Another fun Thursday night of dancing

_MAL6153.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Thursday night I went salsa dancing at Chicago. The place was packed and I danced pretty much non-stop from eight until after eleven. Here we see Alfred dancing with Camilla. She favored me with a dance too, and Ibi was kind enough to pick up my camera and take a photo. There are twenty-three photos in all.

A bit of salsa dancing

_MAL4858.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

It’s Thursday, and you know what that means: salsa!

I hadn’t been dancing in a while (other than last night’s lessons), so it felt good to move a bit tonight. The place was crowded, but not as much as before. Ibi spun the discs and did a good job selecting music. I tried with limited success to reenact the routine he taught last night. Damn, it’s a tricky one. Sometimes I think I should go back to level 4. Either that or find time to practice more.

I saw lots of familiar faces tonight, including Lina and Evert, pictured above. All thirty-two photos from this evening are now online. Enjoy!

Sacuye’s second salsa social simply super

_MAL2448.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last night a bit after eight o’clock, I showed up at Chicago on Hornsgatan for a bit of dancing at Sacuye’s second salsa social of 2008. It was fun an a good workout too — I changed shirts twice during the evening because I was sweating so much. I danced with many charming and talented women, including the ever-lovely Hanna, pictured above. Thanks to Jonas O. for taking the photos of me.

Without further ado, here are thirty-nine photos from last night's social.

Dance lessons at SalsaAkademien

_MAL2336.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The dance troupe Sacuye recently chose a new name for its teaching operations: SalsaAkademien (The Salsa Academy). This week they proudly opened their new dance studio near Odenplan, at Odengatan 89. It’s just next-door to Container, the place where ClubSalsa used to arrange socials on Sunday evenings. SalsaAkademien is offering free trial classes for all of this week and next. Wednesday evening I attended several of the classes: level 4 salsa, footwork & body isolation (pictured above), and finally level 5 salsa (renamed from level 4+ to reduce confusion*).

Marina’s body isolation exercises were challenging as always. I swear that woman must have some snake genes in her, the way she can move. The level 5 course was more difficult than I expected, in part because one particular dance move vexed me. I kept messing it up, and couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. After the class, Ibi showed me what I needed to change, and with a few repetitions, I got it mostly right. It was then that I realized that I had already learned this move years ago, but had only forgotten it, probably due to lack of use. Once I did the move a couple of times, the memory of how to do it suddenly manifested itself again in my conscious mind and merged with the newly-formed memories from practicing the move that evening. Then it suddenly clicked and I could do it without problems. The brain works in mysterious ways.

I brought my camera along and took a few photos during and after the classes. You can see how nice the new studio is! All ten photos from the evening’s lessons are online.

* Marina insists that the so-called level 5 course is not truly what she considers level 5. Apparently, there aren’t yet sufficiently many dancers of that caliber in Stockholm to merit the existence of such a course.

Sacuye’s first salsa social of 2008

_MAL1508.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last night was Sacuye’s first salsa social of the year. It was a lot of fun to dance with my friends, many of whom I had not seen since October or earlier, including Katja (above), who favored me with several fun dances.

I took a bunch of photos with my new favorite setup for indoor dancing photos: D300, 14-24mm lens, and SB-800 with diffuser dome, mounted on a Stroboframe. I shoot wide open at f/2.8, in manual mode with a 1/60 s shutter and with the flash biased -2.0 and pointed up at the white ceiling. I'm very pleased with the results. All 33 photos are online.

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My favorite photo of the night was actually a quick one I snapped as Johan, Janaki and I were waiting for the subway.

Sacuye salsa socal

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I had so much fun dancing salsa at Chicago tonight that I barely took any photos. Two of the six photos were on the way out the door after the last dance! Here's Catharina, just back from her long trip to South American and Asia. She still remembers how to dance, apparently!

Dancing is fun

_MAL2932.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Thursday evening after the climb I went to the salsa social at Chicago on Södermalm. My old rueda friend Linda was there, and we danced a lot. She's such a good dancer, and always has a smile on her face. Hi, Linda!

Obviously I was having fun too. I don't remember what I was laughing about, but dancing sometimes does that to ya. Here are the rest of the photos from Thursday night!

Salsa social at Chicago on Thursday

_MAL0922.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Thursday I went to Chicago for a bit of salsa dancing. I danced with lots of great dancers, incuding Mona Lisa, pictured above. She's returning to dancing after having her first child. Way to go, Mona Lisa!

Check out the 26 photos from the evening.

Ibi & Marina in Las Vegas

My salsa instructors Ibi & Marina competed in a salsa competition in Las Vegas earlier this year. Here's a video of their performance. Inspiring!

Thanks to Björn for the video, and also for the link to this fascinating article on why good dancers are attractive.

Sara & Elena's birthday bash

_MAL0839, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

After climbing, I ran to Solna train station and caught the commuter train downtown. At the central station, I took the red line down to Söder. I was down there to attend Sara & Elena's birthday bash at Chicago. Many of my salsa friends were there, and we danced until almost three in the morning. The party was lots of fun. Happy birthday, girls!