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The London Latin MiniFest was organised by The Latin Collective London and was a pre-cursor to the longstanding London LatinFest which is held every August. It was held over the Bank Holiday weekend, 24th-25th May 2008 and was due to take place at Scala in Kings Cross, with 2 all-night parties and 2 full days of workshops. Unfortunately, due to a last minute problem with the venue, all the workshops had to be held on the Sunday at Scala, and with the Saturday night event taking place at The Cuban in Moorgate.
Teachers and Performers included Nelson Flores, Ye Mambo, Mel C, Marchant + Davina, Moe Flex, Sam ‘Mr. Sleek’, Lee + Shelley, Osbanis, Diablo Dance Company, Joe Davids and Nico + Aneta to name but a few. Workshops included Shines, ON1, ON2, Cuban, Rueda, Lambada-Zouk, Reggaeton, Body Isolation, Spin Technique and Cha Cha Cha, so all forms of dance were covered. Passes ranged from Full Passes to Party Night Passes and were priced from £80 to £20.
I had just returned to the UK from the Eagle Tours 10th Anniversary salsa holiday in Santa Susanna, and had literally just landed at Liverpool, before heading straight down to London…… with my holiday suitcase. I knew that I would not have had much sleep during the week running up to the MiniFest so I planned only attend the evening parts of this event as I knew I would be spending most of Sunday asleep! To say I had not had much sleep before this event would be an understatement…….. I’d only had 2 hours on the Wednesday night, 3 hours on the Thursday, and hadn’t even been to bed on the Friday night!!!
We arrived in London around 8pm and after checking into the Travel Lodge in City Road we grabbed a quick meal before heading out to find The Cuban. The venue was a little difficult to find, despite having a friend with us that had allegedly been there before. After quite a lot of walking around, and to-ing and fro-ing, we eventually found it (ironically very close to our hotel), located within an office complex in Ropemaker Street, Moorgate.
By the time we arrived it was around 11pm and the night was in full swing, unfortunately the effects of some serious sleep deprivation were starting to make me feel very strange indeed, and I wasn’t even sure if I’d be up to dancing at all.
I loved this new venue which was on 2 floors, and the main room was downstairs at basement level. It was much smaller than Scala whilst still being big enough to house a busy salsa night. Due to the smaller size, I found it had a more intimate atmosphere which I really liked. Big Les was on the decks and was playing some great tunes, so the dancefloor, which was great, was kept full. I only danced a handful of times as I didn’t really feel up to it, but I managed the ones I did have much better than I thought I would :o) thought it was safer not to push my luck though. This didn’t stop me enjoying the night though, and after my hectic holiday it was nice to just chill out to the music and watch everyone else dancing. The night ended a little earlier than was advertised due to a problem with the venue’s licence, but no-one seemed to mind too much.
We headed back to our hotel after what had been a very long day for me. It had now been 48 hours since I last slept, so I was very happy to be finally getting some much overdue sleep.
After having enough sleep (or so I thought at the time) we finally got ourselves up and out at around 2pm, and headed to Oxford Street for a wander around Selfridges, via Starbucks for some much needed food and coffee. Next we headed to Camden for a few drinks by the canal and finally ended up in Charing Cross for a pizza before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the long night ahead.
We arrived at Scala just in time to see our very own Steve aka DJ Torqueo doing the warm-up DJ set, and a damn fine job he was doing too. The night was again in full swing by this time and it was clear it was going to be another busy night at Scala – I believe there were around 1300 dancers in total during the evening. Other DJs were Big Les, Julian ‘The Duke’ and Joe Davids in the Main Room, Jim and Sol in the Cuban Room which was again in the larger room upstairs. Then there was Tiz DJing in the RnB Room and Lambada/Zouk in the Foyer.
There were lots of shows on offer this time which were split into 3 or 4 different time slots spread throughout the night, and included both salsa and lambada shows. The shows were very good and were definitely worth watching.
I went to all the rooms on several occasions and all were busy and everyone seemed to be having a good night. By the time 4am came around though the combination of tiredness and constant dancing for the past week had finally taken it’s toll, and even when dancing with some of my favourite leads, I could no longer function – the lights were on but no-one was home!! JoJo had finally found her limit and had to admit defeat for the first time ever – I will be forced to kill you though if you tell anyone 
I did not see any of the workshops but both Mel and Steve said that they were all well attended and enjoyed by those that took part. If you haven’t done so already, check out the video of Mel C’s shines class, and Steve’s latest blog entry. All in all the whole event was a success, and was a great taster of the festivities still to come at the London Latin Fest in August, for which I plan to be back to full strength and firing on all cylinders again.
www.latincollectiveuk.com
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