Reviews
Eric Wilkins - Oakland, California
"This is by far the best picture and sound quality of any previous Boogalu DVD's and the dancers are just as great as before. I especially liked the dance performances of Nichito and Yanet. The dance lesson by Lázaro and Tamara was superb. They are right on the money when they say that most beginners focus too much on learning complicated moves and not enough on the basics of dancing."
Peter Robson - Salsasimplemente.com
"An excellent DVD - entertaining and enlightening, instructional and inspirational. I always tell my pupils that there is no such thing as A salsa, or THE salsa. And even within the realm of Cuban “salsa” this video vividly shows the differences in styles.
My first reaction on realising that the same piece of music was being used for all the couples dancing was not good. But I completely changed my opinion. The music itself is an excellent choice, starting slowly and gently, its pace quickens and even includes a little timbales break allowing the dancers another opportunity for self expression. But apart from minimising the production costs, using the same piece of music was a masterstroke, showing how the same piece of music can be interpreted in different ways by the dancers, dancing both on-1 and contra-tiempo, and including rumba and improvisation. Brilliant.
There is so much to commend this video it is hard to know where to start. I thought that the class (segment) was very useful. Both a very good reminder of salient points for experienced dancers and excellent tuition for novices. The DVD has helped me by encouraging me to improvise more and include small, but albeit important, elements of rumba and footwork to add colour and flavour to the dance.
Favourite dancers? Having been fortunate enough to have taken classes with some of the dancers in Cuba I am a little biased. But I can’t say I have a favourite, they are all great to watch: the extrovert Bustamente, ever the showman; the fabulous footwork of Roynet, the subtlety of Ranses – I just keep watching them all !".
Johan Haegeman - Aalst, Belgium
"I am an amateur Cuban Salsa dancer (13 years) and musician. So when I played your latest Casinando DVD for the first time I switched immediately to the demos of the professional couples, in search for something new. Nice work, clear recording. I did not watch part four (salsa-casino dance instruction) as I was not interested in ‘yet another instruction of the basics. Weeks later, having nothing else to do, I selected it on the menu. It was a VERY pleasant surprise.
This is the best and most accurate explanation of Casino in a few minutes I have ever seen. By accurate I mean: capturing the essence of how Cubans express their unique rhythmic feeling. If you had some Cuban Salsa lessons and wonder why those Cubans on video look different and so much better, don’t think its only a matter of practice. Compare carefully what you have learned with what the teacher Lazaro Pedroso says. Maybe you will discover that you learned some modified version of Casino, often taught to non-Cubans. Part four of this DVD alone makes it worth buying. It can save you months of dancing practice."
Richard
"My big essential issue about everybody who looks at Cuban dance from outside, is they miss the point. They go in looking for: 1) "moves" to fit in a syllabus - useable by dance schools with floors, footwear, mirrors 2) expert instructors who "know the material" in some sense and pass it down to students in measured doses by teaching sequential foot placements... including lessons in how to "remember to smile"... in packages of steps and levels... that cost a certain amount of money. You get the idea.
It's all completely wrong... compared to how it is really lived in Cuba. Dancing is part of the culture, passed on between equals, everything is individualized. Never is dance disconnected from music and interpersonal communication.. Outside Cuba, it's learnd exactly like acrobatics. Experts, not peers. Drill, not parties. Dramatics and spectacle, not sabor. Wow the audience, not surprise and delight the partner. Repitition, not improvisation and responsiveness.
Cubanas will tell you they'd far rather dance with somebody with good feeling than somebody that knows lots of moves. The culture outside has no understanding of what that might mean. Ultimately, all the dance "experts" outside think what we do, is "improve" on the Cuban thing. There is no awareness of what is lost. But all that is really significant is ultimately, discarded.
SO... I liked the different feeling-based, not "move" based, approach that made up part of the Casinando DVD. It does something towards conveying what is lost in our 1st world "improvements". Generally I enjoyed the DVD. Even the stuff based on "here's another move" is good and useful when it's done by Cubans, because it still shows they do it naturally, even as much as we try to commoditize it ! "
Fabio - SalsaIsGood.com
Boogalu Productions deserves a special place in the salsa community for having regularly brought to us a portrait of Cuban music and dance which is as faithful as it is instructive: while you can get a feel for NY and LA salsa even without travelling to either city (thanks to international congresses, instructional DVDs, local artists and YouTube), Cuba and its dance are another cup of tea, something you can breath only locally. Boogalu Productions is the closest you can get to it without travelling to Cuba and to some extent it even delivers aspects that you may find hard to access by travelling there.
As the name suggest this video is about salsa casino style and is divided into 3 parts. In the first part a number of couples first perform together a rueda routine and then each dances separately to the same piece of music. The choice of the music is a particularly clever one, including a Guaguanco introduction, followed by a son/salsa session which breaks into a rhythmic session and a faster finale. This structure allows us to analyse how each couple interprets the different parts of the song. Here you have several models to tickle your inspiration: from very young to more senior dancers, from very black to very white, from tall to short, from very energetic to more stylish. There is no instruction here, so you need to watch and get inspired or use your remote control to explore the details.
The second part is dedicated to the couple who I believe justly deserve the closest attention and presents a simple but very elegant casino style demonstration. Here we are offered a close view of the details of both the footwork and body work.
Finally, the third part contains actual instruction of basic elements of casino style. It also offers some philosophy of dancing: the teachers suggest that we should bring our own styling into our dancing; this is so different from the accepted view in NY and LA style salsa, which is to learn style by imitating the latest star in fashion. The teaching does not go too deep into this philosophy unfortunately, but covers basic steps, simple turns, and movement on the dance floor and concludes with a further demonstrations which includes all the elements taught.