You are in a salsa club and one of your favourite songs
comes on. This is what you have been waiting for all day. Your heart starts racing,
you feel the beat, it is pulsing in your ears, it is banging in your head.
While you ease into the song you can hardly stop your excitement. The rhythm is
bringing you pure joy, the synchronised steps of the other dancers brings you
happiness, the music is brilliant, the lyrics elevate your mood, the song picks
up, your steps get faster, you enter a spiral of ever increasing ecstasy, you
lose yourself completely, you are as close to paradise on earth as you can
possible get, you hope this song never ends.
However, you know in your heart that like all good things
this moment will end so you want to at least go out with a bang. You prepare
yourself for the final moment of the song, you know this song well so you are
pretty sure you can time one of your best moves to finish on the last beat.
Actually, let’s add a dip to it at the end so the move needs to start a bit
earlier… 2 8-counts to go… hang on what is this?... the music seems to be
changing slightly… this is definitely not the version you know… will the move
still work?... the music is changing more … it is slowing down … your steps do
not seem to match the rhythm any more … in fact where is the rhythm?... this is
no longer enjoyable… this is no longer salsa… it becomes awkward … you look at
your partner, you see the same disappointment in their eyes, you solemnly take
them to the edge of the dance floor, thank them for the dance and join your
friends who have all retreated, trying their best not to let the situation
depress them. As you process what just happened you realise that not only did
this DJ take away some of the most precious moments of one of your favourite
songs and denied you the chance to practise your end-timing with one of your
favourite moves but the way the song ended was so indefinite and unclear that
no-one could have ended it well. This awkward transition period between the
current song and the next, something that is neither salsa nor any other form
of dance or music, seems to somehow justify the DJs job when being referred to as
“mixing” and as much as that may even be appreciated by the average club-goer
it has certainly ruined your dance. However, what takes the cake is the type of
music that your favourite song has been mixed into. As much as you are trying
to ignore the truth there is no more denying it: What is being played and
danced at this moment in time is… Kizomba!
The feeling is to be likened to your favourite Rock band live performance being cut short by someone playing the bagpipes. It is like watching the football world cup final and 5 minutes before the end of the game all the players disappear and instead some people start to play boules. It is like being sold a tennis racket in a French restaurant or someone listening to heavy metal in a yoga class. In other words, it is not only complete and utter nonsense but in addition leaves you with this bitter taste in your mouth of being cheated.
Anyway let’s not get depressed, you think, after all you did
just have an amazing song to dance to so you might consider forgiving the DJ
for this one crime as long as he just gets back to salsa after this song. So
you sit there, you try and close your ears and eyes, you try and ignore what is
going on around you, desperately hanging on to the clave in your head which is
slowly fading away. Go to your happy place, you think, surely this song will
end in a few minutes and indeed it does… or did it? It’s hard to tell, this all
sounds the same to you but one glance at your watch confirms your biggest fear…
few Kizomba songs last 7 minutes so this is probably Kizomba song number 2.
Slowly but surely you are reaching the anger stage of your grief. “Maybe the
DJs will play some salsa if I shove my mp3 player down his throat,”, “Why did I
pay £10 to dance and now I am sitting around?”, “The banner read – best salsa
party of the year – I want my money back, this is fraud!”.
Like a high school party where the parents have come
home early you see some of your friends are starting to leave quietly with an
expression on their face that mirrors your feelings. “No” you think “Not
tonight! I will not leave on a Kizomba song again or I will become suicidal! I
will hang on until they play salsa again.” At this point your definition of
salsa includes pretty much anything with a clave as long as you can dance
again. Your energy is gone, your excitement is gone, your frustration is at its
peak and you are only hanging on with sheer willpower. The music acts as a
great lullaby and the chair is actually quite comfortable. Maybe you can just
fall asleep right here and you are no longer sure whether you have the energy
to drive back to your home anyway any more. You are slowly drifting into a
dream about those days when salsa events meant that people were dancing salsa.
Remember those times you stayed on until the end of the night and when the
lights came on you still did not have enough. When you listened to salsa all
the way back to your home and couldn’t fall asleep afterwards because of the
incredible excitement you felt. When the debates you heard in clubs were
centred around whether the music should be suitable for only cross-body salsa or
Cuban salsa or an equal mix over the course of a night. When all your friends
came along every night rather than staying at home as “they will only play
Kizomba again anyway”. Someone bumps into you and you wake up from your trance.
How many Kizomba songs has it been now…. 5 or 6? You have lost count. You are
bored out of your mind and exhausted. There was a Bachata song somewhere in the
middle that you almost used as an excuse to at least get yourself up again but
it was just as slow so not enough to wake you up completely. This is it. You
have no more energy to hang on to. Another salsa night ruined. Better luck next
time – or at least so you hope.
