Today
THE NEW MILLENNIUM AND SALSA TODAY
Luis Eduardo Hernandez, ‘El Mulato’, a popular Salsa dancer founded his own Salsa dance school ‘Swing Latino’ in 1999, with a social mission of promoting Salsa dance amongst young people and children from poor families. His example has been followed by many, with the creation of Salsa dance schools all over the popular and poor districts of Cali. Today the city has over 70 Salsa dance schools, as many as 8,000 dancers with half of them considering Salsa dancing as their main career and profession. Swing Latino has become the most important Salsa school in Colombia, attaining recognition throughout the world.
It is no surprise then, that Cali is producing some of the finest Salsa dancers in the world today, Ricardo Murillo & Viviana Vargas - 2005 world champions, Swing Latino - 2006 and current 2007 team world champions, Jhon Gener Vasquez & Yudi Aguilar - current 2007 world champions, Nilson Castro and Deisy Roldan – 2007 world runners up, Rucafe - 2006 Rueda de Casino team world champions. But there are thousands more Salsa dancers in Cali and the competition for recognition in Cali is fierce, here are some of the other most popular schools from Cali: Pioneros del Ritmo – 2007 team world runners up, Nueva Dimension, Acrosalsa Latina, Impacto Latino, Principes de la Salsa, Ases del Ritmo placed 3rd in the 2007 World Salsa Championships, Combinacion Rumbera, Nueva Juventud, Cali Swing, Son de Luz; without forgetting children Salsa schools such as Biberones de la Salsa and the children’s groups from some of the Salsa schools. These Salsa schools have truly become the ‘Guardians of Salsa’ in Cali.
The city has now its own Cali World Salsa Dance Festival, one of the most exciting Salsa competitions in the world, where the best Salsa schools and Salsa dancers in the city compete for the trophy and the right to represent Cali and Colombia in the World Salsa Championships in December in the US. Cali also has its own West Side Story Salsa version, DELIRIO, a very popular sell-out dance, music and circus spectacle staged once a month in a circus tent, which employs some of the Salsa schools from the city. Cali also has possibly the biggest number of Salsa and Afro Cuban record collectors and some of the best Latin percussion artisans in the world. Salsa and Afro Cuban music in Cali has also spawned literature, poetry, art and sociological and anthropological studies.
Colombia has always been an important creator of Latin music, with some of their own rhythms, such as Cumbia and Vallenato, dominating popular tastes in dancing music across Latin America; the country has also given birth to some of the biggest modern Latin Artists in the world, Carlos Vives with his Vallenato Pop, Juanes with his rocky Latin Pop and Shakira with her status as world mega star. Today, people in Cali listen to all these musical styles, plus other popular styles such as many different English and American music styles, Merengue, Reggaeton, Mexican Ranchera and Colombian Ranchera influenced music.
Despite all this, Salsa in Cali still remains strong and still gives ‘caleños’ their sense of identity, they identify themselves with Cuban and Puerto Rican music that sings to sugar cane, tobacco, their plantations, to black people, to music and the Caribbean sea (even though there is no sea in Cali), to love and ultimately to the African drums and African ancestral traditions. ‘The‘caleño’ has been dancing since their birth, to the sound of the cowbell and the bongos, the ‘caleño’ is born a Salsero and no ‘caleño’ is spared from this, they carry it to their grave.