Jongleurs, above Bar Risa on Broad Street, Birmingham B1 2HF is Latin Motion’s new home for their Thursday salsa nights, which replaced the previous venue Ipanema, which closed some months ago. These salsa nights are held in the smaller club rooms, not the main comedy club room, which is sometimes used for larger scale Latin Motion events.
Classes at various levels are between 8pm and 10pm, and dancing is from 10pm until 1am. Classes are £5 (£4 for members) for one class or £8 (£7 for members) for 2 classes. Club admission is free.
I used to go to Ipanema almost every week, but stopped going into Birmingham mid-week some time ago, so this was my first visit to the new Thursday venue, which had already been running for a couple of months.
I went on the 6th December which was the night before Club Cubana’s Salsa Weekender at Pontins Brean Sands.
The class was still going on when we arrived, so we got ourselves a drink and found somewhere to sit and watch the remainder of the class which looked well attended.
By the time the class finished a lot more dancers had arrived and as soon as the first track came on, the dancefloor was packed, and it stayed like that right up until the end at 1am. The music was good all night, which kept the floor busy and all the regulars that I knew from the Ipanema days were there. The atmosphere on this night was great, as many of the people there, like me, were off to Pontins the next morning, so everyone was buzzing and excited about the weekend ahead.
It was very hot and stuffy though which was one downside, but the biggest drawback was the dirty floor. I had to clean the gunge off the soles of my dance shoes twice with a wire brush whilst I was there, and the sticky floor also made spinning difficult and in turn put extra stress on my knees. My advice would be to make sure you take a wire brush with you or to wear normal street shoes, or dance shoes that do not have suede soles.
Overall I had a good night, and some great dances with old friends, which was a nice start to my weekend. The pillars in the room got in the way a little when the floor was at its busiest, but it wasn’t really a big deal. If the venue owners could be persuaded to mop the floor before these salsa nights, then I think this could be as popular a venue as Ipanema was. www.latinmotion.co.uk
