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Elder Sanchez – Pioneer of UK Salsa
DJ Yuca reports
As someone who has been teaching salsa in the UK since 1992, Elder Sanchez is certainly a pioneer of salsa in our island. I caught up with him at Half Time Orange in Leicester. Looking relaxed and happy after giving a lesson in Cuban style dance for Salsa Noche’s bimonthly club night, Elder spoke enthusiastically about his life as a dancer and instructor.
 Hailing from Palmira in Colombia, a small town close to the Colombian salsa capital Cali, Elder Sanchez began dancing salsa ‘over 25 years ago’ (he was unwilling to give away exactly how long ago). ‘Salsa is part of the Colombian culture really, I was brought up with the music. In my home town music is everywhere.
‘Cali has connections with a port, Buenaventura, in the Pacific coast of Colombia. This has a role to play in why in particular in this county in Colombia salsa was developed; the slaves arrived to this port, and they were coming from the Caribbean, from the islands of Puerto Rico and Cuba. Therefore the salsa developed in this county. Even today you hear salsa music in the buses, in the taxis, the shops, everywhere. I was lucky enough to have been brought up in this county.
‘It was very popular and it was part of your life. When we went to a party you don’t need to ask what kind of music they will be playing there because you already knew it was salsa. So you could dance or you could not. The people learn just by watching people dance.
‘Colombians when they dance the men stay in front of the girl, they do a lot of fancy footwork, both [the man and the woman] if they know, and the man when he has to turn the girl he just push her or pull her but he stays on the spot doing the footwork. And he just send her to turn, so he is not changing positions.’
 On Elder’s arrival in the UK in 1992, the salsa scene was not quite as extensive as it is now. ‘There were 4 teachers, and I was the 5th one’. Influenced primarily by Nelson Batiste, who he credits as the first salsa teacher in the UK, Elder developed his own style of salsa and became a successful teacher. Nowadays he is part of Salsateca Dance School in London, which is where his current energies are focused. ‘We are trying to do big events to give people something to look forward to during the year, carnivals or big parties.’
When our conversation turned to the present day UK salsa scene, Elder became uncharacteristically vehement. ‘The salsa scene is losing the plot. There is a merging now which is not causing any greatness to the scene: people are confusing what it is, salsa as a social dance form and salsa as a stage form.
 ‘Is very good for salsa to develop into a very high level, to take salsa onto television, into musicals, into the theatres, into a show, into a stage, but what people should not try to do is to put those stage movements on the dance floor. Now people are wanting to dance only on a huge space, with air conditioning, a sprung wooden floor, and they go to change their shoes almost in the middle of the dance floor, and they go to the bar to ask for a glass of tap water. So this is creating a very very big impact, big consequence in salsa which is not good.
‘In England we develop salsa in the clubs not in the studios. So people are treating salsa as if it is in a studio, but it is not in a studio, they have to think that salsa can only survive in the clubs if they go there and have a couple of drinks. Come on, is not to get drunk, salsa is a social dance form. You go there, you have a chat, you have a flirt, you have a drink, and then you dance.
‘But a lot of people are treating it like an exercise. Is fine by them but what do we want out of it? We want salsa to finish on the studios and scrap it of the clubs? Because the clubs are going to chuck out the promoters, because the people are not drinking in the bar. And when they look at the till at the end of the night – oops, surprise, no more than £200, but the place is full, so excuse me something is going wrong here.
‘So we have been chucked out of places already, so have a few promoters. And people need to know this because it’s people who can make this better or worse. So I invite you and whoever can hear what I’m saying to let as many people know what is going on in the salsa scene, because this is critical. It’s as critical as the global warming.’
Interview conducted at Half Time Orange, Leicester, UK, June 2009. Many thanks to Elder Sanchez, Ginny, Salsa Noche aka Valerie and DJ El Brujo, Half Time Orange and Salsa Central.
For full interview, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CiRAm8GHaI
Website: http://www.salsateca.co.uk
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