If you do not know the feeling of having Kizomba forced onto you in the middle of a salsa event, then you probably have not been dancing salsa in the UK lately or have given it up altogether. With an ever increasing market share, at least for the moment, Kizomba is starting to dominate everything salsa related. That is, unless you are lucky enough to be at one of the events that still hold on to tradition or are organised by promoters that are honest enough to sell the actual product they are advertising. And with every party being designated “Best salsa ever”, “Absolute salsa”, “Salsa all night long” etc. it is hard, if not impossible to predict whether there will actually be a significant amount of salsa going on. Most of the events I have tried out lately had around 40% salsa, 25% Bachata, 25% Kizomba, 10% other dances but it is needless to say that any category can get a bigger share on any one night with the trend for the moment going towards more Kizomba and less salsa.
I was at an event a few weeks ago where I got to dance salsa 5 times in the span of 3 hours and once again the event did not even mention Kizomba in the fine print of their advertising despite this being by far the most common dance category on the night. The worst thing to me is the tension, frustration and confusion this creates between the Kizomba and salsa community when it could all be so easily solved by simply splitting up these two completely unrelated dance forms and organising Kizomba events and salsa events which are exclusively about the advertised dance, or at the very least group them together with related dance forms. To some degree this is happening already and while the mixed parties continue to dominate the market, at least some of the billboards are starting to read something like “The Best of Kizomba, Bachata, Salsa & Regaetton” rather than painting it all with the salsa brush. However, the vast majority of events still advertise salsa, while selling something entirely different which continues to disillusion consumers as well as create an ever increasing number of “fusion” dancers, people who will try to apply the moves they know to any music genre and dance that comes on rather than learning about one dance properly before moving on to something new.
It saddens me the amount of times I see beginner salsa students try to dance salsa to Kizomba songs because they are yet to become aware of this situation and they naturally assume that every song played on a salsa event is a salsa song and it is their own limits in terms of musicality that makes the dance feel so weird. Similarly, I see an ever increasing number of salsa students learn some Kizomba or vice versa, not because they particularly enjoy the music or the dance but simply so that they get to dance at all on social nights rather than having to sit around.
The few people who do stick to one thing at a time are made to feel particularly awkward when one of these persistent “I don’t take no for an answer” type of dancers approach them and when they say “I do not dance Kizomba” they get the answer “don’t worry just follow my lead” at which point they get shoved around unless they blatantly refuse to dance.
I can only imagine that it must feel similarly frustrating for Kizomba dancers when they go out dancing and suddenly have someone spin them around multiple times, followed by dips followed by lots of arm movements all to the sound of salsa beats while they have no interest in this dance and only came to the event for Kizomba.
The ultimate slap in the face for me is when I overhear people say “I do not dance any salsa, I just go to salsa events to dance Kizomba” but when I think about it, I actually immensely respect these dancers for trying to learn something properly and what annoys me is not the Kizomba dance or the music or the people. It is the promoters who lie about their product to the point where everybody knows it is a lie rather than just organising actual Kizomba events so that Kizomba dancers do not have to go to salsa events to dance. I.e. if I went to a social dancing night that was advertised as “Best Kizomba of all times”, I would never for one second expect them to play salsa music.
