Jennifer Adams

Though I am known to culturally confuse people..."Hey! What are you anyway? You look...", I am 100% Afro-American. :-)

Being Afro-American, I was first introduced to Salsa nearly 8 years ago while searching for a new R&B club. By chance I strode into a tiny place perched on the corner of College Ave. and 54th. I listened to the foreign, exotic rhythyms but could not make sense of them. As all beginners, I tried to Americanize it, to dance it "my way"...you know, like on the rap videos! But it wasn't long after the first salsa song that something else took over. Suddenly I just stopped and watched the dancers.

I witnessed high energy dance patterns; the fierce spinning of women with incredible legs; bedazzling moves; the sensual connection between strangers moving in perfect synch to a relentless cuban drum. The harder they danced, the more I wanted to dance like them. I didn't realize it at the time, but just like all other salseros before and after me, I was hooked. I returned each Thursday to watch the experts dazzle us with their grand displays. Then I would returned home to practice what I remembered, just me and my shadow, immulating the greatest dancers my eyes had ever witnessed.

I've danced since I was a child. But I've had very little formal training as a foundation, except what I learned from Michael Jackson choreographies. Ha! Ha! Ha! (Come on, we all went there!) Most of what I learned was afforded me through LOTS of patience, tons of mistakes and simple hard work. I purposefully developed a style that combined grace and strength, high enegry and intense sexuality. Between formal training and street training, I am slightly more attracted to street salsa. It is in this arena that rules are more frequently bent, if not broken, and character and style are the highest priority. It's not what you do, but what you make people believe when you do it.

Klingonfemale has spoken....