AND NOW SOMETING
COMPLETELLY DIFFERENT, OR IS IT?
Hello dear Salseras and Salseros!
Are you ready to shake off
all the ghosts of the past?
We hope everyone has Halloween stuff on their mind. We
hope you have decided on your costume and are ready to show
the world a little piece of the hidden you.
If you ever wonder how the salsa tradition of Halloween
started, here is a story that has been passed from generation
to generation. It surely will better prepare you
for our Halloween Salsa festivities. Just know that good
always wins in the end and that ghosts can be chased away!
So read on:
Once
upon a time, there was a salsa website.
It was joyful and full of information for all the
happy people. But a bad witch cursed the site, using all
her bad magic which put terror in our dance shoes and our
heads. Some people started to look down on the others as
they believed they were better than the others. Some people
refused to join hands in a joyful expressive dance and instead
did fancy-shmancy moves. They would carry very special shoes
that the witch fashioned to create disorder.
All
of the sudden the happy atmosphere got clouded by poisonous
thorns that the witch was silently dispensing
to unsuspecting villagers. The happiness of the villagers
who embraced their musicians and congratulated them for
such melodic sounds was vanishing. Dancers went out of their
way to dominate the village and had no sympathy for the
weaker dancers. The only thing that had value was the way
that you moved your feet.
And
even though it seemed that the old witch was winning and
turning this once-happy place into misery her greed took
the better of her as she didn’t know when to stop.
She was so jealous of everything Salsa White was about,
that nothing short of malicious attacks was good enough.
She called poor Salsa White a monster who needs to come
out of her cave, a girl dumped by a J-Lo look alike. All
those fake stories had only one purpose… hurt and
concern poor Salsa White, putting thorns right into her
heart.
Salsa
White was dying slowly, her heart and palace covered with
thorns bushes. Yet, the story of a good
hearted princess who had spent her whole life trying to
tell people about all the good things salsa could do, was
well-know even in distant lands. The goodness that she did
could not be stopped by the mean, ugly witch.
One
day a handsome and determined prince decided
to remove all those thorns and lies that the witch had placed
around the heart and palace of our Salsa White princess.
He wanted to bring out the real truth for all to see. Yet,
the witch was a very dominant one: her hatred, envy and
greed were a powerful poison that covered all those thorny
rose bushes.
While
at times doubting his own strength, he knew
that Salsa White needed him. Bit by bit, the thorny bushes
were removed and the handsome Prince touched Salsa White’s
delicate hands. It was a moment that words could not express
so instead, this brave couple started dancing salsa. Their
dance was so loving and joyous that their happiness created
a wave and spread so quickly giving villagers extra strength
to remove all those trashy and poisonous lies that the bad
witch fed them with.
They
shed their fancy shoes, destroyed all the
thorns and suddenly their heads cleared and happiness flowed
everywhere. Finally this
was the antidote: Happiness! Dance with
the first person next to you and enjoy! The bad witch, her
servants and fancy shoes were expelled from the village
and the Happy Salsa Kingdom was saved. Sunshine came to
greet the happy salsa nation and embrace all the dance and
music styles. All villagers of the Happy Salsa Land joined
their hands in one big dance of love and passion, the dance
of salsa! The sense of joy, exuberance, equality and vibrancy
was just overwhelming.
Each
morning, the happy dwellers of the Happy Salsa Kingdom would
joyously greet the sun and do their salsa
warm-up for their long day of a productive work. Upon return
all these good people would share their dinner and wine
with each other. The night always ended with great music
from the Salsa Land musicians, who created the most desired
and wonderful salsa tunes. Everyone celebrated and all the
salsa ghosts were conquered and chased out of the land.
One
story says that, on Halloween, the disembodied
spirits of all those who had not repented would come back
in search of living bodies to possess, and put their poisonous
thorns in them.
Naturally,
the ones from the Happy Salsa Land did not
want to be possessed or to be dragged in the deep depths
of the Land of Thorns. So on the night of October 31, villagers
would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them
cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manners
of ghoulish costumes and would dance noisily around the
neighborhood. They would be as destructive as possible in
order to frighten away the bad witch and her spirits that
were looking for bodies to possess. Year after year, there
were less and less salsa ghosts, as the villagers did not
let the bad-witch poison their happy lives.
The
other story goes that the Land of Thorns had a lot of power
struggles. Finally the bad witch disguised
herself into a Rose and declared herself ruler of this doomed
world. A war was started. Many at first enjoyed their new
world as only ‘the best’ were placed there but
soon enough it was hard to prove to be the best feet on
the floor. Soon enough the Land of Thorns was on a path
of destruction.
As
hard as it is to believe, the good people of the Happy Salsa
Land did not have heart to see their enemies
die such a terrible death.
One
loyal member of the Happy Salsa Kingdom offered to sacrifice
his life and fight for happiness. This brave
fellow was the princess’s best friend, Jack. He filled
his heart with a strong antidote in the hopes it would be
enough for him to save this gloomy Land of Thorns. The challenge
was more than any one could stand against: he had to fight
bad attitudes, poisonous thorns and dig deep to find any
trace of the truth and Salsa authenticity. It was very scary
to constantly fight all those ghostly and dangerous creatures
that were peaking out from the dark. As the story goes,
after lots of fighting through the cold and unwelcoming
dark land, he did find the dying heart of the mean witch.
She was dying for attention and love and she was all alone.
He took her in his hands and nurtured her with drops of
salsa sweat. The price was more than he had expected. Poor
Jack traded his life to revive the witch’s heart.
He turned into pumpkin and the old ugly witch transformed
into a beautiful Rose.
The
healing was complete. The witch finally realised the sacrifice
of the stunning princess, who had showed
her the beauty of giving things in life. So she shed her
thorns, and sent Salsa White a long letter begging for forgiveness.
That was not all; she banned all the thorns from the Land
of Thorns and created the new Kingdom of Rose… A place
to spread the love and joy of music and dance, with a willingness
to live together happily respecting each other.
The
witch’s advisers, Enerius, the one
with the crooked nose, and Yddetius, the androgynous jasper,
realised that Rose had love in her heart and that thorny
and icy persona was gone forever. They too succumbed to
her new-found power of love and accepted her brand new good
ways. They were chased out from the Kingdom of Rose. Now
there was another one more salsa kingdom that shed its ghostly
shadows and established the best that salsa can give us.
This is how salsa survived to the present day. This happy
ending is thanks to the few who had a good heart and unselfish
will, sacrificing themselves for the benefit of many. But
of course none of this would have been possible without
the help of our ancestors that had chased the ghosts away.
Even
today we put out a pumpkin in memory of the brave deed of
our loving and loyal friend Jack, and
the salsa lives on. And the rest is history, everybody lived
happily ever after!
We hope you enjoyed our salsa version of this timeless
story of the true love of salsa winning against all the
obstacles. Remember it when you see the people dancing,
as we honour those brave ones who created the love of this
music and dance. They helped us all shed all the ghosts
of our past and even those around us today. So enjoy this
Halloween, shed those ghosts and if you encounter a thorn
– chase it out of our happy kingdom!
Boooo! Boooo!
NEW ON THE SITE
EDDIE SANTIAGO & GEORGE
LAMOND: CELEBRITY WITHOUT THE BORDERS
Palazzo was packed again! Many didn’t
mind a line-up and even problems with the sound system to
come out and enjoy salsa with their favourites. Check
out our pictures, click
here
SOUTHBEACH DIET
REVIEW
A quick way to a healthy body. Is this
a good combination with your salsa routine? It certainly
seems so. Here is our reader’s digest version, click
here
MORE FEEDBACK: IS SALSA DOOMED
IN TORONTO
How Latinos feel about all these non-Latino salsa
show-offs? Did you ever wonder that such ways could
insult many nations pride? Check out this new comment
and ponder, click
here
To read the original article/interview, click
here
HALLOWEEN ON A FRUGAL BUDGET
Ok, Halloween brings out all kinds of mischievous spirits.
Here are some inexpensive ideas, click
here
HALLOWEEN
PHOTO CONTEST
Ok, you decided to go out, or don’t really want to
go out, but have a great idea how to dress up as a Halloween
salsero or salsera. Musicians are also welcome! As you can
see, Ricky Franco is already ahead with his costume (a picture
of him in a mariachi suit). Please send us your picture
in costume and tell us what prompted you to choose this
outfit, and you might be a winner of a great salsa CD. E-mail
us your entries to: contest@salsaspot.com.
Please note that you need to fill all the info such as your
name, phone number and more….
MORE HALLOWEEN IDEAS: BLAST
FROM THE PAST
Last week we reminded you of the last’s year Halloween
costumes. There are still some more interesting
options which we can adopt from the Cirque de Soleil, so
make sure to check out these pics and get that pumpkin spinning,
click
here
And last year’s Halloween review,
click
here
HALLOWEEN
SPECIALS:
And if you wonder where to go, it seems that each club has
one, two or even three day Halloween event, so enjoy and
check our event page for more detailed info, click
here and in the interim play the fun Witch Hunt game,
click
here
DEJA VU: HALLOWEEN PHOTO CONTEST
Ok, you decided to go out, or don’t really want to
go out, but have a great idea how to dress up as a Halloween
salsero or salsera. Musicians are also welcome! As you can
see, Ricky Franco is already ahead with his costume (a picture
of him in a mariachi suit). Please send us your picture
in costume and tell us what prompted you to choose this
outfit, and you might be a winner of a great salsa CD. E-mail
us your entries to: contest@salsaspot.com.
Please note that you need to fill all the info such as your
name, phone number and more….
Boooo! Boooo!
IN
STORES NOW!
