Vive la Salsa, The VLS Workshop, IFL 2015 and beyond...
Someone said to us ‘you guys need to talk about yourselves more’…
Ok, that’s not absolutely true! Quite a few people have said that over the years, and tended to use the words ‘market’ or ‘sell’.
It’s a work in progress for quiet sorts. Necessary, and important,but hard!
2015 is Vive la Salsa’s 10th year as a community…or Season 10, On10, or whatever you’d like to call it. It’s still going to be the same thing.
10 years of doing stuff that the Latin dance community, and thankfully more and more people as the years have gone by, can relate to.
So what about this 10-year journey? Well, that’s another post.
This is about Pachelbel and Us…Pachelbel and Vive la Salsa.
I used to play the piano, started very young and after many years I gave it up. And then you forget most of it. But one can always listen, right? At home we always did. So many glorious pieces of music, so many uplifting and moving compositions…and among them was Pachelbel and his Canon.
The years roll on and it is now January 2015. The VLS Workshop, our new studio spaces, has just been launched. Rehearsals get underway for the next big festival, India Fiesta Latina. It is time!
In a darkened studio, our team waits. The piece starts and plays through. There are no distractions; no one can see each other. The lights come back on and the response is unanimous. What a glorious piece, how exciting…but seriously…?!!
Fast forward to 3 months later, on Saturday 11th April, we are on stage. The first note plays and all too quickly, it is over. We look up and the audience is on their feet. This feels really really super! So many people, fantastic dancers, show producers and so many more, saying the most amazing things all weekend. What a great event it has been!
But little did we know it had only just begun. In the days following more and more surprises popped up. We've got great feedback before...but this was public at a whole new level! The show video was shared and commented on by so many. Personal messages from dance community friends who had seen the video flooded our inbox. We even made it to a special mention in ‘Judge’ Alex's review of the festival. Invitations to festivals followed and just when we thought the excitement was dying down, Wee Tze Yi, decided to keep the memory of the show alive over a month after the festival!
So what can we add about ourselves? Especially after others have so kindly spoken for us!
I guess we can tell you how this show is such A GOOD EXAMPLE OF WHAT VLS IS ABOUT…
* There is something very special about this performance being the first to come out of The VLS Workshop. It is heartening to know that over the years we have worked towards ensuring we up the dance infrastructure and scene in the city, and ensured our community gets to work in comfort in a state-of-the-art studio. But could this have been done in our drawing room or Shalini’s terrace where many a practice has been held before? Yes!! It's still us. We just have a super place to be us now!
And what DO we do at VLS?
* It’s a lot about change, the good sort…through constant training, experimentation, and finding ones own style that really makes one tick! But it’s a lot about traditionalso…staying true to the original, retaining the flavour of it all.
* What is great about this performance is that an experiment paid off. But it was nearly 2 years in the ‘thinking’. An idea needs to incubate, grow and mature. It needs to be as original as possible. How pleasing it is to work and wait till it’s just right, just so…choreograph for more than just performing’s sake, and perform for more than just performing’s sake.
* And the experiment paid off due to a very structured process. I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘crunch time’ with rehearsals at VLS. It’s always crunch time. It is technique training and repetition with a huge dose of very generous teaching by a very talented and unassuming dancer, who is the one constantly training and experimenting! Snapped therabands and puddles of sweat (not on our priceless dance floor please!) are all part of the deal.
* We all pulled it off. There is a 20-year gap between our youngest and oldest team member. There is more than a 15-year difference in ‘dancing age’ between our senior and junior most team member. Our newest team member had only been dancing for a few months. So how did we do it?
- With the process…you’ve never done it before but keep at it and surprise yourself!
- With knowing we wouldn’t compromise where its really important: the performance had to maintain a certain standard. Everyone had to get it, and everyone had to be ready.
- With a deep understanding of choreography, necessary modifications, and our priorities; for a team of non-professional dancers most with no classical dance background, for differences in ability, for a recently dislocated knee so the more important long-term dancing dream did not get ruined for the short-term.
In the end it doesn’t matter if you’ve been with us a day, we will give you a chance, and the same time of day we give our oldest community members.
It doesn't matter if you've come from elsewhere, we will appreciate all you've achieved.
You are here now, and we will only focus on looking forward.
* Through all of this we also remember why everyone is there. Yes to dance hard, but also to eat chips and chat, to take a hobby one step further, to perform for the first time, to perform for the 20th time, to prove a point, to forget, to have fun, to do something away from a day job, to heal, to hang out more often, to sacrifice one thing for another…but all the while being committed to the process. It’s a fine balancing and supporting actfor everyone.
* And this everyone…not just the performers but our entire community.
‘On1…Going On2!’ isn’t a walk in the choreography park. I bet Ajeet never thought he’d be at a salsa festival bribing said ‘On1…Going On2’ with juice in a mall during tech! Or Raghav holding said ‘On1…’, crying her eyes out before the performance because hey, she was always a part of rehearsals and probably wanted to get on stage to ‘cluster up’.
We got sandwiches studio-delivered, valuable audiences during rehearsals, messages and lovely send-offs from those who couldn’t join us in Delhi. We had our photographers, caregivers and cheerleaders…and a bunch of very special people to celebrate with when it was over.
So what about Pachelbel in all of this?
I have more than 20 versions of the Canon in D. Some music can be ‘done to death’, but never this one. It was a piece that you would have heard had you ever touched the classical music scene with a bargepole! But it was never made common and boring.
We don’t usually turn the lights out to play a new song for our team…we’re No Drama No Fuss types! But this piece is different.
Everyone at IFL sat up and took notice, not because they hadn’t seen the same sort of steps before, but because the music was so unexpected and beautiful.
There is an element of risk in all experiments, but for this composition, it was a risk worth taking.
It took our team by surprise, but they trusted in the process and the choreographer.
It took the audience by surprise…but we know how that went!
;-) So, about that No Drama No Fuss thing...watch this and understand why this piece, chosen by Aditya to coincide with one performers return to the stage after 2.5 years, is a whole new level of special!
What more can we say?
Do watch our performance and let us know what you think
Join us if you’d like to
* learn how to dance * perform * travel with us * understand and appreciate new types of music * decide if having children is your thing * do something different to stay fit and active * meet a bunch of new people outside of your regular circle * party in a whole new way
We could promise you a lot of things here, but that would be us just talking! Drop by a class, swing by a party…figure out what works for you and we’ll figure out the rest.
Thank you, thank you, thank you…
* everyone who took the time to watch our show, talk to us, share and comment on it
* our ‘Pachelbel team’ for everything you did
* our youngest member who told us to "smi'e smi'e" at rehearsals
* our rock solid VLS community, which is growing in every way: friendships, dancing ability, numbers…
To our quiet confidence…may it always remain just so…
The VLS Workshop, our studio.
Rehearsals for IFL 2015 begin.
On1, Going On2...the best cheerleader!
1 minute to performance
Post Performance
Pinnacle of Indian Talent, Brilliant routine, Freaking amazing, Most beautiful show...some of the public messages.