Loring Pasta Guidebook By Santiago Charry

When approaching Loring Pasta Bar, the first thing youll notice from the outside is its large windows, giving a clear view through the flourishing plants of the interior. It looked like a small forest inside, and the visibility through the windows later proved itself to be representative of the salsa setting inside. As we approached the building, one of my friends I was attending with, Lexi, was frantically digging through her pockets. She had apparently lost the eight dollars required for attendance. When we reached the inside, however, we were made aware that attendance is in fact free for women before 11. The gender inequality was made clear later into the night. There appeared to be about two women for every man, offering each man a wide variety of women to choose from, suggesting a reason for there to have been free entrance for women. When we finally entered the dance room it was early on in the night, and there were only three couples on the dance floor, all of mixed races. They had one thing in common, however, and that was their immense skill in the art of salsa dancing. Each couple was constantly twirling, their arms intertwining in and out of complex gestures. I did notice that one couple seemed to be a little bit less in sync than the others. The man seemed to be reaching to receive her hand amidst a turn, but she wouldnt realize it. At another point in their somewhat clunky interactions, he gently pushed his hand on her shoulder to show her where to turn, but she didnt turn until a moment later as pushed more forcefully. They were both clearly skilled, but seemed not to have danced together before, due to their lack

of synchronization. The next song played was a soft ballad, and, although it had appeared to me that they were unfamiliar, they wrapped together tightly with their heads on the others shoulders. This interesting irony led me to understand that many people may have relationships together before attending together, and, though they may each be experienced in salsa individually, it does take some time understanding the others cues before salsa can flow. In addition to the three couples there, there was a small group of young ladies sitting on a large leather seating area to the side of the floor. As Lexi spoke to them, they revealed that they only knew one basic salsa step, and had attended for fun as a spur of the moment experience. At this point, the three couples were sticking with each other, and not inviting others to dance. My friends and I felt rather intimidated to begin dancing, seeing as there were only three other very experienced couples currently dancing, and the open visibility of the floor would surely contrast us with them, but we eventually did. As more people arrived, Lexi was having much luck being asked by many of the people there to dance. My other friend, Kenzi, hadnt been asked at all. She insisted on distancing herself from me during the night to ensure that people were aware that we werent together. Even towards they end, however, when she sat far off on her own, she was only asked to dance twice, unlike Lexi who had been asked by many different people. It is hard to say what the reason for this may have been. Their clothes werent any more dressy or revealing than the others, and their dancing skills were also comparable. The only conclusion I have been able to draw is that Lexis dancing style involved quite a bit more hip and shoulder movement, as well as hair flips during turns that may have attracted

more attention while she was on the dance floor, which was also more frequent than Kenzi. It seemed to me that the amount of time spent on the dance floor by females rises exponentially. The more time spent on the floor means more time being spectated, and more times being asked, therefore more time on the floor once more. It seemed to me that when it came to dancing in the salsa bar them thats got, shall get. That is, the more you dance, the more you get to dance. Something else I quickly realized while I was there was how limited I was by my salsa skills, and how much more this impacts leaders than followers. When it came to the basic salsa step, I only knew the left and the right hand turn. As a leader, I was forced to only stick to these steps, making dances repetitive and uncomfortable with me. Although both Kenzi and Lexi only knew these turns as well, their roles as followers made it possible for them to dance with strangers and learn new turns, which was something I was unable to do. I realized that leaders have a further responsibility in having a wide arsenal of turns to choose from, since they are the ones required to initiate the turns. As a result of my discomfort with how limited I was, I spent much of the latter part of the night taking notes on my surroundings instead of dancing. As the night progressed, I noticed another small group of clearly inexperienced dancers. Some of the guys in that group had attended in simple t-shirts and jeans. When the music switched to merengue, this group was the only one that stuck to the salsa step. Although the inexperienced girls were dancing far more with other more experienced men on the dance floor, being forced to do an extended variety of turns, whereas the inexperienced guys limited themselves to their own inexperienced girls, further

demonstrating the difference between a limited repertoire for followers as opposed to a limited repertoire for leaders. I also noticed a pattern in the men asking the inexperienced girls to dance. They were nearly always latin. The white men there were all clearly experienced (excluding the inexperienced student group I referred to earlier) and so were the latin men. However, the white men nearly always chose to dance with the experienced women, rarely asking one of the inexperienced women to dance. The latin men however, were nearly always the ones who would ask the inexperienced women to dance. This was another observation I made from which a conclusion was difficult to draw. The most I could conclude was that latin people tend to be far more socially open then white people, often behaving far warmer, hugging strangers soon after they meet. I recall one of my Spanish teachers from Chile would frequently pat students on the back, which seemed odd to the people in my class, since they were used to teachers behaving far more distant. When we spoke to my teacher during conferences, he pointed out that the people from this country seemed colder than people from Latin-America, with a far more defined personal space bubble, something which I agreed with as well. This, I believe, is what led latin people at Lorings to be so much more likely to dance with inexperienced women. They were satisfied with the experience of simply dancing with a stranger, the social exchange, whereas the white experienced men there searched for satisfaction by how far they could go skill-wise when dancing salsa with the experienced women they chose. Although I didnt dance quite as much as my female counterparts, I certainly was able to draw plenty of new ideas from my time at Lorings. Salsa culture has very interesting social ideas if you look deeper than the shimmering surface to find them.