the moves
for those who like their dances with lots of heat

First, start with your feet parallel. Next, for the ladies, step forward on your right foot—ball of your foot first—then step in place on your left foot, then step back to center on your right, then pause for a beat. Next, step back on your right, step in place with your left, then step forward back to center on your right, then pause a beat. Here is the salsa beat, eight beats: one, two, three—pause—five, six, seven—pause. Now, steps and beat together: step, step, step—pause—step, step, step, pause. Remember, straight upper body posture, but put some hip action into your moves! Tight hips and salsa dancing do not go together. Guys, do all of the above except lead with your left foot.

That’s quite possibly the world’s shortest salsa dance lesson, an brief interpretation of a basic first class.

If you’re one of those who’d like to master those moves but can’t quite untangle them on your own, have no fear. Latin dance nights across the Seacoast are offering a surprising variety of opportunities for hardcore Latin dance enthusiasts and curious wannabees alike.

With movies such last year’s “Shall We Dance,” featuring the equally gorgeous Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere, or this summer’s popular reality TV series “Dancing with the Stars,” Americans are reconsidering the joys (and challenges) of partner dancing and Latin dancing in particular.
In Kittery, Drika Overton has recently added a Salsa Dance Night series at the SPACE (Space for Performing Arts and Cultural Exchange), which is normally known for classes in tap, jazz, African and Taiko drumming. Latin nights began on Sept. 16, because, Overton said, “It’s such a joy to dance to live music, and around here we don’t often get the opportunity to do it.”

Scheduled for the third Friday of every month, Salsa Dance Night at the SPACE features live Latin music performed by the Amigo Blanco Big Band, formerly known as The Killer Wannabees. Amigo Blanco, whose founder and director, John Peiffer, is also Overton’s nephew, consists of 10 musicians, mostly University of New Hampshire students. Though young in age, band members play traditional salsa numbers, often with a contemporary jazz twist.

On the first night of the salsa series, the dance floor at the SPACE was packed with students of both sexes from UNH working on their moves. There were other dance fans as well, some who’ve been dancing ballroom and Latin for decades, while others were obviously new to the dance scene and hesitant to try out the dance floor.

If one Friday a month is not enough to satisfy an appetite for live salsa (“salsa” is used to describe both a specific dance and a general form of Caribbean-based music), the Crescent City Bistro in Dover also offers a salsa dance night to a live band every third Thursday of the month. The salsa band Rumba Na Ma is essentially a pick-up band organized by local pianist Dan Shure. Because Shure wanted a band with an authentic salsa sound, he felt it was important to use musicians who identified culturally with salsa music. As a result, Rumba Na Ma is made up primarily of Latino musicians from the Boston area. The band plays all forms of salsa music, including Puerto Rican, Cuban and New York-style.

The beauty of the Crescent City salsa dance night, Shure says, is that while dancers get to dance to a band “comparable to a top Latin dance band in Boston, the local dancers do not have to share the floor with the professional salsa dancers normally found at Boston salsa dances.”

If a live Latin dance band is not a prerequisite, there are still more opportunities for locals to merengue, rumba or cha cha. The Portsmouth Ballroom puts on a Latin Dance Night to recorded Latin music the first and third Saturday of every month at its downtown facility.

Luis Nagle, who teaches salsa and other Latin dance styles at the Portsmouth Ballroom, simply describes Latin Night as “packed.” This is a far cry from eight years ago, when the ballroom first offered Latin dance nights. “Eight years ago,” says Nagle, “only two or three people would come to Latin Night. No one wanted to dance it.” But now, with Hispanic culture becoming more mainstream, there’s more interest in the salsa. And, Nagle adds, the dancers are getting younger. While American men in general tend to be more reticent about partner dancing, Nagle has noticed that younger men tend to be more receptive to Latin dancing. “Once they come in,” says Nagle, “they have a great time.”

Both the Portsmouth Ballroom and the Seacoast Ballroom, off of Islington Street, offer a variety of Latin dance lessons, including salsa. Seacoast Ballroom director Fred Dunn suggests that that for those who want to see the best in Latin dancing, they will have an opportunity at both the Annual Seacoast Classic Ballroom, Latin and Swing Competition and Winter Ball, Feb. 4-5  in Dover, and next April, when the Seacoast Ballroom sponsors its sixth annual Latin Weekend with World Salsa Champion Roberto Pagan.

the grooves
Spanish Harlem Orchestra brings salsa to The Music Hall

It has been said that salsa is a state of mind. The acclaimed Latin singer Rueben Blades has referred to salsa as a cultural “concept.” But to others, salsa is a place: specifically, the neighborhood in the northeastern borough of Manhattan that runs from about East 96th Street to East 125th Street and is bound by the East River, the Upper East Side, Harlem and Central Park. This is the neighborhood commonly known as “El Barrio” or Spanish Harlem, and it’s the epicenter for the East Coast Latino culture scene. On Friday, Oct. 7, Portsmouth will turn into El Barrio for one night, when the acclaimed Spanish Harlem Orchestra performs its highly charged salsa music at The Music Hall.

The 13-member band is led by the famous pianist and arranger Oscar Hernandez. Though recently known as the composer of the “Sex and the City” theme song, Hernandez’s prolific music career has included collaborations with some of Latin music’s greatest stars, such as “Latin music king” Tito Puente, “Queen of Salsa” Celia Cruz, Latin pop star Julio Iglesias, and Rueben Blades, to name a few. Under Hernandez’s direction, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, along with the Cuban Buena Vista Social Club, has become known as one of the pillars of “old school” salsa band music.

Yet, the band’s youngish musicians (ranging in ages from 30 to 50) have created a sound that is equally relevant to the contemporary Latino music scene. New York Times critic Jon Pareles described one of their performances as merging “ferocious Afro-Cuban rhythms, arrangements that rev up hard-rifting horns and modern jazz harmonies, vocals that can be suavely romantic or flamboyantly improvisatory, and lyrics that encompass both the pleasures of the dance floor and the pride and aspirations of the barrio.”

While the band has produced only two CDs, they have both won critical acclaim. The first CD, “Un Gran Dia En El Barrio” won 2003 Latin Billboard Award for “Salsa Album of the Year, Best New Group,” while its second CD, “Across 110th Street,” won the 2005 Grammy award for Best Salsa Album.

SHO is currently on a tour of New England that will conclude at the Berklee School of Music in Boston on Saturday. It’s rare that Spanish Harlem extends this far north, and it’s an event not to be missed.

Tickets for the Spanish Harlem Orchestra are $40-$17. Call 603-436-2400 or visit www.themusichall.org for more information.