I was born in South Africa but grew up in Kenya where I spent most of my childhood with a 5 year spell in between in Bangkok.
I actually discovered Salsa one evening in Regensburg in Germany in 1995 during my studies but did not seriously start dancing until 1998 when I moved to study in Madrid, where I without exaggeration starting dancing crazy 4 days a week, which did not stop for the following 15 years at least! Miraculously my studies and work allowed me to do that : )
What type of Salsa I like:
I started off dancing Salsa Cubana. Back then there wasn't anything else around actually. Only in 2001 I discovered LA Style at the Madrid Salsa Symposium and was so impressed by the speed and shows of the likes of Johnny Vazquez, Tropical Gem etc. It was extremely exciting for me. With the help of 3 Salsa Video cassettes from Leon Rose and Super Mario I finally ventured into learning LA Style in Munich, Germany. And also founded my own small Salsa School in 2005 teaching LA Style and Dominican Bachata (only 10 to 20 students - no facebook back then) . Around 2010 I worked myself into NY Style which was very exciting for me, too - due to its smoothness and groovy style. But the switch from dancing on 1 to dancing on 2 definitely took a while. Besides it being a totally new thing back then in Germany.
I have no preferation of dancing style or music style: I love all 3 major Styles equally - Cuban, LA, NY style . The only thing important to me is that the music I hear is danceable and comes from the heart. So I do my best to play music which has good energy and nice musicality at the same time. Because there are many songs out there which may sound good to the young dancer, but are actually not so danceable, something the experienced long-term dancers will understand.
Having also lived nearly a year in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica it is equally important for me to play flavourable bachatas and fun merengues. These are played all over Latin America but have unfortunately disappeared on the international dance scenes due to the appearance of newer dance styles . Dancing in these spheres has also become much more serious mainly due to us non-Latinos being more technical and all dancers worldwide in general bringing dancing to a higher level, which of course is also a wonderful thing. We always try to improve. Youtube and social media has been the biggest driver one may say. But what I miss nowadays are the vibes from back then, the Latin American flavour music which used to also sound in the clubs in Europe. So it is also my aim to try and bring a bit of that flavour back again, the flavour which was shared and brought to us from Latin America.
Que viva la buena musica!
See you on the dancefloor : )
