefer dancing the Los Angeles or the New York style even in Spain! In Hungary the Cuban-style is still the most popular.

Balázs: This popularity is said to be originated in the so-called Hungarian-Cuban Friendship during the epoch of the socialism. Undoubtedly, places where Cubans who live in Hungary preferred to have parties became the cult places for Cuban salsa after the communist era.

You have engaged with dances of a unique religion. What is Afro-Cuban santería about?

Balázs: Slaves were taken to Cuba mainly from the region of what is Nigeria today by the conquistadors during the Spanish colonialism. Although baptisms were held en masse, these people were not expected to attend regular services and because of low and superficial expectations, the slaves kept their own African deities and linked them with the Catholic Saints. For example, when a santero prays to the female deity of the river he prays to Virgin Mary as well, because they are the same figure. The fusion is so strong that all santero must be baptized. They go to church, too, and collective singing and dancing are elemental parts of their rituals. All of the orisas (deities) have their own dances, rhythms, songs which very well describe them. This African rhythm is the base and serves as the main structure of the salsa music of today.

Info:

http://Tancolo.pte.hu
http://www.clubcubano.hu

Éva Harka, UnivPécs