Our Social Media Presence

Since we started our dance school 10 months ago we have been growing steadily both in terms of the number of students attending our classes as well as the hours we teach per week. It has been a fantastic experience to get involved in more and more projects and increase our weekly classes from just level 1 and level 2 in Eggborough to teaching several levels in Eggborough, York, Leeds and Selby with our newest course starting in Tadcaster on 1^st September. We have loved every minute of it and have been very lucky to be blessed with very nice students who are eager to learn the moves we teach and support us in every way they can.

Outside of classes we have been increasing our social media presence in order to answer any questions about our classes and teaching, as well as provide our students with a wealth of material that will help them in their dance training. Since we started our dance school we have created the following platforms to stay in touch with our students and distribute information connected to our classes which are discussed in turn:

Website: http://tiempoespana.wix.com/tiempo-espana

Our website was the first online platform we created and has been our main hub to pass on any information regarding our classes and our dance school. This ranges from topics such as dance etiquette to the full syllabus we follow as well as a comprehensive FAQ section. Our website is constantly updated and contains all our current events and classes as well as showing an up to date calendar which informs students of any cancellation or changes to class times, venues etc. when necessary.

Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/Cuban-Salsa-Meetup

This is our main forum where we can connect with our local community so that people can find out which classes and events are close to their location.

Blog: http://tiempoespanadance.blogspot.co.uk

Our aim has always been to introduce students to other aspects of the dances we teach, not just the moves themselves i.e. the history, culture, musicality etc. As we have limited time to pass on the more theoretical but important aspects of these dances in class, we have created this blog to give students as much background information as possible around the moves they learn as well as analyse concepts that seem to cause a lot of confusion based on the feedback we receive.

Facebook:

-          Tiempo España Dance Academy Page  https://www.facebook.com/groups/661195067348419

-          Tiempo España Dance Academy Group https://www.facebook.com/TiempoEspanaDance

-          Tiempo España Dance Academy Blog Page https://www.facebook.com/Tiempo-Espa%C3%B1a-Dance-Academy-Blog-821237101312678

We have 3 different Facebook sites to connect with students and people interested in our classes. Our Facebook page is a landing page for anyone searching for us via this medium and directly connects them with our website and our Facebook group.

Our Facebook group is a way for our students to connect with each other and raise any general questions about our school and our classes. This is also where we announce all of our latest news.

Our Facebook blog page enables our students to comment and discuss the content of our blog and ask any further questions on the articles we write.

Mailing List: tiempoespanadance@hotmail.com

Our mailing list informs all our subscribers about cancellations, company news and updates. The information distributed is essentially the same as what we announce via Meetup and Facebook and is therefore predominantly designed for people who do not have access to these media forms.

Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/user/tiempoespa%C3%B1adance

This is the place where we save some of our favourite songs in a playlist so our students can listen to them at home and practice their moves to music.

One of the questions we have been asked a lot, particularly in the last few months, is whether we can give our students a video of the various moves we teach in class so that they can practice their steps. To accommodate this demand, we have created some videos with the help of one of our best and most enthusiastic students who kindly offered his equipment and photography experience. We will distribute these videos in the form of a Youtube channel by uploading one move at a time every last Friday of the month. This will coincide with a post on this blog which will be published on the same day, describing the move, the history, the hand sign, etc. in more details.

Initially, we will only publish moves that can be done both en parejas as well as en rueda along with their respective Rueda hand sign. At a later stage we may additionally produce videos that are specifically related to Ruedas.

To get things started we have published all the videos for such moves that have been discussed in this blog so far i.e. Paso Casino, Sombrero and Enchufla. As discusses previously, Paso Casino is the default step and is therefore never called or signalled in a Rueda so no hand sign is shown in the video. The move Dame which has been discussed previously is not included in our Youtube channel currently as it is a Rueda move so is not part of our current series. To see the full list of our current videos please visit our Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu_MbF5v5N-PNPm_9WCrefA.

Pedro Navaja (Part 2)

While Pedro Navaja is one of the most popular salsa songs of all times, many people fail to see its lyrical significance or simply wonder why such a dark storyline was chosen as the basis for a song which is part of an upbeat musical genre usually associated with making people happy. However, delving into the history of the story and the messages it tries to convey is as fascinating as the music itself.

The song was heavily influenced by Mack the knife or its original title “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer”, a song composed for the music drama Die Dreigroschenoper by Bertold Brecht which was played for the first time in 1928 and was in turn based on John Gay’s “The Beggars Opera” written in 1728. While it is not known how much Rubén Blades tried to identify with Brechtian thought, the parallels between “Die Dreigroschenoper” or its English translation “The Threepenny Opera” cannot be ignored.

First of all, the name of the title character Pedro Navaja is a direct reference to Mackie Messer with “Navaja” and “Messer” both meaning knife in Spanish and German respectively. Mackie Messer, whose real name is Macheath, is based on the highwayman in The Beggar's Opera who was inspired by Jack Sheppard, a notorious thief who plagued London in the 18^th century.

Towards the end of the song we hear the lyrics “Valiente pescador, al anzuelo que tiraste en vez de una sardina, un tiburón enganchaste” which loosely translates to “Criminal fisherman by throwing a hook you caught a shark instead of a sardine”. This is again a direct reference to Mackie Messer who is introduced by the verse:

“Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne

  Und die trägt er im Gesicht

  Und Macheath, der hat ein Messer

  Doch das Messer sieht man nicht.”

Or its literal English translation:

And the shark, he has teeth

he wears them in his face

And Macheath, he has a knife,

but no one sees the knife.

Both Macheath and Pedro Navaja are introduced with the knife that is concealed from everyone else. What is interesting is the shark reference that is present in both lyrics. This describes the criminal in Brecht’s work whereas Blades uses it to describe the victim.

Blades’ lyrics are full of these references that directly refer back to Die Dreigroschenoper while at the same time changing small details that leave new room for interpretation and imagination.

Similarly, John Gay’s original work can be seen as having had an impact on Pedro Navaja i.e. In his article “In Possession of a Stolen Weapon” Antonio Viselli draws a parallel between the thief catcher Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera and the police that are referenced in Pedro Navaja. Despite their car not being marked, everyone knows that it is a police car, describing the police's complete ineffectiveness or maybe unwillingness to help against criminals such as Pedro Navaja. Similarly, Peachum knows the criminals around him but only takes them to the criminal court system if they are not useful to him in other ways.

One of the lessons we learn from Die Dreigroschenoper is that the more corrupt society is as a whole, the more corrupt are the individuals who live in it and on a more general level, Brecht uses his play to criticise capitalism and its effect on society. This is again a theme that is used by Blades throughout his song Pedro Navaja, which culminates in the death of both the prostitute and the thief over a few pesos. The most striking emphasis of this point is however not the death of the two main characters but rather the fact that a drunkard who stumbles over the two bodies uses the opportunity to take the revolver, the knife and the money while no one else seems to care about the situation. Despite the noise, nobody asks questions about the crime, no one comes to aid the victim or calls the police and no one seems surprised or even interested in the incident that has just transpired. The only person who seems happy about his fortune in the entire song is the drunkard who walks away singing. This paints a picture of capitalist societies which are completely deprived of social values, ethics and empathy where the winner is whoever ends up with material value and while everyone fights over a few breadcrumbs it is never certain who will emerge victorious in a world without social concerns.

In the story, the prostitute is surprised to have her earnings threatened by the thief, the thief is surprised to have his pickings threatened by the fact that the prostitute is not defenceless and the drunkard is surprised to find easily accessible goods on the street that he can steal. The futility of this situation is brought to a conclusion by expressing all of these incidences as well as the deeper subtext of the story with one single slogan sung by the drunkard until the end of the song: “La vida te da sorpresas, sorpresas te da la vida, ¡Ay Dios!.” (English: "Life gives you surprises, life gives you surprises" my God.)