On Stars of Salsa 2011

So here are my thoughts on Stars of Salsa:

 

Overall

Didn't quite live up to expectations based on previous years. Good level of social dancing and strong organisation, but only three memorable shows. Fantastic location - all the parties were situated on my Central London doorstep. Rather felt like a big SOS with lots of French people and some extra starlets on the side. Someone said "It's like a usual SOS but with lots of foreign women stealing our guys" which was a pretty fair description of Sunday night. Still, it was a great weekend, if more for the social aspects than the dancing quality.

When reading this review, please bear in mind that while I've used the criteria I use for congresses, this event is not a congress, but an extended social or mini-festival. It's designed to be small, informal and friendly. It therefore isn't fair to compare it to the big events that are financed by sponsors and advertised around the world. Having said that, it's pretty large for an extended social and as an event that people might travel to from outside of the UK, is being compared based on the same metrics.

Please also note that I am a full-on SOS fan. While some of the usual SOS vibe came through (for example in Friday night's party), I didn't get the ecstatic sense of being "home" that I get from my usual Sunday nights dancing and therefore found that the event was a little soul-less. It was solidly organised, but was somehow missing some of the heartful joy that pervaded the occasion in previous years.

Will I be attending next year? Of course - I'm an SOS junkie and it's on my doorstep. Despite all the moaning, who can turn down three high quality mambo nights in such a convenient location?

Let's break it down:

1.  Prices

1. Flights - None required. For any readers from out of town, the parties and workshops are held 5-15mins walk away from the St Pancras Eurostar terminal and 50mins on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow airport. London being the transport hub that it is, it's pretty accessible...
2. Pass prices - £35 for the party pass if you book early. About £55 if you book closer to the event. Workshops are maybe £20 on top of that. Check the website for any updates for next year though, inflation and VAT are rising!
3. Hotels - Loads of hotels and hostels in the area, the ones on the website are good recommendations and well situated. The best option though is to find a Londoner and shack up with them!
4. Bottled water - For normal SOS nights in the Royal National Hotel, they usually give tap water out at the bar, and you can bring your own if you like as well. For the party night on Saturday, I'm pretty sure drinks were sold at cost, so you can only complain about London prices. Annoyingly, on Saturday night, they like to run a "ticket scheme". You buy a ticket or series of them and then buy your drink 3 minutes later with your ticket. I don't understand why people enjoy complicating matters in this way, but at least in this case, you were allowed to buy tickets in the exact quantum you needed, so you weren't left with tickets in your pockets (or shoes, or cleavage) at the end of the night.

2.  Venue

1. Floor - Normal SOS floors on Friday, good wood floor on Saturday and normal SOS floors with an extra floor space added on Sunday. For those readers who are not SOS regulars, the main SOS floor is perfect to dance on, the carpet is just fine too so long as you don't have new shoes and the second floor is decent as well.  Regarding the second dance floor - spinning on it is fine, the issue is that the panels are manually put together and you can lose your equilibrium or even ruin your shoes when dancing on it. There are a couple of new panels too which have twice the stickiness of the others, making dancing across panels (you typically cover two or three) a pain if not slightly challenging at times. Personally, I'd rather dance on carpet.
2. Number of dance floors - One only - by which I mean, all the dance floors described above were in one room and everyone was dancing to the same music. Oh wait! They had a kizomba floor on Sunday in the South End of the hotel…A few good dancers were lost to that one, but there were enough people there for the salsa that the difference was barely noticeable. Not that I can comment as I never made it to the kizomba room…Simply not interested!
3. Workshops vs. parties - Workshops in the SOS venue, i.e. in the Royal National Hotel, so really conveniently located. I didn't do the workshops this year, but instead convinced a friend to come and stay with me for the weekend so we hung out and had brunch in the middle of the afternoon instead. Workshops at Stars of Salsa are on Sundays only. The idea is to let the salsa-tourists spend some time discovering London. All good, but having the workshops on Sunday rather than Saturday seems a little strange. I suspect that the organisers could not convince the hotel to let them use the ballroom on the Saturday, which is a shame since any normal person would want to do the workshops on Saturday, after a party that ends at 1am, and then sleep on Sunday after the party ending at 4am…The social dancing is what Stars of Salsa is all about though - the workshops are merely extras to convince more people to come...
4. Show seats - Large room with seats for the Saturday night shows. Sitting on the floor or standing for the other nights.
5. Show visibility - Fine if you're a regular and know where to sit! Three sided dance floors in the Royal National Hotel mean that people can spread out so I believe most people could see the shows without a problem.
6. Workshop visibility - I'm assuming this was fine. They do not appear to have been that crowded.
7. Workshop organisation - Presumably not needed given the size of the classes, with personal attention a possibility too.

3.  Crowd

1. Workshops - I wasn't there, but was disappointed last year with most of the partnerwork sessions I attended as too little material was covered and I was essentially bored. No Santo Rico spin drills here!
2. Parties - Good level of dancing at the usual London standard. There were very few foreigners who stood out to me, with only a couple for whom I felt the need to go back for another dance. Had rather felt that the level in previous years was higher, which is probably the source of my general disappointment. While my progress on the dance floor has probably led to my expecting more from every event, I felt it was a shame that I didn't get a congress buzz. The "buzz" is the feeling created when you feel like your congress dance partners are making you dance beyond your current level, such that you can see yourself improving with each social dance. I didn’t feel that this year. I also blame the music and the DJs, but I'll explain that later. Parties ended at 1am on Friday/Sunday and 4am on Saturday. 1am on Sunday is fine for the London contingent, but for a Friday night party, when there are no workshops the day after, 1am is a little early…It's probably why the place was fairly empty on Friday as well: when I fly out to congresses on Friday nights, I usually waltz in after 12. Promise me a mere hour on the dance floor and I would start thinking about taking the cheaper Saturday morning flight.
3. Size - Small. And yet somehow there were so many women that it was difficult to get hold of regulars in the usual relaxed SOS fashion. Large enough to dance with new people every night, small enough to dance with your favourites three nights in a row. Felt smaller because of the London contingent - knowing everyone and knowing everyone's level from the outset doesn't exactly help a party feel like it's sprawling...
4. After parties - No such thing - but we had an impromptu tea and biscuits session at my house at 4am on Saturday. Good times!

 4.  Line-up

1. Quality of teaching - Good. Juan Matos, Tamambo and Ania, Leon Rose, Majusee and a bunch of others with less caché. Unfortunately Anmeris couldn't make it.
2. Choice of workshops - Small since there were only a couple of hours on Friday and a full day on Sunday. I did the workshops during the previous years' events. In 2009, I found a couple to be reasonably useful; in 2010 I only really connected with Juan Matos' footwork class at the end (epic!). Last year, I generally found the level in the partnerwork classes to be pitched too low (for me anyway), which is why I decided not to do the workshops this year.
3. Number of shows - Not too many. Three on Friday and Sunday and a full set on Saturday. Only Leon's new show, Majusee's show and a show by Gigi & Gigi, these two amazing Italian dancers got my attention. For the rest of them, I spent most of my time wondering if the DJ might be playing the music too fast because all the artists looked like they were struggling to keep up. I'm not generally a fan of shows, and am not often impressed, and was thus pretty non-plussed by these. Leon's new show is worth travelling for though!
4. Artists on dance floor - Yup. But they were mostly what I refer to as B-artists. So no fear factor in asking them to dance, no real queues obstructing you from doing so and high quality social dancing from the fact that they haven't yet burnt out!
5. DJs (new category) - Hmm…Won't quote their names as was frankly disappointed. Never felt: "OMG, I have to dance" and was shocked every time they "mixed" songs - who does that? Apparently, this was the same guy I was moaning about in Salsorro…Just when the music started getting good, he would play a bachata or kizomba, thereby breaking the vibe. He also played a fair amount of Cuban tracks, which is incredibly strange to hear on an SOS dance floor. Trying to please everyone is fine, but didn't he get the brief about SOS being 100% cross-body dancers? Note that I've added the DJ category in this review. When happy with the music, I don't feel the need to comment on it!
6. Bands (new category) - None. But then SOS is a social and a cost effective one at that, so fully understandable.

5.  Location

1. Centralised - Zone 1 - need I say more?
2. Distance from airport - 50 minutes on the tube.
3. Time from London - It's in London - Joy!
4. Number of days off work - None necessary. None necessary for anyone from Paris either.

For more information check out the website: SOS website