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17th to 19th February
Peru Salsa Congress
For the next 3 days we were up at 9 to have breakfast and arrive at the congress in time for the first lesson of the day which supposedly started at 10, this of course never happened as the tech rehearsal ran over every day. We wondered what they do that takes 2 hours every morning!! Annoyingly this meant that the following workshops got cut short rather than running for the entire hour they should have!! Anyway the lessons then started and went on until between 6 and 7, the last 2 hours being a workshop with Eddie Torres each day. We then grabbed some dinner and went back to our hostel for a sleep before the party. Having looked at the list of shows we turned up about 2 hours after they started at around 11:30 and this meant we usually got to see the very end of them and then chat for the 15 mins or so it took to clear the room. Dancing then went on until 3 or 4 am with us staying to almost the end on each night.
Several of the workshops during the weekend were very interesting however they were let down on several occasions by the large number of people who failed to rotate, turned up to workshops late, stood in the way and generally disrupted everyone else. Mostly these people were the student performers who seem to have a god complex in this part of the world and think themselves superior to everyone else. We were also annoyed that 2 of the workshops we wanted to do were cancelled with no notice, no alternative provided and no apology. The teachers did the best they could with the size of classes they had, and in the few cases where we happened to be in the less popular lesson we actually had some very good classes. We also really enjoyed the workshops with Eddie Torres who is extremely humble despite all his hype and pitched his lessons perfectly so that everyone in the 200 or so people class could learn the shines he taught
We had great fun at the evening parties, despite the awful floor which was uneven and could be quite dangerous to women wearing heels as they could quite easily get stuck. Also the DJs like most of south america were so bad it was almost laughable and Mae and I even suggested we should go and offer to connect my Ipod on shuffle as it would do a better job. We both found it very strange however that only around half the people actually danced and several of them seemed to have come solely to watch the pros and film them, although I'm not sure why if they don't dance... The parties went on until just after 3 every night and despite all the issues we still had a great time as it's been so long since we've found any good dancing.
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