Cumbia/cuarteto

[braytrain]

Howdy Ho Expats

Just an inquiry really. After my yank friend came to visit for the third time, and for the third time looked ridiculous in the clubs and parties with the ladies once the latin music hit, my GF and her friend decided to look into whether or not teaching crash course dance classes would be a hit here in Buenos Aires.

My GF´s friend is a professional dance instructor and my GF speaks English, so they would form a team and teach people who are unsure of themselves or want to be able to ¨not look stupid¨ in clubs or parties when the cumbia or cuarteto comes on.

Right now I´m just wanting to know what people may think. I realize this isn´t the best place to ask but I´m putting this all around so I thought I might as well put it here to.

Nick

 

[PhilipDT]

Hmmm I don't seem to have this problem. When the Cumbia kicks in is when I normally try to make a quick exit.

 

[fifs2]

Sooo in need of this here having humiliated myself at a bachata club in Spain recently...not enough alcohol in the world can mask the mortification of not having a bloody clue what to do with your leaden feet and frozen hips. Hope this works out for your GF. Being able to dirty dance to cumbia should be a requirement for DNI for any foreigner..way more useful than out of date police records...

 

[Yogur griego]

I like cumbia colombiana from the eighties, but my brain cells started to revolt rather rapidly whenever I heard that Argentine villera nonsense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uALV04FK16Q

But anyway, I just like Colombia.

 

[braytrain]

Yeah I agree with you guys, I TBH don´t like the music, nor do I like dancing either of them. I don´t expect the older crowd that is BAExpats to give two flying garbanzo beans. But, to be fair, the villero crap is well, for villeros. No one of any decent class dances to that music, the stuff I´m talking about is the stuff they play at nicer clubs with more normal people, not the crap you will find at el bosque or on TV, and Cuarteto is danced by every Argentine at every party, specific songs, etc...

I just feel like so many people spend so much money on tango (which makes sense) and salsa (which doesnt) lessons, and they develop slowly and never entirely learn the dance. Especially with salsa, which no one really dances here unless you go to specific places and even then only a few people really know how. My vision is for them to teach a ¨crash course¨ 4-8 classes and then you have no problem. Cumbia and cuarteto is basically a basic step, and then learning hand and arm swingies.

edit: thanks for your input by the way!

 

[nikad]

don´t do that to your fellow expats man! Why you wanna get them to learn those horrid moves? Just buy them a couple of drinks and off they go. Nobody really cares when you are dancing. Plus imho if you can´t dance... you just can´t dance to anything, no matter how many classes you take. Some people are as graceful as a whale in a crystal store. Others are just born to dance. Guess which group I belong to.

 

[braytrain]

Nikad that is a very Argentine thing to say! Haha, it´s actually what my girlfriend said at first. She says that the problems with yanks and many Euros is ¨they can´t move their hips.¨ Well, that isn´t true. The moving of the hips is actually a result of having a proper step, which results in practicing a lot. It´s like the gambete, if you don´t play soccer/football since childhood, you don´t have the natural gambete, just like the Argentine gambete isn´t like the USA gambete.

It´s all muscle memory. Doesn´t mean you can´t learn it. PLUS, from most of the feeback I´ve gotten, the number ONE thing people have problems with and want to learn, are the hand/arm swingy things. Remember, this is just a basic training course (mainly for youngins) so that they can feel more comfortable in these dance settings. Many people come here to pick up girls (im focusing on men because girls dont have the same problem, for obvious reasons) and they are cockblocked by their lack of latin dance skills. I´ve been here long enough to know this.

Anyway, I´d rather have my fellow Expats immerse themselves, go out of their comfort zone, and dance with Argies, than sit at the bar spending money and getting wasted.

Thanks for your input!

Nick

 

[nikad]

Nikad that is a very Argentine thing to say! Haha, it´s actually what my girlfriend said at first. She says that the problems with yanks and many Euros is ¨they can´t move their hips.¨ Well, that isn´t true. The moving of the hips is actually a result of having a proper step, which results in practicing a lot. It´s like the gambete, if you don´t play soccer/football since childhood, you don´t have the natural gambete, just like the Argentine gambete isn´t like the USA gambete.

It´s all muscle memory. Doesn´t mean you can´t learn it. PLUS, from most of the feeback I´ve gotten, the number ONE thing people have problems with and want to learn, are the hand/arm swingy things. Remember, this is just a basic training course (mainly for youngins) so that they can feel more comfortable in these dance settings. Many people come here to pick up girls (im focusing on men because girls dont have the same problem, for obvious reasons) and they are cockblocked by their lack of latin dance skills. I´ve been here long enough to know this.

Anyway, I´d rather have my fellow Expats immerse themselves, go out of their comfort zone, and dance with Argies, than sit at the bar spending money and getting wasted.

Thanks for your input!

Nick

Lol, go for it! I can happily suggest singers and bands.

 

[demokritos]

Sounds fun, you mean partner dancing cumbia, right?

 

[PhilipDT]

...not enough alcohol in the world can mask the mortification ]...

Does not compute.

Try harder.