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 In order to finish properly the year 2009, Salsa Central was invited to a Made in Cuba Congress organised by Enrique Perez, Rob Caroll and all the Salsa Explosion team.
Following the successful 2008 Xmas Weekend at the same location, the Piccadilly Hotel, the 2009 edition presented some more Cuban artists and plenty of new shows.
Bounemouth Xmas Cuban Salsa Congress review:
The Friday night is always a bit euphoric as this is the first party of the congress, people are happy to finish the working week and just want to enjoy themselves.
 Tonights shows were from Rayda Salas and Dawes Figueroa, Osbanis and Aneta, and Davide Buffon, then the night went till late with the best of Cuban music played by the DJ’s.
After 4 hours of sleep, it was time to wake up for breakfast and take on a lot of energy for what was going to be a long day!! First class was 10.00AM but I didn’t make it, you can’t really stay till the end of each party and be in the first class on the morning, right? Program for the day included Styling, Rumba, Afro-Cuban, Salsa partner work, so basically everything that makes every dancer at this kind of event happy.
Classes were finished, so time to go back to the hotel for a shower, take a nap and eat in order to be fully charged for the party!!
As usual, the Saturday party was busier than the other ones with more people coming only for that evening. We also enjoyed seeing some familiar faces from Mambocity and Salsa Contigo UK, for instance.
 The party was very good; DJ Flecha, DJ Javier la Maquina de Cuba, Yersin Rivas and DJ Amado played the best Cuban Salsa and Timba of the moment with the freshest tunes coming from Havana. The place was packed and steamy despite the air conditioning but that’s the way we like it…. The party which was supposed to finish at 3.30AM finally finished at 6.00AM and nobody was complaining!!
There were some great shows by Osbanis and Aneta, U-Tribe, Davide, Leonardo Fuentes, Jose Hernandez Lynn, Leandro Charanga and Rosa Perez, Janet Fuentes, Rayda Salas and Dawes Figueroa.
 After another 4hours of deep sleep, the alarm woke us up. Welcome to Sunday, and like the previous day just time to take the breakfast and get ready for the 11.00AM class. The program was more or less similar to the previous day for me... Rumba and Salsa partner work with a bit of Reggaeton but for those who fancied something different, there was some Rueda de Casino, Cha Cha Cha, Kizomba, Musicality and Bachatango classes as well throughout the weekend.
Time to go back to the hotel... it's now 6pm. Take a small nap, a shower and get dressed for the last party of the week end. It's quite common in the congresses that the Sunday party is the best, because the Saturday one is always busy, s ometimes too much, but the Sunday is more relaxed and usually most of the best dancers are still there.
Well, we weren't disappointed with the Sunday shows either, featuring Maykel Fonts, U-Tribe, Rayda Salas and Dawes Figueroa, Maykel Fonts and Davide Buffon, and Jose Hernandez Lynn.
In the end it is very difficult to say which party was the best but I have to say that I personally preferred the Sunday one. Lot of people were waiting for Maykel Fonts as he could only arrive on Sunday and I have to say that it worth the wait. The solo show was nice, the second show with Davide was great too, but even  better was the social dancing. Maykel is the kind of guy who's so passionate about music and dancing that he kept on dancing and doing the spectacle all night long and for me it was one of the most enjoyable parts of the week end.
To finish with I would like to give a big thanks to the organizers, the Salsa Explosion team, to all the artists and DJ’s, and obviously all of you guys who made it (sometimes from far away) to make this week end such a good one.
Herve
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