I started salsa dancing about 4-5 years ago and shortly after discovered casino rueda style salsa. To me, it was the style that made the most sense because not only was the music usually funkier but you got two dances for the price of one....i.e. you can dance as a couple or with several couples. I thinks it's the most social kind of salsa there is.
Most dancers either like casino rueda or they don't. There's not much 'in between'. Nevertheless, casino style continues to grow worldwide as well as in the US. People are discovering that it really is the ultimate salsa social dance and they like casino style for it's loose, more rounded, closer and playful feeling.
I presently live and work in Namyangju, S.Korea where I'm an English teacher at a public high school. It's really a blast and it's a great opportunity too that you might be qualified to do(if your interested).
Namyangju is about 45 minutes by bus into Seoul, S.Korea, where there's over a dozen great salsa clubs populated by some of the most enthusiastic salsa dancers you can imagine. They don't dance casino rueda here.....yet. But I'm starting a class in September of '07 and I hope to have the nucleus of a casino rueda scene going here soon.
Meanwhile, I like to collect URLs of sites that have good casino rueda oriented content(espeically video clips) and that's what you'll see here....starting now (09-15-07). If you know of some content that ought to be here but isn't....feel free to let me know through this Lens.
Premium Casino Rueda Sites.
- Dance in Time
- Site from Washington D.C. area owned by Barbara Bernstein. Lots of good informational content and videos. Barbara is very active locally and nationally and has taken the joy or casino rueda to thousands of people nationally. She also judges frequently.
- Rumbanana
- Very pretty site with lots of excellent performance video clips, several instructional clips and a large list of interesting links. Very young at heart proprietors too.
- Absolute Salsa Dance Studios Home Page
- This site is best if you want very detailed descriptions for a huge variety of casino rueda patterns. A small percent of the patterns have accompanying videos. The site's content is divided up into three languages...English, Spanish, nd Italian. There's no editorial or historical content.
- SALSAtlanta
- This site, based in Atlanta of course, is very good. Easy to navigate and seems to load quickly. Not a huge amount of textual content or historical stuff like some other sites but you will find some 'news'. It's best feature is quiet a few very good videos of both social dancing (casino rueda) and dance teams. I've heard from some people who've been to Atlanta that they have a very salsa and casino rueda scene. Definately a 'premium' site.
- RUEDA CALLS
- This site focuses very well on what it's described as....i.e. rueda calls. It's got a huge list of calls. It also has a description of the moves themselves but, honestly, I frequently find some difficulty in understanding exactly what they mean. I have the same problem with other similar sites too.
One unique thing about this site is the abbreviations they use for 'leader', 'follower', etc.
This site has no videos or audio.
Other sites
- Salsa-Rueda.de
- This site is in German. The clips themselves are of good quality ....but! For some reason here's another guy who starts off counting on the "B" part of the measure. And....the music is sorta cheesy. Judging by the lighting, the producer likes detective movies too. And some of the patterns have some modifications from what you might expect. But he dances well.
- CASINERO.COM | Rueda De Casino Salsa Dancer
- Nice site from the Los Angeles, CA. area. Sorta 'busy' with lots of graphics that I'd almost (but not quiet) call junk. But it is oriented toward Cuban salsa and casino rueda so that's make'em my buddies. Look under the video section and you'll see lots of videos from a variety of venues. I didn't see anything instructional on the site.
- Street Salsa and Sandra Moro Sleeper...the Queen of Texas Casino Rueda
- Sandra is a personal friend of mine but she also knows casino rueda six ways from Sunday. Her Sunday 'Street Salsa' program at Ruta Maya Coffee House in Austin, Tx. attracts around 100 students every Sunday. She doesn't have any video yet but she's a super good instructor and also has an excellent staff of assistant instructors including her very capable daughter "Toni".
Sandra also works very closely with Nick Van Eyck in Oakland, CA. - Nick Van Eyck's rueda call list
- Nyck Van Eyck is one of the best casino style dancers and instructors in the the US. He lives in Oakland, California and is associated with Sandra Moro Sleeper of www.streetsalsa.com in Austin, Texas.
This website is the list of Nick's most recent calls but be advised that Nick has been spending less time instructing in rueda lately due to the fact that he has another very successful business that is taking a lot of his time. But he still goes out dancing a lot. - dancing-discuss-l: Rueda Calls and hand signals
- This site isn't very big at all and it has no videos or pictures but it has some value because it consists of a small MS Word document (I think that's what it is) containing several rueda calls both common and not so common. And it also lists the meaning of the name as well as (for many of them) the hand signals.Rueda Calls and hand signals.
I don't know anything about the author.
New Guestbook
grebby t. wrote
many times i visited you web but never had anything to say . . !and so it's now . . sorry !?
greetz toni
Posted August 15, 2007
New eBay
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
by Wanderingsalsero
My dream is to have an online buiness that I can do from my laptop as I wander the world looking for good places to salsa dance. I'm buildi...
(more)
