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The Berlin Salsa Congress 25-27th September 2009
 For those of us who attended the three-day salsa congress in Berlin, we must be left with a feeling of insatiable void with no more dance musical Fantasia, salsa dance performances to watch, inspirational workshops to attend and above all, no more dance steps to share with some of the most accomplished masters from all over the world.
This congress was organised by Franco Sparfeld and his team Pura Salsa. In their ninth year, this congress was fast becoming one of the biggest in Europe and on par with Athens, Zurich and Hamburg. It was held at Kulturbrauerei, an old brewery turned cultural centre in the North-East side of Berlin. The event had a few sponsors including Easyjet, who donated two tickets for the prize draw
Flying Ryannair I arrived at Schonefeld airport late Thursday evening. I was thankful that my travelling companion, Helen, speaks fluent German, which made the travelling to Berlin city a lot easier. We spent the Friday touring around Berlin. We had perfect weather and the sites were most interesting.
 The first programme on Friday evening was a two-hour long dance musical ‘Fantasia’ held at Kasselhaus, the theatre complex of the cultural centre. The original idea of the musical came from Raphael Gonzalez, choreographed and produced by Marco Berreta and Fernando Sosa, about the story of a choreographer MarcYuran. I was impressed with the vocalist Massimo from Sicily and the twenty dancers of the Flamboyan and Tropical Gem dance groups from Milan . Many of the dance styles were incorporated in the musical and also included acts taken from shows like Cats, Saturday Night Fever and Sister Act. It was rumoured that they spent six months rehearsing for it.
 Although the lyrics of the songs were in Italian, it was not so difficult to follow the storyline, provided you have read the programme beforehand as I had. In my opinion, the production was as good as many a West-end production I have seen, it was truly amazing and well worth paying the extra money for a good seat.
The evening continued with eight other shows at the Kasselhaus and the Palais, another indoor staged area in the cultural centre, together with some salsa dancing of course.
 On Saturday the workshops, for all levels of dancers from the beginners to the advanced, started at 11 am and ended at 6 pm. There were so many to choose from, I felt like a child in a sweet shop. I managed a few of my favorites including Ana and Joel Masecote, Melissa Rosado, Magna Gopal, Yamulee and Neeraj Maskara. The classes were mostly an hour long. At lunch one could buy food and drink in the supermarket within the complex, which was rather convenient. As well as classes for the ladies, there were also classes for the men. There was also a three- hour Musicality Workshop lead by Kel Torres, you could learn to play the Concepto Ritmico salsa rhythm and perform as a group in the evening show.
Saturday night was oh so busy, the theme of the night was ‘In the year 2113’, began with a Star Wars Laser show followed by no less than nineteen other shows and plenty of  dancing until five in the morning.. It was meant to be in fancy dress although some people just stuck on a few pieces of tin foil as decorations. I have to mention the Battle of the DJs, a fun competition among the DJs, where they play tracks in order to gain the loudest applause from the audience. The final three winners were DJ Willy (Paris), DJ Mauri (Amsterdam) and DJ Matthieu (Majusee, Paris).
All the shows on Friday and Saturday were of very high standard and special. I was however most impressed by Salsa Sabrosa (Krackow) and Salsa Dance Squad (Hague) as they were very imaginative, combining salsa and modern dance into one distinct dance style, and their stage presentation was excellent. For the more traditional salsa dancing, my favourite were James and Alex, Ana and Joel, and Yamulee. Their performances were sophisticated, elegant and technically extremely competent. As MC Tamambo said and I quote, ‘this is a beautiful reunion of salsa lovers from all over the world, and it doesn’t matter what nationality we are, salsa unite us together’.
 Sunday was another full day of workshops with shows at the Palais after lunch. My fiends and I took a break at lunch time at the forecourt between the Kesselhaus and the Palais, relaxing in the sunshine with DJ Mauri playing hip-hop music, it was ever so relaxing.
 The evening party on Sunday took place at the beautifully decorated Soda Club, just opposite the Kesselhaus. Although the place was exceedingly crowded with the congress attendees as well as the usual club goers, the atmosphere was great. At around 1am, I managed to find the Soda Salon, where four more spectacular shows were held. The Theme of the shows was ‘A Tribute to India’. I was greatly impressed by the charisma and technical excellence of Magna Gopal with Anderson, and Kaytee. The shows concluded with the satire ‘The making of a Bolliiwood film’, with Melissa Rosado as the heroine, Jason (Yamulee) as the hero, Juan Matos as the villain, and Neeraj Maskera as the director. It was hilarious and received rumbustious applauses from the audience.
 Dancing continued until five in the morning the next day, as people began leaving from about 2am the dancing actually become more enjoyable with the floor getting less congested. For those of us who had any energy left, we were invited to an after party gathering, organised by my local German friend Stephanie Silges, in a nearby Kebab House. We were actually dancing Salsa and Bachata in the Kebab restaurant at eight in the morning, which must seemed very strange to the local commuters.
 This Salsa congress had some positives and some negatives. The positives were the venue, full of character and everything took place within one complex, the price, at 119Euros including the entrance to the musical was good value. There were only 35 shows in a weekend but mostly inspirational. The negatives were the overcrowding at Maschinenhaus, where we registered and the Soda Club on Sunday. These gremlins will hopefully be ironed in future events. Will I be back next year for the world premiere of the new production of the Sosa and Berreta partnership? The answer is a resounding yes.
Remember the date, 10th –12th September 2010.
www.salsafestival-berlin.de
Photos by Karen Chau and Kat Lai
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