Kim Karalekas

So the last two years I have spent Cinco de Mayo in New York, as the One Show Festival seems to always fall on Cinco so I really had no idea what to expect this Cinco de Mayo as I am now in Austin and not working my face off…as much as the last few year anyway.

I headed downtown – there was a giant block party down on 2nd with live music and people watching everywhere. As I was walking through the crowd, I was wondering to myself: I wonder how many of these people think today is the Mexican independence day? I was also wondering how many people in the celebrating crowd were French….because that would really be the ultimate irony.

Anyway, so I enjoyed the band that was playing – def. wasn’t traditional Mexican music; however, I’d call it (slightly) Latino funk. Reminded me so much of the group Pila Seca – a group we saw down in Mexico. Here’s part of the band:

Here’s a bit of video I took of them playing:

And THEN, the best part happened! I went over to the other side of the stage and what happened right next to me?? Well, if you guessed that a few b boys started break dancing, well then you win the prize! Something people might or might know about me is that I LOVE this genre / movement – love the breakdancing, the battles, the b boys. UO always put on a show each year which I went to and loved. Ah!

Of course I took video:

So around that time, I ran into Matt and his friends. It’s so funny to me how much of a little big city Austin is. Even a city of about a million, lately I’ve found myself running into familiar faces in the most random places.

Anyway, so last night I was down in San Marcos with Matt and his friends as well – we went salsa dancing. Matt’s roommate, aka Latin Heat, is in a few Latin bands – Tuesday night’s band had 14 memebers! Awesome! …but I’m digressing hardcore. So ok, I run into Matt + his friends and they are heading to Ruta Maya to tear up the dance floor, salsa style.

So here’s one analogy I was thinking about with Salsa. Salsa dancing is very similar to dating. To dance salsa successfully, there has to be a connection and a balance between the guy and the girl, or the lead and the follow. I danced with alot of different leads last night and it was amazing how different I was able to dance based on what the guy was or was not doing. In salsa, of course the girl needs to know the moves, but it is the responsibility of the guy / lead to LEAD the girl / follow.

It’s actually a very cool thing because if done correctly, it’s like a whole other form of communication…that really uses no words at all. It’s up to the guy to let the girl know what move he is going to do next. So say if the guy wants to do a follow’s turn, he will put the girls hand up so that she knows what to do next. If he wants to do a spin, he’ll put his hand on the girls back and send her spinning. Now, with spins, there also must be a follow through – if the guy sends the girl spinning, he has to stop her too or else the girl doesn’t know how many spins to do. If the guy wants to do a dip – it’s the same thing. There’s also alot of trust with a dip as if the guy messes up, the girl will pretty much hit the ground. (;

Same thing goes for a follow though – the follow has to have an insane amount of trust in the lead and not try to micro-manage the dance. I might or might have personal experience with this area of improvement. (=

Anyway, to bring this full circle – I learned that dancing salsa is like dating – there has to been a good balance between the lead (guy) and the follow (girl). If not, as I learned last night, success will not be on the menu. (=