DANCEEEEEE
“Here he who dances wins”. At La Topa Tolondra, a famous salsa bar in Cali, Colombia
It’s insane that I got this far into blogging without writing a single post all about dance, pero por fin, aquí está! I say it’s crazy because I’m a HUGE dance fanatic. I love dancing, learning about dance, watching dance, reading about dance; anything dance related is right up my alley. One of my goals for my grant period was to dance as much as possible, and Colombia was the perfect place to do this, as it is known as la tierra de los mil ritmos, the land of a thousand rhythms, and where you find music, you’ll almost always find dance too. I used my passion and curiosity for dance as one of the ways I connected to my community in Cartagena and beyond, and it made my time there really joyful and incredibly fulfilling.
Within the university where I worked, I created the University of Cartagena Dance club, where I used dance as a vehicle for language learning, expression, and cultural exchange. There I danced and chatted with students from the foreign language department, and students from other disciplines like biology, chemistry, metrology, engineering and even one of the medical students. We talked about dance, culture, science, music, history, I taught English, the student taught me Costeñol, and we danced styles like salsa, bachata, jazz, ballet, and modern dance together. It was precious, we learned so much from each other, and it was one of my favorite parts of my work at U de C!
My dance club flyer!
Outside of the University my dance family was a group called BOOM Latino. There I made some great friends, improved enormously with my salsa technique, and grew with my Spanish comprehension as well. Long story, but at the beginning I genuinely thought I was going to get thrown out of the advanced class that I decided to join because I was so lost in terms of both technique and language. It was and still is hard for me to comprehend what's going on when 7 to 10 people are all speaking colloquial Spanish at the same time and that combined with trying to keep up with a group of dancers with immaculate advanced technique was a physical and mental tongue twister for me hahah. Thankfully, they didn’t kick me out (despite me stepping on my dance partners’ feet a ton in the beginning!!) and being in that space each week gave me a huge potential for growth. I learned A LOT and have so much love and respect for those dancers.
Dancing at BOOM!
Back in October last year I went on one of my very first trips outside the city based on the recommendation of a professor in my program to a captivating pueblo just 2 hours from Cartagena called San Basilio de Palenque. Palenque is the first free town in the Americas, is filled with distinct history and culture, and each October it is the home of El Festival de Tambores (drums). I didn’t know much about the pueblo before arriving, but I was blown away by the rich Palenquero culture, the music of the drums, the movement of dancers, the voices of people singing in the street, and the beauty, kindness and vibrance of the people I met there. I learned about the history of the pueblo that was established by Africans who escaped slavery by Spaniards in Cartagena, and in terms of dance I learned how to dance mapalé, vallenato, and a little bit of champeta. I had a blast, and I was already planning to go back before I left!
Mapalé dancers in Palenque
In Cartagena I also had the opportunity to dance with a group of bailadores who meet in the park in Manga to dance together. With them I danced salsa rueda de casino, which is a Cuban style of salsa, and bachata. I didn’t dance with this group long-term because the meetings were a bit far from where I lived and fell on my longer, busier day at the university, but it was a cool experience to connect with other dance-lovers and practice a style of salsa that isn’t super common in Cartagena.
Salsa rueda de casino
La Champeta is the music and dance style with African influences that originated in Cartagena, and I learned about it from hearing the songs everywhere in the city, from my students teaching me some of the steps, or piques, in the hallway in between classes, and from replicating how I saw other people dance. It’s not a style of dance that has exact steps with names, but there are definitely certain moves people use repeatedly. You dance champeta by feeling the music and moving with it, and depending on which city you’re in people dance differently to it, with quick piques or slowly with a partner. Learning champeta really well was also an item of my end-of-grant bucket list, and unapologetically practiced los piques whenever I had the chance!
Salsa caleña class by “El Mulato”, the director of the famous Swing Latino dance academy
Out of all my phenomenal dance experiences, the ones I had in a city called Cali were truly the icing on the cake. I went to Cali for the first time to go to El Festival Mundial de Salsa, the World Salsa Festival, and after a weekend’s worth of exposure to the world-renowned salsa caleña, I was hungry for more. I visited again for a week to attend La Feria de Cali, but not before preparing myself a little bit more by learning a ton of salsa caleña steps from Instagram reels and TikToks haha. The way people dance salsa in each region of Colombia is very different, and salsa caleña is known for its quick footwork, hip movement, and acrobatics that make it amazing to watch and sooo much fun to dance. I had such an amazing time with my friends dancing through the city and after that week in Cali, I came back to Cartagena with more flow, musicality, rhythm, awareness, and confidence than ever before. I LOVED Cali, and I am excited to move there in just a little bit over a month as I’ve been awarded a second Fulbright grant with Cali as my host city! Next to Cartagena, Cali is the other city that I fell in love within Colombia, so I am ecstatic to have the opportunity to live there too, and I can’t wait to share about the experiences that await me there!
Sooo to sum it up, dance was a fundamental part of my experience in Colombia. I used dance to connect with my community by taking classes, seeking out shows, performances, and festivals, replicating the dance I saw, asking other dancers about the dance, its history, culture, and about themselves. In hindsight, I’d add that resting, stretching, and strengthening are also important because all that dancing left me with a knee injury, but I am healing well and have no regrets! Dance made my experience so enriching; I learned about people’s stories, cultural differences, music, language, dance technique, and made so many memorable experiences. I absolutely encourage you to use your passions to connect whether you’re in a new city, state, country, or right in your hometown to connect, to feel at home, and to build community.
