that was an awesome concert last saturday (6/12) at club lido.
jose masso, the night’s mc, started with a rapid fire introduction of the night, its organizers and set the tone. he acknowledged ahmed and april, the nyc dancers they brought to dance on stage, and april’s recent boston salsa congress.
la india came on around 10:30 and sang many of her hits (i’m bad with song names). her opening number was a cha cha tribute to celia cruz. interestingly at the end of her set, the announcer called her the “queen of salsa” and she corrected him (in deference to celia) and he then used the “princess of salsa” title she’s known by.
el gran combo never disappoints. actually listening to them was better here than at the LA congress two weeks prior.
the large club was packed and there wasn’t room for social dancing unless you made use of a few open spots on the sides (the dance floor was taken over by people standing to watch the band). during the 40 or so minute break between the two bands, the dj played only merengue and bachata and zero salsa. that was unfortunate to say the least. it was the only time the floor was available to dance salsa, which presumably people attending a salsa concert would have done.
so how was the dance show during the concert? both great and disappointing. great as dancing, but disappointing in terms of their being visible to all the audience. here’s what happened. the organizers had set up two 3′ by 6′ (or so) platforms in front of and at the right and left ends of the stage. these were deemed by the dancers not sufficiently stable to dance on and the organizers patched together a bigger and higher platform that was to the side of the stage and slightly obscured by a set of speakers.
the dancers danced a couple at a time during the gran combo set. dancing were ahmed zakaria, desiree dicupe, gabriel perez, gina benitez, irene otero, kimberli flores, mario carrasquillo, and victor perez. with a spotlight on them they could be seen by most of the audience if, and here’s the rub, people looked away from the band and in the direction of that platform. some did but most didn’t. personally, i think the smaller platforms in front of the stage should have also been made use of, even if only having a single dancer doing a solo on each.
overall it was a great night of music, and of social dancing (if you found a spot to dance), and of fine performance dancing (if you were near the dance platform or were looking their way).
kudos to jimpar productions for putting on this concert which doubled as a birthday celebration for the organizer.