“Bailar Con Migo”: Documenting My Latin Dance Experience in Europe over Seven Years

How it All Started

I have been dancing salsa and bachata for many years. So many I have just about lost count. I remember when I was very young, in my twenties or so, it wasn’t so popular amongst my age demographic so I would go to the hip hop clubs and hang out with my friends. In those days it was as I can imagine is still the case, full of negative energy. People would stand around as if in another world and you were not allowed to enter. Men bunched up in groups and so did women. Everyone was drunk. The “thud-thud” of the rap music was too much by about hour number three for me back then. Most times I roughed it out because it was the only social life available for me at that time. Another choice was to go with some friends to some Irish Pub and not only be the token guy who doesn’t drink but also be bored out of my mind since in those days it wasn’t really a thing to play music in Pubs. Lastly, the hookah spots seemed to make my clothes smell like I had been in a burn pit. I do now as I did then like to dress well and didn’t want to subject myself to that.

I was getting too old for the hip-hop/rap scene. I didn’t like the message of the music; I didn’t like the way people acted in the clubs or lounges. In 2013 or so I started frequenting Salsa night in my city. It took place every Wednesday at a place called Park Café, starting around 10pm and ending at around 0300am. I’d go home and sleep for a few hours and then get up around 0700am and go for a three- or four-mile run. Those were the days.

**ABOVE**: Paris, France: People dancing on the banks along the Seine River.
**BELOW**: Frankfurt, Germany: People enjoy dancing Salsa Cuban Casino style.

My Little Project: The Problem and the Solution

Seven years later I decided to start documenting my Latin dance experience with the end goal of doing an exhibition and creating a photobook. At first, I wanted to make a book of the matter. Kind of like a long-term project after ten years or so. I ran into a problem though. Where I live in Europe, EVERYONE enjoys open air Salsa especially near the river or some large body of water. It’s usually done during the spring and summer months, and I was able to usually take a strong camera out and document the scene. The problem arrived at night and when it was cold, and people danced inside of clubs with low light. Plus, I wanted to dance also. It gets hard trying to strap a huge camera around me and dance. That’s where the issue came in. The solution was to carry a very small and less capable camera with me. One that I could slide in and out of my pocket when necessary.

ABOVE: Paris, France: Some Photos inside and outside I made with a small point and shoot film camera that captures the mood of the night

I made images year-round, at concerts and at casual dance events on the river. My little project was done all over Europe in countries like Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Basically, everywhere I went I had a small camera with me at the very least. The objective was not to create the best pictures but to capture the environment created by the Latin dance culture. I have hundreds of these pictures from various countries over these seven years and I feel like while they meet the intent of capturing the mood, they are not necessarily the best photos aesthetically. I didn’t want to not share the images simply because of that so I decided to blog about it anyway.

**ABOVE**: Rome, Italy: Sneaking a small disposable pocket camera into the clubs in Rome, Italy was like a prisoner sneaking contraband into a prison. I made it happen though.

**ABOVE**: Amsterdam, Netherlands: This was an image in Amsterdam I took of a woman dancing bachata on the street. I wouldn’t have been able to do it with a larger camera and just barely captured the joy on her face with my small pocket camera.
**BELOW**: Bucharest, Romania: Here I could capture two dance couples despite the hard light situation.

What I’ve Learned in Seven Years Dancing Latin Dances in Europe

The transition from the Hip-Hop and R&B clubs to the Latin Dance crowd was easier than I thought. It seemed like the atmosphere was lighter and easier to be happy in a way. No “mean mugs” or negative, over aggressive lyrics in the music that put people in a strange mood. Everything was about love or dancing really. The Bachata music can be depressing at times but the rhythm of the music itself is not and thus even those few songs can be enjoyed on the dance floor. During one of my diary entries just a few months ago I remember comparing dancing Salsa/Bachata/Merengue to playing golf. You usually dress up to do it, you sweat a little bit, and you can do it until you are very old, and you stay in shape doing it. Unfortunately, what I have experienced is not all good. There are some other things that I have concluded after all these years. Especially along the lines of Bachata.

**ABOVE**: Orange Peel Club, Frankfurt Germany. Loving the atmosphere every Sunday.
**BELOW**: Soda Club, Berlin Germany. The club was extremely dark but I think I managed to capture the mood

The tide ebbs and flows and the old goes out and the new comes in. l remember when all the craze was Kizomba which the Europeans somehow lump into the Latin Dance genre when in fact it was started in Africa and made popular amongst the Europeans by way of France. I can do an entire doctoral dissertation on this point alone, but I digress. Within a year or two everyone I knew was dancing Kizomba. There were more videos on Kizomba on YouTube that you could shake a stick at. I would go to the local dance club and everyone that I met was either a Kizomba instructor or a beginner. I, being somewhere in the middle, stayed confused. Within the course of two years Kizomba split into two factions, Kizomba and Urban Kizz, and you weren’t considered a good dancer unless you were dancing Urban style. Why? What was wrong with Kizomba and why was everyone in a rush to be an instructor. Usually, I would count one or two dance congresses in a year, but it seemed like Kizomba had five or six and even in the winter. I couldn’t keep up. So, I left that community. Every now and then I dance a Kizomba song. Generally, the Kizomba songs were all in English with one or three in French. They all (or most) talk about sex and that gets old after a while. Dancers were trying their best to look more and more urban in terms of how they would arrive to the dance club. It got old after a while, so I stopped dancing it all together. The profit motive was in full effect with the beautiful dance genre. Women instructors looked sexy so that students might aspire to look like them while dancing and men dressed trendier and trendier while teaching.

**ABOVE**: Paris, France: A man and woman dance Kizomba in a dimly lit room in Paris.

**ABOVE**: Prague, Czech Republic: Urban Kizomba dancers dance the night away to the “Sushiraw Anthem”

Things evolve in the dance community, and you ARE allowed to have an opinion. What came next was a controversy I had no idea would rest on my mind as much as it does. Once again, it’s something that I can write a considerable amount of time about but as to not take away from the general theme of this blog I won’t. It’s the subject of Sensual Bachata. Depending on who you ask, some will say it’s a much welcomed “update” of the dance, a refresher that the dance needed to spruce it up a bit, an evolution of the dance. Others argue that it is cultural appropriation and shouldn’t be called Bachata at all. I tend to lean towards the latter and when I see people dancing it, I just feel like it’s a bunch of sexual innuendos in the movement without any real passion and feel for the music. I’m not alone on this one either. An associate of mine has her own website and blog in which she shares her feelings on this exact topic. https://www.kurikolajapomana.com/blog/why-i-promote-bachata-dominicana. It’s pretty cool and she explains how I feel better than I can on this blog.

**ABOVE**: Paris, France: A couple dance the Sensual Bachata in a dark club. I was able to snap this photo with a disposable Kodak camera.

Salsa is seemingly created equal to the novice. Only in London and Rome did I observe Salsa clubs specifying the genre of what would be played. For example, In Rome, the club flyer would read… “Pure Cuban all night” and in London you could see “On One Salsa from Puerto Rico”. Everywhere else I’ve visited they mix up the genres. It’s not a problem but it becomes kind of confusing to a dancer who knows the subtle differences and she has a partner that doesn’t. Cuban Salsa and Puerto Rican Salsa are both danced on the “One” but they are very different. The music is also very different. I’d much prefer to hear the funky tunes of Alexandre Abreu or Maykel Blanco over Mark Anthony any day but please don’t tell my Puerto Rican friends that! Additionally, and I can’t stress this enough, Cumbia is NOT Salsa, its Cumbia, and it should be broken away from Salsa night. It is incredibly hard to dance Salsa on one to this with a novice. I’ve never seen anyone that dances good cumbia even people from Columbia.

**ABOVE**: London, England: A crowd in London give applause to the dance instructor before choosing their dance partner.
**BELOW**: Frankfurt, Germany and Paris France: Open air Salsa of all genres.

The only thing better than dancing Cuban Salsa is dancing Cuban Salsa to a live Cuban band. Oh my goodness. Where do I start here? You really come alive hearing the funk of the band. The bass, the percussion, the congas, my goodness. I have never seen people lose control dancing such as I have seen with a live cuban band. They are few and far between and you pay a price when they are available but they are totally worth going to. Concerts in Europe are usually in the middle of nowhere, especially in Germany because they don’t want to wake the people in the community up with the noise. I’d like to think that these people just don’t understand what they are missing! So far I have been to four concerts in the last seven years and each time I’ve never seen a person, any person, not appreciate the band and the over thirty euro they may have paid for a ticket in.