Hi All,

The last thread on salsa in Madrid is about three years old, so I thought I'd submit another request for information on Salsa dancing in the city. Where are the good places to go? Is the Cuban style danced exclusively, or will it be possible to find NY or LA style salsa in the city? Is bachata played at any of the clubs there? Any info you could share would be much-appreciated!

Thx,
Zain

Hello, fellow salsa lover. Here, in Madrid, you have many places for dancing salsa, but most of them are tiny and isolated, some even rather dangerous or dirty.

The most fashionable ones are:

Clubs:

-Ramdall (yes, with 'm')
-Tropical House
-Azúcar
-O Zona
-La Riviera
-La Comercial Cubana
-El Son
-Cats
-La Sal
-Empire

Smaller clubs:

Parche
El solar de los aburridos
La Reina de Cuba
La Negra Tomasa
Habana Madrid

There are others, but I can't recall all of them. All have their pros and cons, but those listed above are at least average.

Some of the "smaller clubs" listed are restaurants also or are just restaurants where people bagun to dance. Some have live music and are not expensive, like "La negra Tomasa" or "Habana Madrid".

Traditionally we have always danced cuban style, including spontaneous Rueda Cubana sometimes, but in the bigger discos you'll find any style (i.e Ramdall, Tropical, maybe O Zona, ...), and in some that are more prone to North American styles, like Cats.

We always have salsa, merengue and bachata, although the proportion would be like 8/3/2 more or less. Sometimes a reggaeton or cha-cha-cha. In salsa I include rhumba, or other salsa rythm sounds. In dominican or colombian (even ecuatorian) places you'll see more merengue and bachata.

Some open every day, some only week-ends, others only some weekdays (for salsa), you'll have to check the days of your favourite ones.

I wouldn't recommend:

-El Sitio (not so nice people, low quality drinks-false brands- stomach aches).
-Fantasy (people)
-El bailódromo latino and all the AZCA area (in front of Real MAdrid stadium, in underground facilities) because it's PRETTY dangerous.
- El café del mercado (violent people).

If you read spanish, I recommend you to visit Salsa in Madrid page , although these days most people are on holidays, and the message board is less frequented. I have been to Barcelona and visited several ones, but I don't remember their names. For this and for other cities, I use to ask in the mentioned message board before I leave.

Thx for the excellent info! This will help very much, and I've just posted (in my so-so Spanish) a message in the 'Salsa in Madrid' forum, asking pretty much the same questions. I'll also be interested in finding out more about salsa in Sevilla, Granada, and Barcelona...

It sounds like the scene is similar to that in San Francisco in terms of the type of music played and the ratio of S:M:B.

Also, I'd be interested in taking a class or two while I'm there, just to see the way salsa is taught there and to meet some more people. Can you recommend anything?

You mentioned that a lot of people are on vacation. Will the clubs be dead in late August/early September because of this?

Thx again,
Zain

You're welcome. I saw your message and welcomed you there. You'll see I am not exactly a fan of LA/NY salsa, hehe. It was pretty clear your "so/so spanish".

Besides asking in the message board, there is a page that's often referred to when somebody is asking for places to dance out of town: Todosalsa I hope it's updated recently, for some of these pages, like salsapower.com are still nowadays referring to clubs long time dissapeared.

BTW, browsing the site, I saw several names of clubs in Barcelona, and I couldn't tell you which I was to, but I remember going to the ones in Maremagnum (outside the "Forum de las Culturas" that's being held these days), and they had a reasonable level of dancing (BArcelona level is generally lower than Madrid, don't know why) but it's also pretty risky, although it doesn't seem to be. Years ago a person was killed by the doormen and these days another death is related to these guards.

Whereas the first one could be an excess of the doormen with a very drunk and probably very agressive client that they wouldn't let in, this latter one seems to have happened to a drug dealer who died of heart attack after supposedly having had a quarrel (with the guards) inside the fun area.

However, it's dangerous. I was several days, but only entered one, and that one I saw a fast (so that guards couldn't act) but cruel and brutal fight, between "clients" when somebody suddenly hit a guy with extreme violence in his neck and back and there was a riot. Beware! It was a haven of peace and suddenly a storm of fists and runs to escape of the guards. Those guards have a really difficult task with all that drunk and drugged people looking for problems and a good fight and the drug dealers, and sometimes (in other cities) have been shot or stabbed.

When I was there, several people recommended "Salsa Buenavista" as the best in Barcelona (a.k.a. Barna). I believe the other one I was to was "Antilla" , and if this is the one I mean, it was good.

As for the classes, I had mine with Andrés, a Cuban teacher which is considered by most as the best salsa teacher in Madrid, but everyone have their own favourites. Some speak of a coupe of cubans (xxxx and Elizabeth) that teach at studio47 (I think that's the name) academy. I had classes of "despelote y gozadera" ( african movements applied to salsa) with them, and they were pretty goos in knowledge and knew well how to explain, but I couldn't really judge because it was an intensive course and it was too compressed to fix the knowledge. For me it was a bit too fast (and I am good at learning moves) but that could be because of so much info in such few time.

In MAdrid there are two ways to learn: Academies and teachers at discos or smaller clubs. None should give you a better teaching than the other. However, there are strong differeneces between academies and between discos. I would advise you, as a first precaution, NOT to have classes that are free( there are at some clubs), for, because of this they are massified and teachers are many times unexperienced (maybe they dance well but they can't teach).

The problem will be to fit you inside the classes because you could get into an intermediate or advanced group, but you probably cannot do some very used steps of Cuban salsa, like the steps for "aspirina", "dile que no", and others, which are very basic when learning salsa here. Putting out with the general level shouldn't be a problem for a salsa dancer, but it would require more than a couple of classes and I doubt the teacher would include you for a couple of days if he believes you could be kind of a handicap for the class. He would if it were for a long course.

Besides, Andrés, for example, carefully balances boys and girls for his classes, so the most probable is that there is no place avaliable. Of course, in other club classes (like Empire), there is not such balance and you'll be welcomed always, ..., but the guy can't really teach, sorry!

The usual frequence of club classes is once a week, whereas in academies there are like 3 hours a week or intensives of a dayly hour.

As for the rest, the guys will probably tell you their favourites, although there is only a bunch of the members, cause most are on holidays at the coasts.

In August there is always a lower number of dancers, since almost 2/3 of the people take holidays these days and use to leave the town. This has more incidence in smaller discos and in the weekdays sessions. For me, it's a bless, since the discos use to get overcrowded, and these days you can dance. Yesterday night I was to Tropical House (after a super-siesta, and now I almost dead ) and there was enough people without the excesses of other days. And it was Wednesday.

Anyway, in September almost all will be back (I won't, since I leave for República Dominicana on Sept 3rd, and Chekia and Poland on 13th), and in late august many of those who left massively the city will be pouring back also.

Whoops! Fortunately there is not much work today either, because I almost wrote another book, ...

Thx again for the excellent advice! It looks like you'll at least be in town the first weekend I'm there (the 27th-31st), so hopefully we can meet up at a club to further debate the differences amongst the dance styles .

Do let me know what you're able to find in terms of salsa in the DR, as I'm going to try to make it out there in November (I'm a big bachata fan!).

I take it you won't be around for the event in Cadiz. Do you think it'll be worth attending? I figure I'll be heading out to Sevilla anyway, so I may as well check it out for a night or two.

Sure, it'll be great! I don't like much North America salsa styles because I believe there is too much showing off (kind of making all dances the same importing moves from jive, swing or whatever) and dancing apart form the partner.

Besides, you never end learning salsa "en línea", it sounds to me that they have a very good business mounted there with symposiums, congresses and so on. Most people in the salsa message board won't go to those, but the faithful "en linea" fans won't fail if they can. In cuban salsa you know or you don't know, like in Waltz or Merengue or Funky, and afterwards you don't need more classes although you slowly sum up steps you learn at clubs or develope.

The bad about the fact that some people dances "en línea" here is that they take too much space in overcrowded discos (although somentimes, I, for example, take almost as much), and that if it became too popular, it would be more difficult to find partners for those who dance other styles, that's why we veteran (cuban) salsa dancers deeply dislike the introduction of these styles.

Anyway, it will be nice to see a real proof of LA/NY salsa, instead of the local varietys, although it shouldn't be so different since many people here take classes every year with Eddie Torres and other "en línea" gurus in their european tours.

I was going to RD in order to relax, so I selected a "tourist ghetto", like I call those "all included" isolated beach facilities (Playa Bávaro, close to Punta Cana/Punta Caña) so it will be difficult to assist to clubs other than the resort's, and I am afraid that unless for the dance teachers, there will only be foreigners and the level will be horrible. I'll do my best to have a couple of nights out at the "real world" in my own interest, and I'll tell you something, because I want to improve my bachata level also. I can dance the basic steps and twists, but I am on the verge of being able to do those fantastic elegant movement that mainly the colombian bachata dancers present us with.

BTW, Carmen, the girl that you have been dialoguing with, is not only an extremely nice person and a pretty girl, but also a public relations (kind of, because in Spain the term means a less professional, more informal, status) of La Riviera, and my bachata teacher. She´s great dancing bachata, although she's just beginning in the teaching matter, but she does well.

As for the events, I don't really know because those events are always of "en línea", and we cuban style dancers never go, cause our style is not so changing. But people who like the style use to come back pretty enthusiastic. There uses to be hundreds (maybe a thousand or more, not pretty sure) of persons, with smaller style workshops nad shows, plus night social balls.

Many times they give also videos of the event and classes (sometimes you have to pay some extra money), and this is the thing I hear works worst. Some of the guys had to wait for one year at least to get the free one in one of the "recent" ones.

Although there is a lot less people because of holidays, it seems to me that this Cádiz salsa congress is going to be much less massive than others, because even some en linea dancers like Arag_ or Quark, that are browsing the other forum are not saying they are going or making any comments.