Salsa City Forum » Salsa Music and Dance » workshops

I teach salsa for the I Love Salsa team up in London and am trained by Suzanna Montero cross body style. As i am orriginally from Cardiff and will be back around the xmas months i wond4ered if it would be worth my while doing some workshops. If so i would need to know how many people would be interested if i did say a Sat or Sun daytime and included beg inter adv ladies/ mens styling and tricks and dips. It would be possible for me to bring a cuban teacher too if this is a preference. Repliesand any aid gratefully recieved

Hi Angelique,

As you can see from the listings, there is quite a lot of salsa in Cardiff and the dancers are already spread a bit thinly between the venues. So I think it would be difficult to promote one-off workshops unless you already had a good reputation. You would need to spend some time in the area to assess the situation for yourself.

Dear Hugh,

I would not want to take business away from anyone and would not have the time to promnote such a thing myself. I understand what you say about being known, and in London I am fairly well known. At the moment i am teaching Suzannas beginners classes at My Place in Earls court and have helped to teach at
SOS recently these are the two most famous venues in London where all the serious and advanced dancers train. I feel honoured to have been asked to teach there myself.Also as i mentioned i teach for Fire of the I love Salsa team, and have travelled over europe with him to teach, information about him can be found in your latest copy of dancevine. I actually thought that Cardiff may not have many female teachers and as a woman i know its hard to find decent styling classes and progress. I also think it is nice for p[eople to have the benefit and knowledge of several teachers, this is why we go to congresses, take classes ourselves and share knowledge and creativity.In London we have several teachers who may not be internationally known but teach for those who are, and are incredible teachers and dancers. B4 they become superstars it would be nice to have them part with some of their knowledge eh. As i said I myself was born and raised in Cardiff and we are a talented bunch when it comes to the arts, i thought it may be nice to teach in my birth town . I guess maybe its not such a good idea by the sound of what you say, so maybe i'll forget the idea and just pay one of your listed clubs a visit when i'm down. Thankyou for your reply. :o)
angelique/the pheonix

Personally, I'd only do a workshop with someone I'd already seen teaching, and no amount of flyers or name dropping of people and places in London that I hadn't heard of would persuade me to change my mind. The best form of promotion would be if you could somehow do a small slot in one of the regular nights, at the invitation of one of our regular teachers. Entirely up to them of course, and if they know you they might be amenable to the suggestion. Even then, there's no predicting how many people might want to do a workshop with you.
Whether anyone turns up to anything probably depends as much on the venue, date and other calls on our time as much as your ability and what you intend to teach. The Friday workshops at the Social presumably started up with no clear idea of likely take-up, but someone thought it was a risk worth taking. I haven't been, but presume enough people are going to justify it. You've just got to decide whether its worth doing the same. What's the worse that can happen?

Dear Alun,
thankyou for your reply, but i enjoy teaching and to be honest you guys make it sound much more trouble than its worth. The statement i made telling of whom and where i teach was just to give some reference to the fact that i can;the responses don't make me feel welcolm so like i said i'd rather forget the whole thing.I wish you all luck with your salsa and hope that you enjoy it and have fun with it, likei said maybe i'lldropintoone of your nights when i'm down. :o)

I'm sorry if my posting sounded unwelcoming - it certainly wasn't intended, and in fact I made what I thought was a sensible suggestion for you to get yourself known here to improve your chances of success. It struck me that if you expected 30 replies along the lines of "yes please, where do I send the cheque?", then you were possibly a little optimistic. Not just for the reasons I mentioned, but because there's not a great deal of people contributing to this forum at the moment. I'm doing my bit after a bit of lurking, but on the whole people need to be coaxed into using these things.

And I've just found out who Susanna Montero is. I'm impressed - I promise.