Salsa in Houston
by Vincent Liaw
posted May 9, 2007

Hola Indy salseras y salseros! Erin assigned me something before I left naptown - special agent salsa correspondent in Houston. I have done my homework and here is the report.

Salsa in Houston is huge. I am not sure how it compares to NY/LA/Chicago, but it is definitely big. Being a new guy in town, salsa definitely helped me to a smoother transition into a new social circle. I just got back from what I called a "mini" salsa congress at Melody Club. Houston Salsa Dancers Inc., a non-profit organization that develops programs where inner city students learn to dance, organized the Texas Salsa Open. Winners of the competition will represent Texas at the West Coast Salsa Congress.

In conjunction with the competition, they invited Sekou McMiller from Chicago and Mario Gonzales (most commonly known as Mario B.) from New Jersey to give workshops and to be the judges of the salsa open. I attended both their workshops and I had a blast in Mario's session because he was funny and knew how to make the students have fun.

Needless to say, before and after the finals, the dance floor was packed with dancers, dancing to 99% salsa and 1% cha-cha. Most people came earlier for the fun class offered by Claudia Vazquez, one of the dancers from Houston Salsa Dancers Inc. She just had us free styling to the music and chasing our partners around the dance floor, without any physical contact. It was just amazing how she made everyone socialize in a heartbeat.

Most people dance on1, but good dancers dance both on1 and on2. The DJ was amazing, churning out percussion-emphasized/old-school salsa and cha-cha pieces all night long. The dance floor is almost the size of a basketball court. The dancers managed to fill up the dance floor all night long. That's why I said this was like a mini salsa congress.

I had my salsa fix for the week, I think it's a record number of dances that I had in one night. I will be back at Melody Club every first Saturday of the month for the salsa social. Houston is a great town for salsa. You should come visit!

…Naptown salsero in Houston, signing out!