The Sunday Salsa Conexion nights at La Tasca, 44-45 Warwick Street, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV32 5JS are weekly events organised by the Salsa Magico team.Cuban style salsa classes take place at 8-9pm, with dancing afterwards until around midnight.Classes are £5, but dancing afterwards is free of charge.Once a month there are special guest teachers, but on all other weeks classes are taken by Hopeton and Maria.
La Tasca only recently opened up at this venue, so the building has been completely refitted in the usual La Tasca style, and everything is brand new.The venue is lovely, and is ideally situated at street level on one of the main streets of Leamington Spa.As at most other La Tasca restaurants across the country, this one is also decorated with a very Spanish/Latin influence which is the perfect setting for a salsa night.I have been to a few salsa events at various La Tasca’s in the UK and the atmosphere is always spot on at these venues.
As this was the last Sunday of the year, and during the Christmas/New Year break when many people are away from home, the organisers were expecting a lower than average turn-out, although since the move to this new venue from their previous one, numbers had been steadily increasing.
On the night I went a La Rueda class was being taken by Hopeton and Maria - the class was fairly small, which was also lacking in partners, so I joined in.There is usually also a complete beginner’s class, but on this night there were no beginners.As is always the case with Rueda classes, it was fun and everyone enjoyed it, whilst also learning some new moves.
This is quite a large venue, and usually all of the space is taken up with tables and chairs for diners, but on Sunday nights they reduce the dining space by half to make way for classes and dancing afterwards.The cleared dancefloor space is still a very good size and the dancefloor itself is perfect as it’s brand new.
By the time the classes had finished some dancers had already arrived, and the dancing kicked off to the sounds of DJ Clive, a fairly new DJ on the scene I believe - other DJs are also used on rotation.By 10.30pm many more dancers had arrived and the dancefloor was very busy.There was a good mixture of familiar faces and people I’d not seen before, and every dance I had was a good one :o)Apparently this was the busiest night they’d had so far, which pleased the organisers no end, as they hadn’t expected it to be so busy on this week.
The manager and staff were all very enthusiastic about this new salsa venture and were all very friendly too, which all added to the relaxed vibe here – the atmosphere reminded me of the afternoon dancing in the Queen Vic pub at Pontins.
DJ Clive played a superb set and every track was good, which kept the dancefloor full all night – me thinks we will be seeing a lot more of this guy in the future.I had a brilliant time and danced all night - it was one of the best nights I’d had over the Christmas period.
This event seems to be going from strength to strength, and I’m not surprised.I cannot find anything bad to say about this gig……………. except that it’s miles too far from home for me :o(
The added bonus here is that you can also make a complete night of it by arriving early and having a meal first if you want to.
For anyone that likes a relaxed, happy atmosphere with friendly dancers, similar to that of the afternoons in the pub at Pontins, then this gig is the place for you.
