Dance Me to the Moon

Salsa sweeps Bangalore and with it so much hypocrisy out the door

By Dilraz Kunnummal

For thousands of years, the temples of Khajuraho and Konarak have displayed the most sexually explicit sculpture in the world. Yet India is reknowned as the world capital of prudery and denial. The Bollywood formula is driven by lust, but not a kiss allowed.

So what is Salsa doing here? In typically contradictory fashion, the sensual Latin dance form is big if not getting bigger as the first annual Salsa festival hits Mysore, South India's citadel of conservatism.

The first World Salsa Championship Qualifiers in India were held in Bangalore between August 15 and18 this year, putting the country square on the world Salsa map. Bindhu Prasanna & Madan Kumar won the competition, and will represent India at the ESPN World Salsa Championship 2008 in Orlando, Florida in December.

Salsa, Spanish for 'sauce' is fun, flirty, lively and sexy, making it popular with couples, and it's also a good excuse to get dressed up in colourful traditional costumes. It's also a pretty decent workout.

Salsa is the latest fad to hit the dance studios of Bangalore, though it was first introduced on the subcontinent in the late nineties. Today, the dance has taken off, evinced by the numerous training centers popping up all over the country thanks to publicity generated by events like August's world qualifiers.

Aside from the many new studios in the city dedicated to Salsa, Bangalore's nightclubs have caught on to the trend with special Salsa nights, where debutantes can show their stuff after school lets out.

"Everyone seems to be joining Salsa classes these days," says Sonam, a 21 year old student, who has recently joined the fervor. "It's a fun form of dancing and is a nice place to meet new people and make new friends."

Lourd Vijays Dance Studio (LVDS) is one of the most popular dance studios in the city. Lourd Vijay, a dancer whose first performance was at age 3, opened the studio about ten years ago, when the dance was still largely unknown in India.

"I was fascinated by this unique Latin American dance form," he told The Hindu, a newspaper. "Initially, I used to practice it on my own. Later, while studying for an MBA in Vancouver, I enrolled for classes and enjoyed it a great deal."

Sneha Kapoor & Richard Tholoor are two well-known faces on the Indian Salsa circuit. They have been on a winning spree not just in India, but abroad as well. They won the Australian Salsa Classic 2007, the European Salsa Masters Championship in the UK, and were the first Indians to qualify for the world Salsa Championship 2007 held at Orlando.

For Sneha, Salsa started out as a hobby, but she soon began to take it more seriously, and has been dancing professionally for the past three years. She is also Vice President of Operations for Lourd Vijay's dance studio.

"The flavor of Salsa reflected my personality. I felt free and I could express myself freely while dancing it," she says. Aside from the dance itself, the opportunity affords her to travel for shows, meet new dancers form around the world and make new friends in the process.

Sneha says people now are more interested in doing something different from their 'regular routine' and many of the students come from the IT industry. She says there is no age limit for those wishing to get a taste of the fiery Latin groove, and LVDS teaches students as old as 65-70.

For those who are good enough, Salsa can lead down paths beyond the classroom. Salsa dancers are often invited by corporations and clubs to perform at their events. Some lucky Bangaloreans can even make a living out of it.

Aside from LVDS, studios like Prithvee & Rees, Dance Studio Inc and Salsa Bangalore all offer training with flexible schedules.

So no more procrastinating, put on your dancing shoes and head to any of Bangalore's Salsa studios, spice up your weekly schedule and get saucy with the latest dance craze to sweep the subcontinent.

[This was printed in the in-house newspaper of the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media, on 17 November 2008, in the Arts & Culture Supplement, Image Courtesy - Sneha Kapoor, LVDS]