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The Bank Holiday Sunday Scalalatina All-Nighter was held on the 24th August 2008 and was part of the London LatinFest Congress Weekender which was organised by the Latin Collective. This Weekender was the culmination of the London LatinFest which had been running since the 15th August with events across London. It also incorporated the London LatinFest Salsa Championships, heats for which had been taking place all over the UK for the last few months.
Although I had been in London for the whole of the Bank Holiday Weekend, I was unable to attend the rest of the weekender as I had been attending a wedding which took place over the Friday and Saturday, and also visited the Notting Hill Carnival on the Sunday afternoon.
Usually when I go to the Scala All-Nighters, I travel home on the coach at 8am after the event, but this time my friend and I decided to round off a great weekend in London with a stay at the Travel Lodge which is right next door to Scala. After having something to eat after the Carnival and getting ready in our room, we arrived at Scala around 11pm.
My friend Jayne had never been to this event before so I gave her a tour of the many different rooms at Scala, and we eventually arrived back in the main room ready to start dancing, by which time it was already starting to get busy.
DJs for the night included Big Les, Julian ‘The Duke’, Sol, Dr. Jim, JD and Del Salereo amongst others, who played a great mix of music between them.
We visited all the rooms a couple of times, but I spent the majority of the time in the main room where I prefer the music, and it’s cooler than the other rooms too. The beauty of this event is that if one room is playing some music that may not be to your liking, you can easily find something you do like by trying another room for a while.
On this night there were a lot more familiar faces from the Midlands than I normally see there which was great - it gave the whole night a really friendly and familiar vibe. There were also quite a few people there that I had met on the Salsa Holiday in May, so it was nice to see them again too.
There were a lot of shows on offer, more than usual, and the majority of them were top notch. The showcases were split into groups and took place at different slots throughout the evening, the first of which was the final of the Salsa Championships. The level of the contestants was very high, and this year’s winners were Sean and Solvita from Milton Keynes.
In over 9 years of dancing I have seen a lot of shows, and to be honest I have become a little jaded by them now………. in general it seems to be the same thing but to different music……… but some of these shows really were a joy to watch. There were performers from the UK, USA, Latvia, Spain and France etc. and included Mario B and Brenda Ramos, and Sebastien Massaro and his partner to name but a few – there were so many I can’t remember all their names. My personal favourites of all the shows were the 2 shows by Sebastien and his partner from France……… their routines were incredibly slick and you could clearly see that they were loving every second of it…… and I especially enjoyed their second show which was part Lamba Zouk and part Samba Gafiera………Bravo :o) Jayne said that it was well worth paying the entrance fee, just to see the fantastic shows.
Mid-way through the night Joe Davids announced that they’d had a record turnout, with over 1600 people attending so far! A little later it became difficult to dance without getting knocked and stood on due to the number of people there, but by around 3am when people started to leave, the dancefloor became a little less manic and there was more space available.
The whole night, despite is length, seemed to pass very quickly and I certainly didn’t feel like I had been there for over 6 hours, but all the walking around at the Carnival and dancing at the Latin Rave stand there was starting to take its toll. All in all it had been a long, hectic and action packed weekend, so at 5.30am we decided to cut the night a little short and go to bed.
I had thoroughly enjoyed the night though, and I had some great dances too. Jayne the Scala Virgin also enjoyed her first trip to Scala, and vowed to visit again sometime.
The organisers had done a terrific job with the event, and everyone that I spoke to about the workshops and the party night the previous evening all said it had been busy and enjoyable. Unfortunately I cannot comment on the classes etc as I was unable to attend – however, a friend of mine did attend the whole weekender. Here is what Leanne had to say about it:-
Venue – Scala positioned 100yards from Kings Cross tube station may be one of London’s older venues but its spacious layout and excellent stage certainly did the London LatinFest Weekender justice.
Classes – With a fantastic line-up of classes including Brazilian (Lambada and Zouk) Salsa, La Rueda, Bachata, Afro/Cuban Styling, Mens/Ladies Styling, On2, Partnerwork, Showcase Partnerwork and Rumba, you really were spoilt for choice. The classes offered a fantastic variety for everyone, from those beginning salsa dance right through to advanced dancers who are looking to experience more unusual styles to add to their repertoire. A variety of approximately 6 classes ran every hour from 2pm till 8.30pm on both Saturday and Sunday.
As there was such a variety of classes on offer with such brilliant instructors it really was vital to decide what you wanted to focus on for the weekend. Personally I am currently focussing on progressing my salsa dance and I took part in the intermediate/advanced classes sticking mainly to Salsa and Rueda, but due to the number of classes on offer I still managed to fit in an advanced Bachata class, an hour of Reggaeton and a little Rumba. All the classes I took part in were well organised and beneficial, and were kept fun with the fantastic range of teachers including Andrea Stewart and Moe Flex.
The highlight of my weekend was definitely the classes I took part in on Sunday. Niko and Aneta’s Partnerwork class was fantastic - if you are yet to experience their classes I highly recommend them. They dance crossbody salsa but with heavy Cuban influences – their routine was original and stylish, and Aneta’s ladies styling was brilliant, as always. Their classes are really fun and Niko always gets a laugh…or five! I followed that class with an hour of Rumba with Osbanis – as usual his ability to explain and encourage the class to get the routine just right was fantastic, as was his intermediate/advanced Rueda class, and most importantly with La Rueda it was great fun.
The only down side I could see was that there was just so much on offer at times, you would want to do two classes that were on at the same time. However this is really hard for the organisers to avoid and to be quite honest, providing you went there with a plan of what you wanted to focus on, the timetable layout had clearly been planned not to schedule classes that would appeal to the same group at the same time. As I explained, I had a clear focal point and it was really only on one occasion that I felt torn between two classes.
Parties - With four different rooms playing a mixture of Salsa, Brazilian and RnB music the parties flowed on into the early hours. The excellent organisation meant that you wouldn’t miss out on anything as the music stopped in the other rooms for the shows to take centre stage in the main room.
www.latincollectiveuk.com
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